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HISTORY 



OF THE 



UNITED STATES 



FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD. 



BY 



JOHN HOWARD HINTON, A.M. 

WITH ADDITIONS BY SAMUEL L. KNAPP, ESQ., AND JOHN OVERTON CHOULES, D.D. 

% lefo eVxim, 

BROUGHT DOWN TO THE PRESENT TIME. 

TO 'WHICH ABB ADDED 

BIOGRIPHIES OF TOE SIGMS OF THE DECLIRITION OF iDEPElElE. 

r 
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W. A. CRAFTS. 



BOSTON: 
T\^^LK:ER A^lSTD VIRTUE. 

1861. 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by 

SAMUEL WALKER, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



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INDEX. 



Abeaham, battle of the heights of, 176. 

Adams, John, the father of the American 
navy ; report in the legislature of Mas- 
sachusetts, 230. 

Adams's administration, 315. 

Adams, John Quincy, his speech to La- 
foyette, and the general's answer, 361. 

Adams, Samuel, excluded from the general 
pardon, after the battle of Lexington, 224. 

Alabama, admitted into the Union, 3.33. 

Alexandi'ia, surrender of, 340 ; retroces- 
sion of, to Virginia, 514. 

America, supposed early discoveries of, 
11 ; hostilities commenced in 1775, 223. 

Amistad, slaver, case of, 438. 

Andre, Major, execution of, 281. 

Andros, despotic rule of, 66. 

Antinomian dissensions, 52. 

Appalachian Indians, war with, 149. 

Aqua Nueva, battle of, 471. 

Arnold, Benedict, treachery of,2S0 ; memoir 
of, 280 ; his conduct in the campaign of 
1777, 265. 

Atlantic telegraph, 644. 

Augustine, Fort, expedition against, 148. 

Baltimore, battle near, 340. 

Bankrupt law, 450. 

Baptists, persecution of, 60. 

Barbary powers, humbled by the energy of 
the American navy, 326. 

Barlow's voyage of discovery, 20. 

Baum's defeat and death, with a minute 
account of the battle, 258. 

Bellamont, Earl, appointed governor of 
New York, 123; his death, 124. 

Benton, Thomas H., review of the Dred 
Scott decision by, 699 ; death of, 702. 

Berlin decree, effect of, 229. 

Bermudas, the, sold, 30. 

Biddle, of the navy, 231. 

" Black Warrior" affair, 581. 

Boston, first church founded in, 48 ; fust 
General Court at, 48 ; proclamation of 
William and Mary at, 67 ; the peace of 
Rvswick proclaimed at 72 ; riots at, 77 ; 
tumults in, occasioned by the Stamp Act, 
190 ; tumults in, 198 ; convention at, 
199 ; arrival of troops at, 199 ; afiray be- 
tween the troops and populace in, 203 ; 
convention at, 219 ; attacked by General 
Howe, 236. 



Boundary, north-eastern, 440. 
Boundarj', north-western, 459. 
Braddock's defeat at Monongahela, 167. 
Brandywine, battle of, 255. 
British Parliament, proceedings of, 192. 
Buchanan, James, inauguration of, 703. 
Buena Vista, battle of, 471. 
Bunker Hill, battle of, 226 ; monument, 356. 
Burgoyne, General, surrenders to the Amer- 
icans, 263, 283. 
Burr, Colonel, conspiracy of, 329. 

Cabot, voyage of, 12. 

Calef, Robert, the fearless exposer of the 
delusion of witchcraft, 69. 

Calhoun, John C, death of, 518. 

California, mineral wealth of, 510 ; admitted 
as a state, 523. 

Cambridge, introduction of printmg at, 54. 

Camden, battle near, 277. 

Campaign of 1757, 169 ; of 1758, 171 ; of 
1759, 173; of 1776, 245; of 1779, 273. 

Canada, French settlements in, 163 ; ex- 
pedition to, in 1775, 231 ; evacuated by 
the American troops, 237 ; campaign in, 
335 ; revolutionary attempts in, 437 ; ac- 
tion of United States, 437. 

Canonicus, Indian chief, sold lands to Roger 
Williams, 105. 

Carolina, North and South, history of, 139 ; 
charter granted to Lord Clarendon, 140 ; 
settlement of emigrants from Barbadoes, 
140 ; constitution, 141 ; Dutch colony 
transferred to, 143 ; sanguinary warfare 
in, 281 ; several forts surrendered, 283. 

Caroline, Fort, taken by the S])aniards, 16. 

Caroline, steamer, seizure of, by British 
officers, 437. 

Cartier, voyage of, 13 ; his second attempt 
at discovery, 13. 

Cai'ver, John, the first governor of Plymouth 
colony, 42. 

Census taken in 1801, 322. 

Cerro Gordo, battle of, 473. 

Champlain, Lake, naval engagementon,253. 

Chapultepec, battle of, 495. 

Charleston, settlement at, 47 ; defeat of the 
British at, 240; siege of, 1780, 276. 

Chatham, Earl of, honored and esteemed 
in America, 171. 

Chesapeake Bay, Captain Newport first 
lands in, 25 ; builds Jamestown. 25. 



Chesapeake, frigate, attack on the, 329. 

Ctiippewa, battle of, 339. 

Cholera, in the United States; its progress 
and fatality, 382. 

Churubusco, &c., battle of, 486. 

Clay, Henry, candidate for president, 454 ; 
death of, 548. 

Cochrane, Admiral, declaration of blockade 
by, 339. 

Colonial government as instituted by King 
James, 24. 

Compact of the New England pilgrims, 42. 

Compromise of 1850, 522, 528. 

Concord, battle of, 223. 

Confederation, system of, adopted, 270. 

Congress, Provincial, their proceedings the 
day after the battle of Lexington, 224. 

Connecticut, history of, 83 ; Dutch settle- 
ments, 83 ; emigration from Massachu- 
setts, 83 ; hostilities of the Indians, 84 ; 
constitution of, 87 ; union of the colo- 
nies, 87 ; patent granted by Charles II., 
88 ; Indian hostilities on the river, 89 ; 
penal enactments, 92 ; infringements on 
civil and religious liberty, 96 ; constitu- 
tion modified, 97. 

Contreras, &c., battle of, 484. 

Convent, UrsuHne, at Charlestown, de- 
stroyed, 439. 

Cornwallis, Lord, surrenders with his army, 
287. 

Crampton, J. F., British minister, dis- 
missed, 627. 

Creeks, treaty with the, 364. 

Cuba, diplomatic correspondence relative 
to, 558 ; letter of Edward Everett to 
Lord J. Russell, relative to, 571 ; move- 
ment for the acquisition of, 582. 

Culpepper's insurrection, 143. 

Dearborn, in the campaign of 1777, &c., 264. 
Declaration of independence, 242; of rights, 

216 ; of war against Great Britain, 1812, 

333. 
Delaware, cession of, to the U. States, 329. 
Delaware, Lord, arrival of, in Virginia, 29. 
Denmark, negotiations with, 598. 
Detroit, surrender of, 178, 337. 
Dieskau, Baron, defeat of 167 ; mortally 

wounded in Johnson's fight near Lake 

George, 169. 
Dissenters persecuted, 49, 148. 



INDEX. 



Doctrines of South Carolina in regard to 

the construction of the Constitution of 

the United States, 385. 
Dorr, Thomas W., rebellion in Rhode 

Island, 447. 
Du Quesne, Fort, capture of, 173. 
Dwight, Colonel, officer at the taking of 

Louisbourg, 76. 

Eaton, General, his exploits in Derne, at 

the head of a handful of troops, 328. 
Eutaw, battle of, 284. 
Exeter, founded by Wheelwright, 80. 
Exploring expedition, 440. 

Falmouth burnt, 1775, 231. 

Fillmore, Millard, biographical sketch of, 
515 ; inauguration of, 520 ; administra- 
tion of, 524 ; first message of, 529. 

Fire, great, in New York, 439. 

Florida, taken possession of, 354 ; attempts 
of the Huguenots to colonize, 15 ; In- 
dians in, 432. 

France, secret negotiation of the states 
with, 268 ; recognizes the independence 
of the states, 269 ; sends a fleet to their 
succor, 272 ; the United States declare 
war against, 318; measures in relation 
to indemnity claim from, 433. 

Fremont, John C, in California, 469 ; nom- 
inated for the Presidency, 028. 

French and Indian wars from 1756-1763, 
163 ; causes of the rupture, 165. 

French spoliations, 513-593. 

French troops arrive in the United States, 

279. 
Frenchtown, massacre at, 335. 
Frontignac, Fort, capture of, 173. 
Fugitive slave law, 523, 528. 

Garrangula, chief of the Five Nations, his 
speech, 120. 

Geary, John W., governor of Kansas, 626. 

Georgia, history of, 155 ; Indian chiefs 
visit England, 156 ; its advantages, 156 ; 
Spanish expedition against, 158 ; intro- 
duction of slaves, 159 ; insurrection in 
1749, 160 ; sui-render their charter, 162. 

Germantown, battle of, 256. 

Gilbert obtains a charter of land in Amer- 
ica from Queen Elizabeth, 18 ; his equip- 
ments, 19 ; arrives at Newfoundland, 19 ; 
sails for the Isle of Sable, 19 ; is lost, 
with liis crew, in a storm, 19. 

Gorham, Colonel, officer at the taking of 

Louisbourg, 76. 
Gosnold, voyage of discovery of, 23. 
Gospel, success of, among the Indians, 58. 
- Government of the province of Massachu- 
setts Bay, 42. 



Greene, General, his military services and 

character, 285. 
Grenville's voyage to Virginia, 21 ; his 

second voyage, 22. 
Greytown, Nicaragua, bombardment of, 590. 
Gridley, Colonel, engineer of the works on 

Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775, 125. 

Hamilton, Alexander, a writer in the Fed- 
eralist, 300. 

Harrison, William H., inauguration of, 
442 ; death of, 443. 

Hartford convention, proceedings, 396. 

Harvard College, 54. 

Hawkins's unsuccessful attempt to find a 
north-west passage, 18. 

Hayne, Colonel, senator in Congress, great 
speech of his on the doctrines of the 
convention of South Carolina, 385. 

Hendvick, Indian chief, distinguished for 
his wisdom, fidelity, and bravery, 165. 

Henry, the celebrated Patrick, speech of, 
188. 

Heyn, Dutch admiral, scours the sea of the 
pirates on the coast of America, 112. 

Hoyt, General, his account fully given of 
the battles immediately preceding the 
surrender of Burgoyne and his army to 
the American forces, 264. 

Hudson's voyage in 1609, 111 

Hulsemann, Webster's reply to, 538. 

Hungary, letter of Austrian minister rela- 
tive to American sympathy with, 537. 

Hutchinson, Anne, her religious opinions, 
her trial, admirable defence, exile, and 
fate, 38. 

Illinois, admitted into the Union, 353. 

Iowa, admitted as a state, 513. 

Indians, Eliot's efforts to convert the, 57 ; 
success of the gospel among, 58 ; wars 
of, 81 ; wars in 1790, 306 ; characteristics 
of, 311; then' customs, 313; religion, 
314; wars, 314 J number of, in the states, 
316. 

Jackson, President of the United States ; 
his inaugural speech, 386 ; his proclama- 
tion against the " ordinance " of South 
Carolina, 387 ; review of first adminis- 
tration of, 428 ; second administration 
of, 431 ; removal of the deposits from 
the bank of the United States, 431. 

Japan, difficulties with, 534 ; expedition to, 
534, 588 ; treaty with, 590. 

Jay, John, one of the writers of the Fed- 
eralist, 300. 

Jefferson, his administration, 320 ; retires 
330. 

Johnson's fight near Lake George, 168. 



Jones's, Sir William, ingenious fragment 
of Greek history alleged to br from 
Polybius, 291. 

Kansas Indians, treaty with the, 365. 

Kansas, bill to establish the territory of, 
578, 579 ; emigration to, 579, 625 ; first 
governor of, 580 ; fraudulent election in, 
594, 603, 624 ; disturbed state of, 595, 
597,601,603, 624 ; change of governors, 
596, 626 ; free state party in, 596 ; To- 
peka constitution framed, 597 ; state gov- 
ernment prospectively organized, 602 ; 
agitation of the country relative to af- 
fairs in, 605 ; speech of senator Sumner 
upon, 605-624 ; its consequences, 624. 

Kane, Dr., ai-ctic expedition, 598. 

Kidd, Captain, piracies of, 123. 

King, W. R., death of, 569. 

Know-Nothing party, 591. 

Kossuth, reception of, 545. 

Koszta, Martin, release of, 576. 

La Fayette arrives in America, 355 ; de- 
parture from AVashington city, 363. 

Laudonniere's expedition to Florida, 13 ; 
his fleet destroyed in a storm, 15. 

Leisler usurps the governorship of New 
York, 120 ; is executed, 121. 

Lexington, battle of, 223. 

Liberties, body of; synopsis, 55. 

Londonderry settled, 82. 

Long Island, the Americans defeated in, 246. 

Lopez, expedition of, against Cuba, 516. 

Los Angelos, capture of, 469. 

Louisbourg, expedition against, 75 ; taken, 
76; second capture of, 171; taken by 
the forces from New England, 76. 

Louisiana, purchased from France, 323.; 
operations of the British in, .341. 

Lyman, General, second in command in 
Johnson's fight near Lake George, 168. 

Madison, one of the authors of the Fed- 
eraUst, 300; administration of, 331. 

Maine, submits to Massachusetts, 60 ; ad- 
mitted into the Union, 354. 

Manufactures, 159 ; state of, in 1789, 159 ; 
account of, 1810, 160; imposition of ad- 
ditional duties in 1816, 161 ; further in- 
crease in 1824, 161 ; proceedings in 
Congress, 1828, 162 ; general manufac- 
tures, 169 ; rise and progress in Amer- 
ica, 345. 

Maryland, history of, 136 ; granted by 
Charles U. to Lord Baltimore, 136; 
rapid progress of, 137 ; first assembly, 
137 ; persecution of the Catholics and 
Quakers, 138; separated from Delawai-e, 
139. 



INDEX. 



lU 



Massachusetts, history of, 39 ; early at- 
tempts at settlement, 40 ; immigration 
of Puritans, 41 ; progress of the col- 
ony, 46 ; Gorges appointed governor 
of New England, 46 ; extensive immi- 
gration, 47 ; disfranchisement of dis- 
senters, 49 ; fii'St representatives, 50 ; 
large accession to the colony, 52 ; An- 
tinomian dissenters, 52 ; printing in- 
troduced, 54 ; laws of, 55 ; required to 
deliver up their charter, 60 ; confederacy 
of the Indians, and commencement of 
hostilities, 64 : the colonists raise an 
army and disperse them, 65 ; hostilities of 
the French and Indians, 67 ; first paper 
money issued, 67 ; new charter granted, 
67 ; the governor opposes the assembly, 
73 ; defensive preparations of the colony 
against France, 75 ; disturbances arising 
from the currency question, 70 ; immi- 
gi'ation from Germany, 70 ; proceedings 
of the house of representatives in 1765, 
189 ; in 1768, 196 ; provincial congress 
of, 219 ; insurrection in 1786, 302. 

Mexico, war with, 456, 461 ; battles of, 
484-497 ; city of, taken, 498 ; treaty 
of peace with, 502 ; boundary between 
United States and, 580. 

Military stoi-es taken at sea by the Ameri- 
cans, 234. 

Minnesota, admission of, as a state, 645. 

Minuit, governor of New Netherlands, his 
embassy to the Plymouth colony, 1627, 
113. 

Mississippi, admitted into the Union, 353. 

Missouri, admitted into the Union, 354. 

Missouri compromise, 528 ; repeal of 
578. 

Molino del Key, battle of, 492. 

Monmouth, battle of, 271. 

Monroe, James, administration of, 349 ; 
death of, 430. 

Montcalm, his epitaph, 177. 

Monterey, capture of, 467. 

Montgomery, General, death of, 233. 

Montreal, expedition against, 122 ; cruel- 
ties of the French and Indians, 123 ; 
surrender of, 178, 232. 

Morgan, in the campaign of 1777, 264. 

Mormons, difficulty with, 439. 

Mugford, a naval hero of the revolution, 
231. 

Native-American party, 449, 591. 

Navigation Act, English, 36 ; insurrection 
against, in Virginia, 37 ; in Massachu- 
setts, 64. 

Navy, an historical sketch of, 325. 

Nebraska, bill to organize the territory of, 
578 ; governor of, 579. 



Newburg Letters, an insurrectionary 
movement in the army at the close of 
the revolutionary war ; Washington's 
address on the occasion, 295. 

New England, 333 ; state of, 55 ; union 
of the colonies, 55 ; commissioners ap- 
pointed by Charles II. to visit, 64 ; com- 
plaints against the colonists of, 66 ; ex- 
pedition of France against, 75. 

Newfoundland, taken possession of by Sir 
H. Gilbert, 19. 

New Hampshire, history of, 79 ; union with 
Massachusetts, 80 ; Indian wars, 81. 

New Haven, settled, 86. 

New Jersey, history of, 127 ; conquered 
by the Dutch, and surrendered to the 
English, 128 ; government of Andros, 
128; his tjTannical proceedings, 128; 
■ first assembly, 129 ; the proprietorship 
purchased by Penn, 129 ; character of, 
129. 

New London, destruction of, 288. 

New Mexico, taking of, 469 ; applies for 
admission as a state, 517, 525. 

New Netherlands, granted by Charles II., 
116. 

New Orleans, defence of, 341. 

Newport, 110. 

New York, history of, 111 ; granted to the 
Dutch West India company, 112; ex- 
tend their settlement, 112; the English 
and Dutch unite in a war against the 
Indians, 112; the English conquer the 
Dutch, 116; state of the colony, 118; 
English government instituted at, 118; 
taken by the Dutch, 119 ; restored by 
the treaty of peace, 119; expedition 
against the Five Nations, 119 ; added to 
the jurisdiction of New England, 120 ; 
efi"ects of the revolution of 1688 at, 120 ; 
contests between the governor and as- 
sembly, 125 ; various administrations, 
126 ; state of, in the middle of the 17th 
century, 127 ; petitions of the assembly 
of, 186 ; convention of colonial dele- 
gates at, 189 ; the governor burnt in 
effigy, 191 ; abandoned in 1776, 250. 

Niagara, Fort, destruction of, 169 ; again 
taken, 174. 

Nicaragua expedition, 594. 

Nova Scotia, successful attack on, 166. 

Oregon, northern boundary of, 459. 
Osages, treaty with the, 365. 
Ostend conference, 583. 

Pakenham, General, death of, 342. 

Palo Alto, battle of, 462. 

Paris, peace of, 179. 

Patent Office, destruction of, 440. 



Peace, treaty of, in 1783, between the 
United States and Great Britain, 293 ; 
in 1815, 346. 

Penn, William, memoir of, 130. 

Pennsylvania, history of, 130 ; early set- 
tlement of the Swedes, 130 ; subjugated 
by the Dutch, 130 ; granted by Charles 
II. to William Penn, 131 ; origin of the 
name of, 131 ; government of, 131 ; penal 
code, 132 ; rapid extension of, 136 ; re- 
treat of the Americans from, 251 ; in- 
surrection in, 308. 

Pension, provided for certain officers of the 
revolutionary army, 380. 

Pepperell, Sir William, commander of the 
American troops at the taking of Louis- 
bourg, 1745, 76. 

Philadelphia, founded, 133 ; first general 
congress at, 215 ; taken possession of 
by the British, 256 ; Native American 
and Roman Catholic riot, 449. 

Philip, Indian insurrection under, 64 ; his 
death, 65. 

Phipps, his expedition against Canada, 67. 

Pierce, Franklin, inauguration of, 568. 

Pilgrims, their sufferings and character, 43. 

Pirates, encouragement given to, 144. 

Pitt, William, character of, 171. 

Plattsburg. the British defeated at, 340. 

Plymouth, fortified, 46 ; Dutch trade at, 47. 

Pocahontas, romantic story of, 26 ; Indian 
princess, the preserver of the infant col- 
ony of Virgina ; her life and character, 30. 

Polk, James K., election as President, 454. 

Poor, Gen., a pioneer in many battles, 265. 

Port Royal, taken by the English, in 1710, 
73. 

Portsmouth, first assembly at, 81. 

Preble, gallant conduct of, in the war with 
the Barbary powers, 336. 

Prescott, hero of Bunker Hill, 226. 

Princeton, battle of, 254. 

Printing press, first, in America, 54. 

Privateering, negotiations concerning, 635 ; 
rules proposed at Paris, 636 ; Mr. Mar- 
cy's letter, 636. 

Proclamation from President Jackson, stat- 
ing his views of constitutional law, in 
opposition to the doctrines assumed by 
the convention of South Carolina, 398. 

Pulaski, death of, 274. 

Puritanism, sketch of. 40 ; persecuting 
tenet of, 49. 

Putnam, in the battle of Bunker Hill, 226. 

Quakers, conduct and sufi'ering of the, 61 ; 
public opinion against it, 62. 

Quebec, expedition against, 174 ; surren- 
ders, 178; act, 211 ; attack on, 233. 

Quinnipiack, purchased by Davenport, 86 



iT 



rNTDEX. 



Reciprocity treaty, with Great Britain, 588. 
Reeder, governor of Kansas, appointment 

of, 580 ; removal, 596 ; his course, 601. 
Resaca de la Pahna, battle of, 463. 
Resolute, British bark, salvage and return 

of, 599. 
Revival of religion promoted by the visits 

of Whitefield and Wesley, 94. 
Revolution, American, 150. 
Rhode Island, history of, 105 ; government, 

109; new charter, 109; college. 111. 
Ribault, his expedition to Florida, 15 ; is 

massacred, 16. 
Rice, introduction of, 147. 
Right of search, claimed by Great Britain, 

329. 
Robinson and his church leave Leyden 

for America, 42 ; settle at Plymouth, 45. 
Rolfe's marriage with Pocahontas, 30. 
Rowley, settlement of, by Yorkshire cloth- 
iers, .34. 

Sackett's Harbor, unsuccessful attack on, 
336. 

Salem founded, 47. 

Salisbirry, settlement at, 54. 

Saltillo, battle of, 471. 

Santa Fe, Gen. Kearney's expedition to, 468. 

Sai'atoga, encampment of Burgoyne at, 259. 

Saybrook, synod at, 91 ; form of church 
government, 92 ; descent of the British 
en, 339. 

Schenectady, destruction of, 121. 

Scott, Dred, ease stated, 645 ; opinion of 
Supreme Court on, 646-699 ; examina- 
tion of, by T. H. Benton, 699. 

Scott, General W., campaign in Mexico, 
472 ; proclamation to the Mexicans, 477 ; 
nominated for the Presidency, 551 ; 
breveted lieutenant-general, 593. 

Shannon, Wilson, governor of Kansas, 
596, 625. 

Shirley, General, operations of, 168. 

Slavery question, view of, 526 ; discussion 
of in the message of President Pierce, 
629 ; review of, by T. H. Benton, 701. 

Smith, exertions of, in founding James- 
town, 26 ; is taken prisoner by the In- 
dians, 26 ; is released, and discovers the 
source of the Chesapeake, 26 ; made 
president of the colony, 27 ; returns to 
England, 28. 

Smithson, Samuel, bequest of, 439. 

" Soniers," U. S. brig, mutiny, 448. 

vSons of Liberty, association of, 191. 

Soto, expedition of, in 1539, 14. 

Soule, P., minister to Spain, his course, 
582. 



Southern commercial convention, 591. 

Spain, treaty with, 309 ; difficulties with, 
581. 

Stamp Act, 190 ; repeal of, 193. 

Sterrett, captured the first Tripolitan ship 
in the war with the Barbary powers, 328. 

Stillwater, actions near, 260. 

Stony Point, stormed by General Wash- 
ington, 275. 

Sumner, Charles, his speech in U. S. Senate, 
1850, 605; assault upon, 624. 

Synod, called at Cambridge, Massachusetts, 
for the trial of Mrs. Hutchinson, 52. 

Tarleton, defeat of, at Cowpens, 282. 

Taylor, Zachary, campaign of, in the Mexi- 
can war, 463 ; inauguration of, 515 ; 
death of, $20. 

Tea sent to the United States, 208 ; de- 
stroyed at Boston and other places, 
209. 

Texas, recognition of, 440 ; annexation of, 
451,457. 

Ticonderoga, Fort, unsuccessful attack on, 
172 ; taken by the English, 174. 

Tobacco, cultivated in Virginia, 32. 

Trenton, 403 ; battle of, 252. 

Trial of the witches in New England, 69. 

Tri])oli, bombarded by the fleet of the United 
States, 324. 

Trist, N. P., mission of, to Mexico, 475. 

Tucker and Talbot, naval heroes of the 
revolution, 231. 

Tyler, John, inaugurated, 443 ; administra- 
tion of. 445. 

Utah, organization of the territory of, 517. 

Van Buren, inaugurated, 435 ; address, 435. 
Vera Cruz and San Juan de Ulloa, surren- 
der of, 473. 
Verazzani, expedition of, 12. 
Vessels, number of, taken from the British 

during the revolutionary war, 230. 
Victoria City, taking of, 470. 
Virginia, history of, 20 ; partly colonized 
by Sir W. Raleigh, 22 ; permanent col- 
ony, 25 ; second charter of, 27 ; disas- 
trous state of the colony, 28 ; third char- 
I ter, 30 ; divided into proprietorships, 31 ; 
j tjTanny of Captain Argal, 32 ; Sir G. 
Yeardley appointed governor, 32 ; con- 
I vokes the eighteenth assembly, 32 ; cul- 
prits transported hither, 33 ; proceed- 
ings in England against the colony, 34 ; 
dependent on the crown, 34 ; state of, 
during the commonwealth, 35 ; Naviga- 
tion Act, 36 ; insurrection against it, 37 ; 



suppressed, 37 ; various governors, 38 ; 
resolutions of the House of Burgesses, 
188 ; proceedings of the House of Bur- 
gesses, 208 ; convention and declaration, 
212; descent of the British on, 274. 

War, with Indians under Tecumseh, 338 ; 
with Mexico, 456. 

Ward, Artemas, general and commander- 
in-chief of the provincial army, before 
the appointment of George Washington, 
225. 

Warren, Joseph, who fell in the battle of 
Bunker Hill, his life and character, 226. 

Washington, city of, burned, 340. 

Washington, Fort, capture of, 351. 

Washington, General, early operations of, 
166 ; his prudence in the command of the 
army, 237 ; bold operations of, and bat- 
tle of Trenton, 253 ; resigns his com- 
mand of the army, 297 ; his administra- 
tion, 301 ; his farewell address, 310 ; ITe 
retires to Mount Vernon, 315 ; his death, 
319; memoii- of, 319; his literary ac- 
quirements. 298. 

Webster's eulogy on Adams and Jefferson, 
365 ; reply to Col. Hayne, 399 ; letter to 
governor of Texas, 520; reply to Mr, 
Hulsemann, 538 ; death of, 552. 

Wesley, John, visits Georgia, 156. 

Wessagusset, Weston's settlement at, 46. 

Whitefield, George, visits New England, 
94 ; Georgia, 157 ; life of, 159. 

William and Mary College, Virginia, 39. 

William Henry, Fort, destruction of, 170. 

Williamsburg, meeting of delegates at, 213. 

WiUiams, Colonel, killed in Johnson's fight, 
169. 

Williams, Roger, persecuted and banished 
from Massachusetts, 50 ; his character, 
51 ; memoir of, 108. 

Wilmot proviso, 514. 

Wisconsin, admitted as a state, 514. 

■Witchcraft, in New England, 68 ; trials and 
executions for, 69. 

Wolcott, major-general in war of 1745 ; at 
the taking of Louisbourg, 76. 

Wolfe, General, death of, 176. 

Wollaston, establishment of Mount, 46. 

Wompam, Indian money, how obtained, 
112. 

WoodhuU, General, life, services, and trag- 
ical death of, 247. 

Yale College, founded, 90 ; general synod 
at, 90 ; expulsion of students from, 96. 
Yamassee war, 149. 
Yorktown, attacked and carried, 287. 




The history of the United States presents 
a marked contrast with that of the nations 
and countries of the old world. The latter, 
commencing in the shadowy traditions of re- 
mote ages, comes down from barbarism or 
semi-civilization, through the slow progress of 
many centuries. The former, commencing less 
than three centuries back, when the civilized 
world had just emerged from the " middle 
ages," and a new life was infused into its 
material, intellectual, and moral condition, 
comprises the period of man's greatest prog- 
ress in each of these conditions, and exhibits 
the wonderful growth of a nation planted on 
a new soil, and under the new influences of 
the modern ages. 

Previous to the settlement of the country 
by European colonists, the history of America, 
and especially of the part comprised within 
the limits of the United States, is a blank page, 
on which it is hardly possible to write even the 
most vague traditions. Within the tropics the 
inhabitants were more advanced towards civil- 
ization ; and ruins found in those regions, and 



extending more or less to the north, indicated, 
according to the views of some, a still greater 
degree of civilization, in some previous age, on 
the part of a people who had been forced to 
yield to the fiercer barbarism of the north. 
But all that is known of the previous history 
of these people is fi'om uncertain traditions, 
and the unreliable stories of the old Spanish 
writei's who came over with the early expe- 
ditions to Mexico. 

That any colony was established in this 
country by Northmen, or that the continent 
was discovered by them in the eleventh cen- 
tury, as is claimed by some Danish writers, is 
as uncertain as the traditions of the abo- 
rigines. It is said that thej not only explored 
the Atlantic coast from Labrador to Carolina, 
but that they made a settlement in the south- 
eastern part of New England, to which country 
they gave the name of Vinland ; and the mys- 
terious inscriptions on the "Dighton Eock," 
in Massachusetts, and even the old building 
at Newport, in Ehode Island, are considered 
by some as evidences of the presence and set- 

(5) 



6 



INTRODUCTION. 



tlement of these early explorers. The whole 
story, however, rests on narratives obscure in 
meaning, which recite the exploits of old vi- 
kings, the heroes and demigods of northern 
mythology, and the location of these exploits 
is mere conjecture. But if the supposition 
were ti*ue, the adventurers could have formed 
only a temporary lodgment, all tx'aces of 
which disappeared long before the actual set- 
tlement of the country, unless the inscriptions 
and structure alluded to are indeed the work 
of their hands. 

At the time of the establishment of settle- 
ments by the Europeans, the whole country 
was a vast wilderness, for the most part cov- 
ered with a dense forest, except where at the 
west it opened into the wide prairies, or still 
farther west, where the wild and desert plains 
extended to the mountain ranges, presenting 
the same appearance as now. 

This vast extent of country was held, though 
scarcely occupied, by the Indian tribes, who 
were scattered over it very sparsely, and 
ranged the interminable forests in pursuit of 
the game which was sufficiently abundant to 
supply their wants. The greater part of the 
aborigines, comprising the largest and most 
powerful tribes, were east of the Mississippi. 
The entire number of these has been esti- 
mated to be between two and three hundred 
thousand. This number, to occupy so large 
a territory, it will be seen, is very small, and 
the country may well be considered to have 
been an unpeopled wilderness. A brief glance 
at these Indian tribes, as they existed at the 
period of the settlement of the various parts 
of the country, and as they came in contact 
with the white man, may not be inappropri- 
ate in this place, before the reader enters 
upon the history of events with many of 
which they were connected. 

The various tribes so closely resembled 
each other in features, color, general appear- 
ance, and customs, that to the early settlers 
they seemed to be all of one family, notwith- 



standing there might have been some slight 
differences in the customs, dress, and minor 
characteristics of those living in different parts 
of the country. But the investigations of 
those who have made the aborigines a study 
have led to the grouping of the numerous 
tribes into eight great families, the whole or 
portions of each of which have been found 
east of the Mississippi. 

The Algonquin was the largest of these 
families, and embraced a great number of 
tribes, including most of those connected with 
the history of the early settlers. It occupied 
nearly half of the territory east of the Missis- 
sippi, and extended even north of the St. Law- 
rence, and in numbers it probably exceeded 
all the other families combined. Among the 
tribes of this family were the Abenakis, the 
Pautuckets, the Massachusetts, the Pokano- 
kets, the Narragansetts, the Pequots, and the 
Mohegans, of New England ; the Manhattans 
of New York ; the Lenni Lenape, or Dela- 
wares, the Susquehannas, and the Nanticokes 
of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland ; 
the Powhattans of Virginia, and the Pamlicos 
of South Carolina; and west of the Allegha- 
nies, the Ottawas, the Chippewas, the Miamis, 
the Illinois, and the Shawanoes. This list, 
however, comprises only a part of the tribes, 
many smaller ones being scattered about 
among the larger. The Lenni Lenape, or 
Delawares, were the central tribe of this 
widely-extended family, and their name, which 
signifies aborigines, is supposed to distinguish 
them as the parent stock of the Algonquins. 
The common characteristic which marked 
these various tribes as of one family, was 
their language, which was spoken, though in 
different dialects, by all. But though their 
relationship has thus been established by the 
researches of the civilized student, long after 
the glory of the race had departed, many of 
these tribes were frequently at war with each 
other, and seemed to have no ties of relation- 
ship whatever, but rather traditional causes 



INTRODUCTION. 



for hatred and hostility. Some of the smaller 
tribes in this way became extinct, or by their 
increasing weakness were at last absorbed 
into some more powerful tribes of their allies. 

The next most important family was the 
Iroquois, or Huron Iroquois, as they are some- 
times designated, who occupied the western 
part of New York and a portion of Canada 
north of Lakes Ontario and Erie. The Iro- 
quois proper were composed of five tribes, 
the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, 
and Senecas, who were united in a remarka- 
ble confederacy, and were called by the Eu- 
ropeans the Five Nations. The Hnrons and 
the Eries were the other principal tribes of 
the Huron Iroquois family. The Five Na- 
tions occupied the central and western part 
of New York. They were distinguished above 
many other tribes for their intelligence as 
well as warlike qualities. Their confederacy 
was maintained with the greatest care for 
many years, and this union gave them a 
strength exceeding that of any of the single 
tribes with whom they were from time to 
time at war. They had encroached upon the 
territory of the Lenni Lenape, and in a great 
measure subdued that tribe, which is supposed 
once to have been the most powerful of the 
Algonquin fixmily. They were surrounded by 
the Algonquin tribes, but they maintained 
their position and extended their possessions, 
until, in common with the whole Indian race, 
they were compelled to retreat before the 
white man. The Five Nations afterwards be- 
came the Six Nations, (by which name they 
are known in their later history,) by the mi- 
gration of a kindred tribe, the Tuscaroras, 
who had established themselves far to the 
south, in Carolina and Virginia. 

The Mobilian family, from the extent of 
territory occupied, is the next most important 
group of tribes. It extended over the south- 
em portion of the country, from Carolina to 
the Mississippi, including Florida and the coast 
of the Gulf of Mexico. In this family were 

2 



the Creeks, the most powerful of the southern 
tribes, who maintained a confederacy with 
neighboring tribes similar to that of the Iro- 
quois, and were thus more formidable not only 
to their native foes, but to the white man. 
The Seminoles, with whom the Creeks were 
allied, and with whom the last contest be- 
tween the Indian and the white race east of 
the Mississippi was maintained, also belonged 
to the Mobilian family. The other tribes were 
either small or came little in contact with 
the settlers. 

The three families above named occupied 
the greater part of the territoBy comprising 
the United States east of the Mississippi j but 
there were other tribes which have been as- 
signed to distinct flimilies. Among these were 
the Winnebagoes, who occupied lands -on the 
western shore of Lake Michigan, and who 
belonged to the Dahcotah ftimily. This fam- 
ily was, with the exception of the Winne- 
bagoes, and perhaps one or two other small 
tribes, composed of tribes living west of the 
Mississij^pi, and known in the more recent 
history of the western progress of civilization. 
The lowas, Osages, Kansas, and other tribes 
whose names are still familiar, belong to the 
Dahcotah family. 

The Catawbas and the Uchees, said to have 
been once powerful tribe.s, but never formida- 
ble since known to the whites, are also con- 
sidered distinct families, the language of the 
latter being extremely harsh and guttural. 

The Cherokees occupied the mountain ranges 
of the central part of the country, compris- 
ing portions of what is now the States of 
Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, and probably 
Virginia and North Carolina. They were origi- 
nally a hardy and formidable tribe, and have 
since become more civilized than other of the 
native tribes, while they have also shown a re- 
markable exception to the general rule, and have 
really flourished and increased in numbers under 
the influence of civilization. The Natchez, in- 
habiting a territory immediately east of the 



INTRODUCTION. 



Mississippi, are supposed to have migrated from 
Mexico after the conquest by Cortez. 
• The four last named tribes are sometimes 
grouped in the Moljilian family, and the divis- 
ion into more than four distinct families may 
be rather the result of too nice distinctions 
discovered or fancied in the rude language of 
these savages, than of real flifferences which 
■would presuppose any different origin. The 
most marked distinction between the various 
tribes was, that some lived by the chase alone, 
while others lived not only by the chase, but 
by agriculture. The Mobilian family com- 
prised those who gave some attention to agri- 
culture ; and whether from living in a warm- 
er and more genial climate, or from other 
causes, as a different origin, they were not so 
rude as the hunters of the nortli. 

Still the Indians were every where much 
the same, with similar customs and institu- 
tions ; every where untamed savages, leading 
the life of hunters or warriors. In some re- 
spects their institutions were comparatively 
advanced, as in the government of their tribes, 
the association of tribes in a confederacy, and 
the recognition and maintenance of some sun- 
pie individual and social rights. To these 
institutions and to their tribes they always 
exhibited a devoted patriotism. But however 
their patriotism and bravery might suffice to 
cope with each other, they were no match, 
with their simplicity and ignorance of the 
useful arts, for the shrewdness, skill, and en- 
ergy of the whites. They found their lands 
invaded and stolen from them as often as 
fairly purchased, and in their intercourse with 
civilized man they have met with wrong and 
injury. Often they resisted, and have visited 
upon the whites a terrible vengeance for their 
wrongs. But their resources were feA\', their 
numbers diminished, arid they receded before 
the tide of civilization, until the vast territory 
occupied by the three great families, the Al- 
gonquin, Iroquois, and Mobilian, now scarcely 
contains a remnant of them aU. 



Such was the condition of the country — - 
a vast wilderness, inhabited by these various 
tribes of savages and the game upon which 
they subsisted, when a few European colonies 
were planted along the Atlantic coast. Hith- 
erto, ages had brought few changes, save those 
wrought by nature, throughout the whole 
continent; but the civilization thus planted 
needed only to be well established in order 
to effect a complete and wonderful change 
within the space of a few generations only. 

In about a century and a half from the 
successful planting of the colonies, after the 
vicissitudes which must necessarily attend their 
situation, they had become firmly established. 
Settlements had been pushed into the inte- 
; rior along the rivers, and some bold pioneers 
had crossed the Alleghanies. But with the 
exception of a few trading posts and forts es- 
tablished by the French along the great lakes 
and on the great rivers of the west, the white 
population was confined to j;he Atlantic slope 
of the Alleghanies, and chiefly to places along 
the coast, or on the rivers. The population 
at this period (1760) was estimated at about 
one million seven hundred thousand. The 
chief towns, Boston and Philadelphia, had 
each about eighteen thousand inhabitants, and 
New York about twelve thousand. With the 
increase of population came an increase of 
wealth, and though the colonists were simple 
and frugal in their habits, yet the comforts 
and even the luxuries of life had taken the 
place of the want and suffering endured by the 
early settlers. The Indians had retreated be- 
fore the march of civilization, and were known 
and feared only on the frontier, which was 
practically much more distant than the far- 
thest settlement on our western frontier at the 
present time. The facilities for communica- 
tion between the colonies and the different 
settlements were yet very limited. Along the 
coast connnunication was had mostly by small 
vessels, and in the interior the traveller was 
obliged to resort to chance conveyance, or 



INTRODUCTION. 



more frequently accomplished liis journey on 
horseback. Between New York and Phila- 
delphia w ,gons were run once or twice a 
week, the journey being accomplished in two 
days, in 1766, which was thought to be a 
great achievement. The first stage coach was 
run between Boston and Providence in 1772, 
taking two da^^s for the journey. 

The printing press had at an early period 
been brought to America, but it had not been 
used without restrictions. The first newspa- 
per was published in 1704, and in 1750 there 
were only seven published in all the colonies. 
Just previous to the revolutionary struggle, 
however, the press became of more impor- 
tance, as well as more bold and free, and the 
newspapers increased, though few, if any, were 
issued more than once a week. Before this 
time few books had been published, and those 
were chiefly religious and historical treatises, 
or, as the struggle between the colonies and 
the mother country approached, political es- 
says. 

Industry and energy characterized the peo- 
ple, and whether in agriculttu-e, commerce, 
or manufactures, they achieved success, not- 
withstanding the discouragements and restric- 
tions which were imposed upon the two latter 
by the mother country — for England had 
become the possessor of all the territory which 
had at first been settled by various nations. 
Education in most of the colonies was en- 
couraged by the establishment of common 
schools and colleges, which flourished under 
the fostering care of the government. A sense 
of the strength and the importance of the 
colonies was prevalent among the people, 
and a common interest, as well as the ties of 
mutual trade and friendship, united them, and 
to some extent made them one nation. And 
thus were they able to go into that contest 
with the mother comitry which resulted in 
their independence. 

But it was not till after the revolutionary 
war and the repose which was necessary for 



a recovery from the effects of so exhausting 
a struggle, that the country made that rapid 
progress which has brought it to the impor- 
tant position which it now occupies in the 
civilized" world. From the time when the 
Union of the states was formed, and a per- 
manent common government established, the 
nation began really to grow, the resources of 
the countrj^ to be developed, and progress to 
be made in all that pertains to civilized life. 
The great and constant discoveries and im- 
provements made since that period in science 
and the arts have indeed opened a new era 
in the progress of the world ; but the free in- 
stitutions, and the intelligence and energy of 
the people, have here made available, and at 
the same time encouraged, such discoveries 
and improvements, and no other country has 
ever enjoyed such advantages and facilities for 
growth and advancement as the United States. 
Contrast the aspect and condition of the 
country as before described, as it was when 
the few weak colonies were first planted on 
tlie Atlantic coast, with its present state of 
national development and political importance. 
From those few scattered settlements of. two 
centuries and a half ago, and from the thir- 
teen colonies of less than one century ago, 
have grown thirty-two free and sovereign 
states, extending from the Atlantic to the Pa- 
cific Oceans, and from the great lakes of the 
north to the Gulf of Mexico, and forming, in 
their union under one federal government, one 
of the foremost nations of the world. From 
the few hundreds of the early settlers, from 
the two millions of colonists at the revolu- 
tionary period, the population of the country 
has grown to upwards of thirty millions. Its 
chief connuercial city numbers three quarters 
of a million of inhabitants, its second half a 
million, while numerous others, of a hundred 
thousand inhabitants and upwards, are grow- 
ino- up uot only on the Atlantic coast, but on 
the great rivers of the west and on the Pacific. 
In wealth, in strength, in all the resources 



10 



INTRODUCTION. 



■which make a nation powerful, its progress 
lias more than kept pace with the population. 
Its commerce extends to every part of the 
world, and every sea is whitened by its sails. 
Its products of agriculture, manufactures, and 
mining are consumed by distant nations. Foi'- 
ests have fallen and cities grown up, the des- 
ert has been made to bloom, the watercourses 
are dotted with mills. Steamboats plough the 
waters of its great rivers for thousands of 
miles from the sea, and for thousands of miles, 
in continuous line, railroads are constructed, 
connecting the Atlantic seaboard with the 
distant frontiers, and soon to stretch across 
the continent to new states on the Pacific 
coast, while the electric telegraph is extended 
in every direction, transmitting intelligence 
from the most remote points, and bringing to- 
gether in instantaneous communication places 
divided by thousands of miles of distance. 

While the country has thus increased izi 
extent, population, and wealth, and the enter- 
prise and energy of its people have made 
free use of scientific discoveries and improve- 
ments in the useful arts to develop its re- 
sources, it has grown also in the less mate- 
rial characteristics of civilization. Education 
is cared for in every part of the country. 
Colleges and seminaries of learning are to be 
found in every state, and in many the free 
schools offer to all opportunities for educa- 
tion rarely enjoyed elsewhere, except by the 
wealthier classes of society. Libraries of great 
magnitude, many of them free to the public, 
have been established in the larger cities, 
while those of less importance, but highly 
useful in their sphere, are growing up in every 
large community, and institutions for the dif- 
fusion of knowledge are found in almost every 
village. Valuable collections of art are not 
uncommon, and museums of natural history 
are being formed, which will in time rival 
those of the old world. The press, the great 
engine of civilization, pours out innumerable 
books and periodicals for the use of a larger 



reading public than the world can elsewhere 
boast. Hundreds of daily and thousands of 
weekly newsjiapers are published, circulating 
widely among the people, and read by all.- 
Instead of the few hundred diminutive sheets 
that were worked off with much toil and care 
in the days of the revolution, the improved 
printing machine tui-ns off its hundred thou- 
sand copies of mammoth sheets daily, to be 
read by thrice that number of readers, in all 
parts of the country. 

All these and other blessings of advanced 
civilization are enjoyed and fostered under free 
institutions, the germs of which were planted 
by the Pilgrims and others of the early set- 
tlers, and which grew with slow but sure 
growth, and at last became firmly established 
bj^ the successful war of independence. And 
the United States stand among the foremost 
nations of the world as the Great Eepublic, 
an example alike of the success of self-govern- 
ment by the people, and of material and in- 
tellectual progress under free institutions. 

The storj;- of the change that has come 
over the aspect of this country, and its prog- 
ress from an unproductive solitude to a land 
teeaiiug with wealth, and an industrious, free, 
and highly civilized population, is one of great 
intrinsic interest, and to the American who 
sees and enjoys the blessings of the present 
it may well have surpassing attractions. Nor 
is it less a duty than a pleasure to become 
fiimiliar with the record of that past which 
has produced the rich fruits of the present, 
and offers instruction for the future. That 
record, it is believed, is faithflilly, fully, and 
attractively presented in the following pages; 
and whatever may be said of the later nar- 
rative of events which tread close upon the 
present, all that relates to the earlier period, 
down to the time of the present generation, 
is 'an impartial and reliable history. As such 
it is commended to the reader, with the as- 
surance that it will prove alike interesting 
and instructive. 




^ J£ l'll 





K 1- ~ z:=r~^^ 



DISCOVERY AND COLONIZATION OF NORTH AMERICA. 



CHAPTER I. 

FROM THE DISCOVERIES OF THE CABOTS TO THE 
SETTLEMENT OF VIRGINIA. 

The early history of most nations is of fabulous, 
or, at best, of doubtful character, and atibrds abun- 
dant opportunity for the exhibition of romantic con- 
jecture. It might, however, have been naturally ex- 
pected that no doubtful claims to the first visitation 
of a country so recently brought within the pale of 
history* as the American continent, should be found 
to exist; but this expectation is far from according 
with fact. Cambrian ambition, unsatisfied with claim- 
ing for her heroes the honour of being aboriginal 
Britons, would invest her sons also with the wreath 
of fame, as the discoverers of the western hemisphere. 
Dr. Powel (in his History of Wales) would have us 
believe that Madoc, son of Owen Gwyneth, prince of 
North Wales, reached the American shores in the 
year 1170 ; most probably, however, this worthy 
young prince did not extend his voyage of discovery 
beyond the coast of Spain, by no means an incon- 
siderable exploit for that age.* 



• " Madoc, another of Owen Gwpieth his sonnes, left the land 
in contention betwixt his brethren, and prepared certaine ships, 
■with men and munition, and sought adventures by seas, sailing 
west, and leaving the coast of Ireland so farre north, that he came 
unto a land unknown, where he saw many strange things. This 
land must needs be some part of that countrey of which the Span- 
yards affirme themselves to be the first finders since Hanno's time. 
Whereupon it is manifest that that countrey was by Britaines dis- 
covered, long before Columbus led any Spaniards thither. Of the 
voyage and returne of this Madoc there be many fables fained, as 
the common people doe use in distance of place and length of time, 
rather to augment than to diminish : but sure it is, there he was. 
And after he had returned home, and declared the pleasant and 
Irultfull countreys that he had scene without inhabitants, and upon 
the contrary part, for what barren and wild ground his brethren 



Of a far more probable character, though by no 
means uncontested, are the assertions of the Nor- 
wegian historians, who claim for tiieir countrymen, 
confessedly the, most adventurous navigators ol' the 
northern waters of the Atlantic in the earlier ages, 
the discovery of this vast continent, in the year 1001, 
designated Vinland by Bioru, their chief, from the 
profusion of wild grape-vines he found luxuriating in 
the plains. The discussion of this point, as also the 
narrative of the Zeni, we shall leave to those whose 
labours are less required in the more important prac- 
tical researches which the nature of our undertaking 
especially embraces.f 

In entering the region of indisputable authenticity, 
England ranks scarcely second to Spain, in the merit 
and the success of naval enterprise. It is a cncum- 
stancc, however, too remarkable to be passed unno- 
ticed, that England, Spain, and France, all derived 
their transatlantic possessions from the science and 
energy of Italian navigators, although not a single 
colony was ever planted in the newly-discovered con- 
tinent by the inhabitants of Italy. Columbus, a Ge- 
noese, acquired for Spain a colonial dominion great 

and nephewcs did murther one another, he prepared a number of 
ships, and got with him such men and women as were desirous to 
live in quie"tnesse : and taking leave of his fiiends, tooke his jour- 
ney thitherward againe. Therefore it is to be supposed that he 
and his people inhabited part of those countreys : for it appeareth 
bv Francis Lopez de Gomara, that in Acur^aniil and other places 
tlie people honored the crosse. Whereby it may be gathered that 
Christians had bene there before the comming of the Span-yards. 
But because this people were not many, they followed the maners 
of the land which they came unto, and used the language they 
found there." — Hakluvfs Voyages, vol. iii. p. 1. 

t Those of our readers who are desirous of mdulgmg their 
curiosity on this subject, can refer to Murray's Historical Account 
of the Discoveries and Travels in North America, volume i. p. U 

to ae. 

(11) 



li 



HISTORY OF THE UiMTED STATES. 



enough to satiate the most craving ambition ; hut, 
reaping no personal advantage from his laliours, ex- 
<;e])ting an unprofitable fame, after having been ig- 
nominiously driven from the world he had made 
laiown to Europeans, he died in poverty and dis- 
grace.* Cabot, a Venetian, sailing in the service of 
England, conferred on that nation a claim, tlie mag- 
nitude and iniportance of which he never lived to 
comprehend. t Verazzani, a F'lorentine, explored 
America for the benefit of France ; but, sailing hither 
a second time, for tiie purpose of establishing a colony, 
he perished at sea.t Amerigo Vespucci gave his name 
to the ne\v world, and thus rendered his reputation as 
durable, probably, as the world itself, but without ac- 
quiring any advantage for his native country.§ 

From this slight digression we return to the disco- 
veries of Cabot. The exploits of Columbus having 
excited a great sensation among- the English mer- 
chants, and at the couit of Henry VH., the adven- 
turous spirit of John Cabot, heightened by the ardour 
of his son Sebastian, led him to propose to the king 
to undertake a voyage of discovery, with the two-fold 
object of becoming acquainted with new territories, 
and of realizing the long-desired object of a western 
passage to China and the Indies. A commission was 
accordingly granted, on the 5tli of March, to him 
and his three sons, giving them liberty to sail to all 
pai'ts of the cast, west, and north, imder the royal 
banners and ensigns, to discover countries of the 
heathen, unknown to Christians ; to set up the king's 
bajuiers there ; to occupy and possess, as his subjects, 
such places as they could subdue ; giving them the 
rule and jurisdiction of the same, to be holden on 
condition of paying to the king one fifth part of all 
their gains. By virtue of this commission a small 
fleet was equipped, partly at the king's expense, and 
partly at that of private individuals, in which the 
Cabots embarked, witli a company of three hundred 
mariners. Our knowledge of this voyage is collected 
from many detached and imperfect notices of it in 
diflerent authors, who, while they establish the general 
facts in the most unquestionable manner, differ in 

* Jrving's Life of Columbus. 

t Belknap's Biog. vol. i. p. 33. Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 295—300. 

t Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 6, et seq. 

§ Bandini, Vita e Ijiltere d'Amerigo Vespucci. 

II " An e.xtract taken out of the map of Sebastian Cabot, cut by 
Clement Adams, concerning his discovery of the West Indies, 
which is to be seene in her Majesties prive gallerie at Westmin- 
.^.ter: — In the yere of our Lord, 1497, lohn Cabot, a Venetian, and 
his Sonne Sebastian, (tt-ilh an English fleet, set out from Brisloll.) 
discovered that land which no man before that time had attempted, 
on the 24th of June, about five of the clocke, early in the morning. 
This land he called Prima Vista, that is to say, first seene, because, 
as I suppose, it was that part whereof they had the first sight from 
Bea. That island which lieth out before the land, he called the 



many particular circumstances.! The most probable 
accouiu is, that Cabot sailed north-west a few weeks 
until his progress was arrested by floating ice-bergs, 
wlien he shaped his course to the south-west, and 
soon came in sight of a shore, named by him Prima 
Vista, and generally believed to be some part of La- 
brador, or Newfoundland. Thence he steered north- 
ward again, to the sixty-seventh degree of latitude, 
where he was obliged to turn back by the discontent 
of his crew. He sailed along the coast, in search of 
an outlet, as far as the neiglibourhood of the gulf of 
Me.Kico, wlien a mutitiy broke otU in the ship's com- 
pany, in consequence of which the faitlicr prosecu- 
tion of the voyage Vas abandoned. Cabot reached 
England with several savages and a valuable cargo, 
although some writers deny that he ever landed ; 
and it is certain, that he did not attempt any conquest 
or settlement in the countries which lie discovered. 

This voyage was not immediately followed by any 
important consequences ; but it is memorable as be- 
ing the fiirst that is certainly ascertained to have been 
effected to this continent, and as constituting the title 
by which tiie English claimed the territories that 
they subsequently acquired here. Through a singu- 
lar succession of causes, during more than sixty 
years from the time of this discovery of the northern 
division of the continent by the English, their mo- 
narchs gave but little attention to this country, which 
was destined to be annexed to their crown, and to be 
one principal source of British opulence and power, 
till, in I he march of events, it sliould rise into an in- 
dependent empire. This remarkable neglect is in 
some measure accounted for by the frugal maxims 
of Henry VH., and the unpropitious circumstances of 
the reign of Henry VHl., of Edward VI., and of the 
bigoted Mary ; reigns peculiarly adverse to the exten- 
sion of industry, trade, and navigation. 

While English enterprise lay dormant, both France 
and Spain were on the alert. The French flag had 
not yet, indeed, waved on the western shores of the 
Atlantic. A monarch of such spirit as Francis I., 
however, could not be content to see Charles, his 

Island of St. lohn, upon this occasion, as I ihinke, because it was 
discovered upon the day of lohn the Baptist. The inhabitants of 
this island use to weare beasts skinnes, and have them in as yreal 
estimation as we have our finest garments. In their warres they 
use bowes, arrowes, pikes, darts, woodden clubs, and slings. The 
soile is barren in some places, and yceldeth litle fruit, but it is full 
of white beares and stagges, farre greater than ours. It 5'ecldelh 
plenty of fish, and iliose very great, as seales, and those which 
commcmly we call salmons: there are soles al.so above a yard in 
length : but especially there is great abundance of thai .kinde of 
fish which the savages call baccalaos. In the same island al.so 
there breed hauks, but they are so Elacke that they are very like 
to ravens, as also their partridges and eagles, which arc ill like 
sorte blacke." — Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 6. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



i;5 



rival, carrying" off all the brilliant prizes offered by 
the new world. He listened readily to the suggestion, 
that he too sliould send an expedition to the west, 
for the discovery of kingdonis and countries un- 
known ; and Juan Verazzano, a Florentine, who had 
distinguished himself by successful cruises against 
the Spaniards, was sent with a vessel, called the 
Dolphin, to the American coast. In this voyage he 
discovered, with a considerable degree of accuracy, 
the coast of Florida. The whole extent of his dis- 
covery was upwards of 700 leagues of the North 
American coast, which he named New France.* He 
made another voyage the next year ; but its records 
are equally brief and fatal : — Ramusio gives neither 
date, nor place, nor country ; but states, that having 
landed with some of his crew, Verazzano was seized 
by the savages, and Icilled and devoured in the pre- 
.sence of his companions on board, who sought in 
vain to give any assistance. Such was the fate of 
one of the most eminent navigators of that age, whom 
Forster ranks as the type of Cook, both as to his 
exploits durinof life, and the dreadful mode of his 
death. The gloomy impression produced by the tra- 
gic fate of V^erazzano, seems to have deterred others 
for some time from such enterprises ; and, for several 
succeeding years, neither the king nor the nation 
seem to have thought any more of America. 

After a lapse of ten years, on a representation 
made by Philip Chabot, admiral of France, of the 
advantages that would result from establishing a 
colony in a country from, wiiich Spain derived her 
greatest wealth, these enterprises were renewed, and 
Jacques Cartier, a bold seaman of St. Malo, who pro- 
posed another voyage, was readily supplied with two 
ships, under the direction of the Sieur de Melleraye, 
then vice-admiral of France. He set sail on the 20th 
of April, 1531, and on the lOth of May came in view 
of Cape Bonavista. As large masses of ice, however, 
were still floating about the coast, he deemed it wise 
to enter a harbour, which he called St. Catherine, 
and to remain there ten days. The sea then becoming 
favourable, he came out, and stood to the north, 
sailed almost round Newfoundland, and discovered 
the Baye des Chaleurs. and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 
Having sailed to the fifty-first degree of latitude, in the 
fruitless hope of passing to China, he returned, in 
April, to France, without making a settlement. 

A larger expedition was equipped the next spring, 
and they proceeded direct to Newfoundland. Disco- 
vering now the river of Canada, which graduailjr 



« Haklnyt, vol. iii. p. 295 — 300, where is Verazzano's own ac- 
count of his voyage, sent to Francis I. written in Dieppe the 8lh 
of July, 1524. See also Universal History, vol. xxxix. p. 406. 



obtained the name of St. Lawrence, he sailed up this 
noble stream three hundred leagues, to a great and 
swift fall ; formed aliances with the natives ; took pos- 
session of the territory ; built a fort ; and wintered in 
the country, which he called New France. In sail- 
ing up the St. Lawrence, he discovered Hazel or Fil- 
bert Island, Bacchus Island, since called the Isle of 
Orleans, and a river, which he called St. Croix, since 
called Jacques Cartier's River, where lie laid up his 
ships. From this river, before his final departure, 
partly by stratagem and partly by force, he carried 
ofl" Donnacona, the Indian king of the coimtry. lie, 
at this time visited Ilochelaga, a large Indian settle- 
ment, which he called Montreal, where the P'rrnch 
were well received : but they were soon infected with 
the scurvy, of which a considerable number died. 
The next spring, Cartier, taking v/itli liim Donna- 
cona, and several of the natives, returned with the 
remains of his crew to France, and expatiated to 
the king en the advantages that would probably' re- 
sult from a settlement in this country, principally liy 
means of the fur trade ; but the fallacious opinion, 
then prevalent among all the nations of Europe, that 
such countries only as produced gold and silver were 
worth the possession, had such influence on the 
French, that they slighted the salutary advice of 
Cartier, and deferred making any establishment in 
Canada. But, although this object was generally 
neglected, individuals entertained just sentiments of 
its importance, and among the most zealous for pro- 
secuting discoveries and attempting a settlement 
there, was John Francois de la Roche, loi-d of Ro- 
berval, a nobleman of Picardy. King Francis I., 
convinced at length of the expediency of the mea- 
sure, resolved to send Cartier, his pilot, again, with 
Roberval, to that country. He accordingly furnished 
Cartier with five vessels for the service, appointing 
him captain-general, and Roberval his lieutenant and 
governor in the countries of Canada and Hochelaga, 
When the fleet was ready for sea, Roberval was not 
prepared with his artillery, powder, and numitions ; 
but Cartier, having received letters from the king, 
requiring him to proceed immediately, sailed with 
five ships on the 23d of May, and after a very long 
and boisterous passage arrived at Newfoundland. 
Having waited here a while in vain for Roberval, he 
proceeded to Canada ; and on the 23d of August ar- 
rived at the haven of St. Croix. 

After an interview with the natives, Cartier sai.ed 
up the river, and pitched on a place about f( ur 



Forsier, Voy. p. 432—436. Belknap, Biog.' vol. i. p. 33. Har- 
ris's Voy. vol. i. p. 8i 0. Purchas, vol. i. p. 769. Chambers, vol. 
i. p. 512. 



14 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



leagues above St. Croix, to lay up three of his ships 
for the v/iiiter ; the other two he sent to France, to 
inform the king of wliat they had done, and the dis- 
appointment of his expectations in the non-arrival of 
lloberval. At the new harbour there was a small 
river, and on the east side of its entrance, a high and 
steep cliff. On the top of this cliff he built a fort, 
and called it Charlesbourgh. Below, the ships were 
drawn up and fortified. After the fort was begun, 
Cartier went up the river with two boats furnished 
with men and provisions, with tfie intenliou of pro- 
ceeding to Hochelaga ; leaving Viscount Bcaupre to 
govern daring his absence. Having again explored 
the St. Lawrence, viewed the falls on that river, and 
had interviews with the natives, Cartier returned to 
the fort. Finding, on his return, that the Indians 
had discontinued their visits and tralHc, and shown 
signs of hostility ; that his provisions were spent, and 
that Roberval had not arrived, he prepared to return 
to France. Meanwhile, Roberval had been engaged 
in the prosecution of his design of reinforcing Car- 
tier, and carrying forward the projected settlement of 
Canada. Whatever had retarded his embarkation, 
he at length sailed from Rochelle with three ships and 
two hundred persons, and arrived at St. John's har- 
bour in Newfoundland ; and while there, Cartier and 
his company arrived at the same harbour from the St. 
Lawrence. He informed Roberval of his intended 
return to France ; yet commended the country of 
Canada as very rich and fruitful. Thousrh the vice- 
roy had brought a sufficient supply of men, military 
stores, and provisions, to dispel the fearful apprehen- 
sions of the adventurers, and had commanded Car- 
tier to remain with him ; yet Cartier, persisting in his 
purpose, eluded him in the night, and sailed for Bre- 
tagne. Roberval proceeded up the St. Lawrence, 
four leagues above the island of Orleans, where, find- 
ing a convenient harbour, he built a fort, and re- 
mained through the winter. In the following spring, 
he went higher up the river, and explored the coun- 
try ; but he appears soon after to have abandoned 
the enterprise. The colony was broken up ; and for 
half a century the French made no farther attempt 
to establish themselves in Canada. 

For the sake of continuity of narrative, in record- 
ing the attempts of France to colonize a portion of 
North America, we have been necessitated to deviate 
slightly from the direct order of chronological succes- 
sion. It was in the year 1528, that Pamphilo (^e 
Narvaez, having obtained from Charles V. of Spain, 
the indefinite grant of all the lands lying from the 
River of Palms to the Cape of Florida, with a com- 
mission to conquer and govern the provinces within 



I these limits, sailed in March from Cuba, with five 
' ships, on board of which were four hundred foot and 
twenty horse, for the conquest of that country. Land- 
ing at Florida, he marched to Apalache, a village 
consisting of forty cottages, where he arrived on the 
5th of June. Having lost many of his men by the 
natives, who harassed the troops on their march, and 
with whom they had one sharp engagement, he was 
obliged to direct his course toward the sea. Sailing 
to the westward, he was lost with many others, in a 
violent storm, about the middle of November ; and 
the enterprise was frustrated. 

Calamitous as was the issue of the expedition of 
Narvaez, it did not prevent, in that age of enterprise, 
captains of eminence from pursuing ardently the same 
course. Fernando de Soto, a native of Badajos, ori- 
ginally possessing only courage and his sword, had 
been one of the most distinguished companions of 
Pizarro, and a main instrument in annexing to Spain 
the golden regions of Peru : but in the conquest of 
Peru his part had been secondary — the first prize had 
been carried off by another ; and he now sought a 
country, the glory of conquering and the pride of 
ruling which should be wholly his ; and his wishes 
were fulfilled. He was created Adelantado of Flori- 
da, combining the offices of governor-general and 
commander-in-chief On the 18th of May, 1539, Soto 
sailed from Havannah, on the Florida expedition, with 
nine vessels, nine hundred men besides sailors, two 
hundred and thirteen horses, and a herd of swine. 
Arriving on the 30th of May at the bay of Espiritu 
Santo, on the western coast of Florida, he landed 
three hundred men, and pitched his camp ; but, 
about the break of day the next morning, they were 
attacked by a numerous body of natives, and obliged 
to retire.* Having marched several hundred miles, 
he passed through the Indian towns of Alibama, 
Talisee, and Tescalusa, to Mavila, a village enclosed 
with wooden walls, standing near the mouth of the 
Mobile. The inhabitants, disgusted with the stran- 
gers, and provoked by an outrage committed on one 
of their chiefs, brought on a severe conflict, in which 
two thousand of the natives and forty-eight Spaniards 
were slain. A considerable number of Spaniards 
died afterwards of their wounds, making their entire 
loss eighty-three ; they also lost forty-five horses. 
The village was burnt in the action. After this en- 
gagement, Soto retreated to the territory of Chica^a, 
where he remained until April of this year. His 
army, now resuming its march through the Indian 
territory, was reduced to about three hundred men 

• Herrera, d. 6. lib. 7. c. 9. Belknap, Biog. Art. Soto. BiMhoth 
I Americ. p. 37. Purchas, vol. v. p. 1529 — 1565. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



15 



and forty horses. Soto, having appointed Lewis do 
Moscoso his successor in command, died at the con- 
fluence of the Guacoya and Mississippi. To prevent 
the Indians from obtaining a knowledge of his death, 
his body was put into an oak, hollowed for that pur- 
pose, and sunk in the river. Soto was only forty- 
two years of age, and had expended 100,000 ducats 
in this expedition. The small remains of his army, 
consisting of three hundred and eleVen men, arrived 
at Panuco on the 10th of September, 1543 ; and 
llie great expedition to Florida terminated only in 
the poverty and ruin of all who were concerned in it. 

We must now advert to some of the most interesting 
but lamentable events that the history of colonization 
affords, in which the deadly poison of religious bigot- 
ry was deeply intermingled with the hostility excited 
by commercial jealousy. — The decided indications of 
a violent spirit of persecution, ou the part of the 
Catholic priesthood of France, induced the brave 
Coligny to make an experiment, which might have 
issued in the provision of a safe retreat for a consi- 
derable portion of the oppressed Protestants. He 
formed a party of Huguenots, among whom were 
several of high respectability, who sailed under the 
command of Ribault, an officer of considerable spirit, 
with the intention of colonizing Florida. After a 
favourable voyage he arrived at the entrance of a 
river which he called May, from the month in which 
he reached the coast. He here erected a fort, and 
then, imprudently sailed for France, to bring out a 
re-enforcement. Albert, to whom he delrgated his 
authority during his absence, appears to have been 
both unworthy and incompetent for so important a 
situation. From his extreme severity and ill ma- 
nagement, the colonists formed an iuA'eterate hatred 
against him, which terminated in his death. In the 
excitement of internal dissensions, the settlers had 
paid little or no attention to the production of 
food ; and were compelled, after exhausting nearly 
all their stores, to make the desperate attempt of 
re-crossing the Atlantic with the small remainder of 
their provisions. Being detained by a calm, they 
had commenced preying upon one another, when 
they were providentially delivered from their unhappy 
condition by an English vessel, which conveyed them 
to their own country. 

During the abode of these unfortunate men in 
Florida, Coligny had been so deeply engaged in the 
dissension at home, which had ripened into an open 
Tupture and a civil war, that he was prevented from 
sending his intended re-enforcement ; but no sooner 
had peace been concluded, than he despatched a 
fresh expedition, under M. Ren6 Laudonniere, who 
3 



arrived in the river May, on the 2oth of June, I5fi4. 
After sailing northward about ten leagues, he returned 
to the May, and erected a fort, which, in honour of his 
sovereign, he styled Fort Caroline. He proved, how- 
ever, inadequate to the difficult task of presiding over 
a number of spirited young men, in a state of great 
excitement from the disappointment of their expecta- 
tions, which had dwelt upon the prospect of golden 
harvests and unbounded wealth. Plots were formed 
against his life, and he was on the point of leaving, 
with the remains of his colony, for Europe, when a 
new expedition, under the conunand of Kibault, 
entered the river. That officer superseded Laudon- 
niere, only, however, to experience still more melan- 
choly disasters. Scarcely a week had passed after 
his arrival, when eight Spanish ships were seen in 
the same river, where several of the largest French 
vessels were lying at anchor. As the Spanish fleet 
made towards them, the French cut their cables, and 
put out to sea. Although they were tired upon and 
pursued, they escaped ; but, finding that their ene- 
mies had landed on the shores of the river Dolphin, 
about eight leagues distant, they returned to the May. 
Ribault now called a council at Fort Caroline, which 
decided, that they ought to strengthen the fort with 
all possible diligence, and be prepared for the enemy. 
He was himself, however, of a different opinion. 
Apprehensive of the defection of the friendly and 
auxiliary natives, if they should discover that, at the 
first approach of the Spaniards, they should confine 
themselves to their camp and fortifications, he judged 
it best to proceed against the enemy at once, before 
they could collect their forces and construct a forti- 
fication in their vicinity. To strengthen this view, 
he produced a letter from Admiral Coligny, /:ontain- 
ina: these words : "While I was sealing- this letter, I 
received certain advice that Don Pedro Menendez 
is departing from Spain, to go to the coast of New 
France. See that you suffer him not to encroach 
upon you, and that you do not encroach upon him." 
It was, indeed, the fleet of Menendez, which had 
just arrived on the coast, and given the alarm. 
Philip II. had given him the command of a fleet and 
an army, with full power to drive the Huguenots 
out of Florida, and settle it with Catholics. Fixed 
in his purpose, Ribault instantly took all the best of 
his men at Fort Caroline, and set sail in pursuit of 
the Spanish fleet, leaving Laudonniere in charge of 
the fort, without any adequate means of defence. 
Most unfortunately he was overtaken by a tremen- 
dous storm, which destroyed all the vessels, the men 
only escaping. 

Menendez now began to consider what advantage 



16 



HISTORY OF TllF, UMTED STATES. 



he coultl take of tliis state of affairs. It appeared to 
him, that, by pushing across the country, he would 
have every chance of reaching the fort before cir- 
cumstances would admit of Ribault's return. He 
set forth immediately with five hundred of his best 
troops, and, after overcoming the formidable obsta- 
cles of swamps swelled by torrents of rain, on the 
evening of the fourth day arrived within view of the 
fort. At day-break, Menendez mounted the hill, and 
saw no appearance of any watch, and, before Lau- 
donniere could muster his little garrison, the Span- 
iards had rushed in and begun an indiscriminate 
massacre of men, women, and children. Laudon- 
niere, though worn down with sickness, escaped 
from the fort with about twenty others, who con- 
cealed themselves in the woods. In this extremity, 
six of them ventured to throw themselves on the 
mercy of the Spaniards ; but they were cruelly 
massacred in sight of their companions. Laudon- 
niere, seeing no way of escape but by getting over 
the marshes to the ships at the mouth of the river, 
led the way, and several of his men followed him 
through the swamp into the water. Unable to pro- 
ceed, he sent two of them, who could swim well, to 
the ships for help. At length he was carried on 
board a French shallop, which was in search of 
them, and, having picked up the remaining fugitives, 
who were concealed among the reeds, carried them 
to a little ship at the mouth of the river. In this 
tJiey undertook to reach their native country; on 
their voyage they encountered want, cold, hunger, 
and thirst, but they ultimately entered, in a miserable 
state, the port of Bristol, where they met a hos- 
pitable reception. A more tragic end awaited Ri- 
bault ; all his vessels were dashed to pieces (as we 
have before observed) in the tempest, which lasted 
some days. With great difficulty the crews suc- 
ceeded in reaching the shore, and directed their steps 
towards the fort. After a toilsome journey of nine 
days through a rugged country, what was their 
amazement and grief to find the fort in the hands of 
the inveterate enemies, alike of their enterprise and 
their faith ! Many of them were for enduring the 
worst extremity, rather than fall into the hands of 
the Spaniards ; but Ribault, judging their situation 
otherwise wholly desperate, determined to open a 
treaty with Menendez, who received them in the most 
courteous manner, and pledged himself, on the faith 
of a soldier and a gentleman, that they should be 
well treated, and sent back to their country. Upon 
this pledge, the French delivered up their arms ; but 
when they were all assembled on a plain in front of 
the castle, Menendez, with his sword, drew a line 



round them on the sand, and then ordered his troops 
to fall on, and make an indiscriminate massacre. The 
bodies were not only covered with repeated wounds, 
but cut in pieces, and treated with the most shocking 
indignities. A number of the mangled limbs of the 
victims were then suspended to a tree, to which was 
attached the following inscription : — " Not because 
they are Frenchmen, but because they are lieretics 
and enemies of God." 

When intelligence of this barbarous massacre 
reached France, it excited an almost universal feel- 
ing of grief and rage, and inspired a desire for ven- 
geance of corresponding intensity. Though Charles 
IX. was invoked in vain, by the prayers of fifteen 
hundred widows and orphans, to require of the Span- 
ish monarch that justice should be awarded against 
his murderous subjects, there was, in the nation itself, 
an energy which provided an avenger. Dominique 
de Gourffues determined to devote himself, his for- 
tune, and his whole being, to the achievement of some 
signal and terrible retribution. He found means to 
equip three small vessels, and to put on board of 
them eighty sailors, and one hundred and fifty troops. 
Having crossed the Atlantic, he sailed along the coast 
of Florida, and landed at a river about fifteen leagues 
distance from the May. The Spaniards, to the num- 
ber of four hundred, were well fortified, principally 
at the great fort, begun by the French, and afterwards 
repaired by themselves. Two leagues lower, towards 
the river's mouth, they had made two smaller forts, 
which were defended by a hundred and twenty sol- 
diers, well supplied with artillery and ammimition. 
Gourgues, though informed of their strength, pro- 
ceeded resolutely forward, and, with the assistance 
of the natives, made a vigorous and desperate assault. 
Of sixty Spaniards in the first fort, there escaped but 
fifteen ; and all in the second fort were slain. After 
a company of Spaniards, sallying out from the third 
fort, had been intercepted, and killed on the spot, this 
last fortress was easily taken. All the surviving 
Spaniards were led away prisoners, with the fifteen 
who escaped tVy3 massacre at the first fort ; and, 
after having been shown the injury that they had 
done to the French nation, were hung on the bows 
of the same trees on which the Frenchmen had boon 
previously suspended. Gourgues, in retaliation for 
the label Menendez had attached to the bodies of 
the FVench, placed over the corpses of the Spaniards 
the following declaration : — " I do not this as to 
Sjianiards nor as to mariners, but as to traitors, 
robbers, and murderers."* Having razed tlie three 

♦ Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 356 — 360; and Charlevoix, Nouv, France, 
vol. i. p. 95— 106. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



17 



forts, he hastened his preparation to return ; and 
on the 3d of May embarked all that was valuable in 
the forts and set sail for La Rochelle. In that 
Protestant capital he was received with the loudest 
acclamations. At Bordeaux these were reiterated, 
and he was advised to proceed to Paris, where, 
however, he met with a very different reception. 
Philip had already an embassy demanding his head, 
which Charles and Catherine were not disinclined 
to give, and had taken steps for bringing him 
to trial, but they found the measure so excessively 
unpopular, that they were obliged to allow him to 
retire into Normandy. Subsequently he regained 
royal favour, and found ample employment in the 
service of his country. 

Thus terminated the attempts of the French Pro- 
testants to colonize Florida. Had the efforts of 
Ribault or Laudonniere been supported by the 
government, France might have had vast colonial 
dependencies before Britain had established a single 
settlement in the New World, instead of inscribing 
on the pages of history a striking instance of the 
ruinous and enduring- effects of religfious hatred, 
alike on individual and national fortune. 

It has been observed, by one of the most eminent 
statesmen this or any other country ever produced — 
one who took a peculiar interest in the progress of 
the New World — that the present age bears in many 
points a striking resemblance to that of Queen Eliza- 
beth, and certainly in no respect are the periods 
more assimilated, than in the singular, and to many, 
the inexplicable combination of commercial activity 
and general distress. That poverty among the 
lower and middling ranks of society was one of the 
strongest motives to colonization in the days of 
Elizabeth, as well as our own, the records of history 



• Edward Haies, in his report of tlie voyage of Sir Humphrey 
Gilbert, has the following observations on the motives to colonize 
which then prevailed : — " If his motives be derived from a vertuous 
and heroycall minde, preferring chiefly the honour of God, com- 
passion of poore infidels captived by the devill, tyrannizing in 
most wonderfull and dreadfull maner over thc'.r bodies and soules, 
advancement of his honest and well disposed countreymen, willing 
to accompany him in such honourable actions, rdicfe of siindnj 
people vnthin this rcalme distressed : all these be honorable purposes, 
imitating the nature of the munificent God, wherwith he is well 
pleaded, who will assist such an actour beyond expectation of man. 
And tlte same, who feeleth this inclination in himselfe, by all like- 
lihood may hope, or rather confidently repose in the pre-ordinance 
of God, that in this last age of the world, or likely never, the time 
is compleat of receiving also these Gentiles into his mercy, and 
that God will raise him an instrument to etfect the same : it seem- 
ing probable, by event of precedent attempts made by the Span- 
yards and French sundry times, that the countreys lying nortli of 
Florida, God hath reserved the same to be reduced unto Christian 
civility by the English nation." — Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 144. Sir 
George Pcckain also bears testimony to the correctness of this 
opinion. " God," he says, " had provided the means of coloniza- 
tion ; for that, through his great mercy in preserving the people 



do not permit us to doubt ;* and if benefits accrue to 
the world, in the proportion in which the extent ot 
emigration now exceeds that of the period of our 
present researches, posterity will see reason to admire 
the dispensations of Providence, which, however 
unwelcome to the present, are so richly beneficial to 
the future ages. 

Before entering on the transactions which are so 
highly honourable to the reign of Elizabeth, it is our 
duty to record an event which almost may be said 
to couirterbalance, in its baneful results, all the advan- 
tages, either to the Old World or the New, that ren- 
der celebrated the era of the British Queen — the 
commencement of the slave trade. The first Eng- 
lishman w^ho brought this guilt upon himself and 
his country was Sir John Hawkins, who afterwards 
attained so much nautical celebrity, and was created 
an admiral, and treasurer of the British navy. A 
subscription was opened and speedily completed by 
Sir Lionel Ducket, Sir Thomas Lodge, Sir William 
Winter, and others, who plainly perceived the vast 
emolument that might be derived from such a traffic. 
By their assistance Hawkins was enabled to set sail 
for Africa in the year 1562, and, having reached 
Sierra Leone, he began his commerce with the 
negroes.t While he trafficked with them in the usual 
articles of barter, he took occasion to give them an 
inviting description of the country to which he was 
bound, contrasting the fertility of its soil and the 
enjoyments of its inhabitants with the barrenness of 
Africa and the poverty of the African tribes. The 
negroes were ensnared by his flattering promises, 
and three hundred of them, accepting his offer, 
consented to embark along with him for Hispaniola. 
On the night before their embarkation, they were 
attacked by a hostile tribe ; and Hawkins hastening 

for so many years from slaughter, plague, and pestilence, they were 
in such penury and want, that many would hazard their lives for a 
year's food and clothing, without wages ; and this armament might 
be most cheaply equipped." — Murray, vol. i. p. 191. 

t "With this companie he put off and departed I'rom the coast of 
England in the moneth of October, 1562, and in his course touched 
first at Teneriffe, where he received friendly entertainement ; from 
thence he passed to Sierra Leona, upon the coa.'st of Guinea, whicli 
place, by the people of the countrey, is called Tagarin, where he 
stayed some good time, and got into his possession, partly by the 
sworde, and partly by other meanes, to the number of three hun- 
dred negroes, at the least, besides other merchandises which that 
countrey yeeldeth. With this praye hee sayled over the ocean sea 
unto the island of Hispaniola, and arrived first at the port of Isa- 
bella, and there hee had reasonable utterance of his English com- 
modities, as also of some part of his negroes, trusting the Span- 
iards no further, then that by his owne strength he was able still 
to master them. From the port of Isabella he went to Puerto dc 
Plata, where he made like sales, standing alwaies upon his gua d ; 
from thence, also, hee sayled to iMonte Christi, another port on ilie 
north side of Hispaniola, and the last place of his touching, w^ ?re 
he had peaceable traflSque, and made vent of the whole numbs of 
his negroes."— Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 500. 



18 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



with his crew to their assistance, repulsed the assail- 
ants, and carried a number of tliem as prisoners on 
board his vessels. The next day he set sail with his 
mixed carsro of human creatures, and, during the 
passage, treated the negroes who had voluntarily 
accompanied him in a different manner from his 
prisoners of war. On his arrival at Hispaniola, he 
disposed of the whole cargo to great advantage, and 
endeavoured to inculcate on the Spaniards who 
purchased the negroes, the same distinction in the 
treatment of them which he himself had observed. 
But the Spaniards, having given the same ratio for 
the one as for the other, considered them as slaves 
of the same condition, and treated them all alike.* 

The Spaniards have many cruelties to answer for, not 
only in their islands, but on the continent of South Ameri- 
ca. They never knew the true philosophy of self-interest 
in their treatment of tlieir slaves. Tliey never learned 
the maxim, that kindness is more effectual than severity 
in subduing ignorant and savage man. The Spaniards 
were, notwithstanding their love of enterprise and war, 
naturally an indolent race of people, and rejoiced in find- 
ing those who could take tlie labours of agriculture off 
their hands. Men, deceived, as most of those were who 
came with Hawkins, were not very docile ; and their 
masters found in their tempers excuse for rigid discipline. 
While the nefarious traffic of Sir John Hawkins 
was attended with the advantages of a profitable 
though iniquitous speculation, the meritorious exer- 
tions of others were fraught with destruction to 
themselves, and disappointment to the nation at 
large; affording a powerful lesson that the charac- 
ters of men are not to be estimated by their financial 
success, but by the honourable motives by which 
their conduct is actuated. The efforts which follow- 
ed those of the founder of the slave trade were 
dip cted to the discovery of a passage to India by 
the north of America ;t but, notwithstanding the 
iitirost exertions of the most eminent naval cha- 
racters, Frobisher, Davis, and Hudson, they proved 



• On another occasion Hawkins look advantage of a conflict 
betw ;en the hostile tribes. " In that present instant," says the 
narrntor, " there came to us a negro, sent from a king, oppressed 
Uy other kings, his neighbours, desiring our aide, willi promise that 
as many negros as by these warres might be obtained, as well of 
his part as of ours, should be at our pleasure ; whereupon, we 
concluded to give aide, and sent a hundred and twenty of our men, 
which, the 15th of Januarie, assaulted a towne of the negros of 
our allies' adversaries, which had in it eight thousand inhabitants, 
being very strongly impaled and fenced after their manner ; but it 
was so well defended, that our men prevailed not, but lost sixe men 
and f(/riie hurt, so thai our men sent forthwith to me for more 
oelpe, whereupon, considering that the good successe of this enter- 
prise might highly further the commodilie of our voyage, I went 
myselfe, and with the helpc of the king on our side, assaulted the 
lowne, both by land and sea, and very hardly with fire, (their 
houses being covered with dry palme leaves) obtained the lowne, 



entirely abortive, at least, as to the accomplishment 
of their immediate object. 

In the same year, however, in which Frobisher's 
third voyage terminated so unsuccessfully, Sir Wal- 
ter Raleigh, in conjunction with his half-brother and 
kindred t^pirit, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, projected the 
establishment of a colony in that quarter of America 
which the Cabots had visited in the reign of Henry 
VII. ; and a patent for this purpose was procured 
without dilticirlty in" favour of Gilbert, from Eliza- 
beth. As this is the first charter to a colony granted 
by the crown of England, the articles in it merit 
particular attention as they unfold the ideas of that 
age with respect to the nature of such settlements. 
Elizabeth authorizes him to discover and take pos- 
session of all remote and barbarous lands, unoccupied 
by any Christian prince or people ; invests in him 
the fall right of property in the soil of those coun- 
tries wherof he shall take possession ; empowers 
him, his heirs and assigns to dispose of whatever 
portion of tliose lands he shall judge meet, to per- 
sons settled there, in fee simple, according to the 
laws of England ; and ordains that all the lands 
granted to Gilbert shall hold of the crown of Eng- 
land by homage, on payment of the fifth part of the 
gold or silver ore found there. The charter also 
gave Gilbert, his heirs and assigns, full power to con- 
vict, punish, pardon, govern, and rule, by their good 
discretion and policy, as well in causes capital or 
crinrinal as civil, both marine and other, all persons 
who shall, from time to time, settle within the said 
countries ; and declared, that all Avho settled there 
should have and enjoy all the privileges of free deni- 
zens and natives of England, any law, custom, or 
usage to the contrary notwithstanding. And finally, 
it prohibited all persons from attempting to settle 
within two hundred leagues of any place which Sir 
Humphrey Gilbert, or his associates, shall have occu- 
pied during the space of six years.! 

Invested with these extraordinary powers, Gilbert 



H 



and put the inhabitants to flight, where we tooke two hundred and 
fifty jiersons, men, women, and children, and by our friend the 
king of our side, there were taken sixe hundred prisoners, whereof 
we hoped to have had our choice ; but the negro, in which nation 
is seldom or never found truth, meant nothing lesse, for that night 
he rcmooved his campe and prisoners, so that we were faine to 
content us with those few whicli we had gotten ourselves. Now 
had we obtained between four and five hundred negroes, wherwiih 
we thought it somewhat reasonable to seeke the coast of the West 
Indies, and there, for our negroes and our other merchandize, we 
hoped to obtaine, whereof to countervaile our charges with sosne 
gaines." — Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 522. 

t In the reign of Edward VI. it was also the general opiu vn 
that a passage to India might be found by coasting along the noi >h- 
ern shores of Europe; and, when in pursuit of this object. Sir 
Hugh Willoughby and his gallant crew were frozen to deatli. 

t Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 135. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED.STATES. 



19 



began to collect associates, and to prepare I'or em- 
barkation. The first equipment, however, of Sir 
Humphrey, may be said to have failed, even before 
it set out. Being composed in a great measure of 
" voluntary men of diverse dispositions," there was a 
great falling off when it came to the point, and Sir 
Humphrey was at last obliged to set out with only a 
few of his own tried friends. He encountered the 
most adverse weather, and was necessitated to return, 
" with the loss of a tall ship, and, more to his grief, 
of a valiant gentleman. Miles Morgan." This was 
a severe blow, as Sir Humphrey had embarked a 
large portion of his property in this undertaking. 
However, his determination continued unshaken ; 
and by the aid of Sir George Peclvham, Sir Walter 
Raleigh, and other persons of distinction, he was 
enabled to equip another expedition, with which, in 
the year 1583, he again put to sea. 

On the 30th of July, Gilbert discovered land in 
about 51° of north latitude; but, finding nothing 
but bare rocks, he shaped his course to the south- 
ward, and on the 3d of August arrived at St. John's 
harbour, at Newfoundland. There were at that 
time in the harbour thirty.-si.K vessels, belonging to 
various nations, and they refused him entrance ; 
but, on sendins: his boat with the assurance that he 
had no ill design, and that he had a commission from 
(iueen Elizabeth, they submitted, and he sailed into 
the port. Having pitched his tent on shore in sight 
of all the shipping, and being attended by his own 
people, he summoned the merchants and masters of 
vessels to be present at the ceremony of his taking 
possession of the island. When assembled, his com- 
mission was read and interpreted to the foreigners. 
A turf and twig was then delivered to him ; and 
proclamation was immediately made, that, by virtue 
of his commission from the queen, he took possession 
of the harbour of St. John, and two hundred leagues 
every way around it, for the crown of England. He 
then, as the authorized governor, proposed and deli- 
vered three laws, to be in force immediately; by the first, 
public worship was established according to the church 
of England; bythesecond, the attemptingof any thing 
prejudicial to her "majesty's title was declared treason ; 

• Hakluyt has preserved a very masterly performance from the 
pen of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, entitled, " A Discourse to prove a 
Pa'jsage by the North-west, to the East Indies," &c. Although the 
recent expeditions, under Captains Ross and Parry, have fully de- 
monstrated that no passage, of an available nature at least, exists 
between America and the North Pole, it may be interesting to our 
readers lo form some idea of the reasons by which Sir Humphrey 
convinced himself, and endeavoured to persuade others, of the cer- 
tainly of a north-west passage ; we, therefore, extract the contents 
of this discourse : — 

" CiPiTOio I. To prove by autboritie a passage to be on the 



by tlie third, if any person should utter words to the 
dishonour of her majesty, he should lose his ears, 
and have his ship and goods confiscated. When the 
proclamation was finished, obedience was promised 
by tiie general voice, both of Englishmen and stran- 
ger:-.. Not far from the place of meeting, a pillar 
was afterwards erected, upon which were engraved 
the arms of England. For the better establishment 
of tins possession, several parcels of land were granted 
by Sir Humphrey, by which the occupants were gua- 
ranteed grounds convenient to dress and dry their 
fish, of which privilege they had often been debarred, 
by those who had previously entered the harbour. 
For these grounds they covenanted to pay a certain 
rent and service to Sir Humphrey Gilbert, his heirs or 
assigns, for ever, and to maintain possession of them, 
by themselves or assignees. This formal possession, 
in consequence of the discovery by the Cabots, is 
considered the foundation of the right and title of the 
crown of England to the territory of Newfoundland, 
and to the fishery on its banks. Gilbert, intending 
to bring the southern parts of the country within his 
patent, the term of which had now nearly expired, 
hastened to make farther discoveries before his return 
to England. He therefore embarked from St. John's 
harbour with his little fleet, and sailed for the Isle of 
Sable, by the way of Cape Breton^ After spending 
eight days in the navigation from Cape Race towards 
Cape Breton, the ship Admiral was cast away on some 
shoals before any discovery of land, and nearly one 
hundred persons perished ; among these was Stephen 
Parmenius Budeius, a learned Hungarian, who had 
accompanied the adventurers, to record their disco- 
veries and exploits. Two days after this disaster, no 
land yet appearing, the waters being shallow, the 
coast unknown, the navigation dangerous, and the 
provisions scanty, it was resolved to return to Eng- 
land. Changing their course accordingly, they passed 
in sight of Cape Race on the 2d of September ; but 
when they had sailed more than three hundred 
leagues on their way home, the frigate, commanded 
by Sir Humphrey Gilbert himself, foundered in a vio- 
lent storm at midnight, and every soul on board 
perished.* 

north side of America, to goe to Cataia, China, and tc the East 
India. Cap. II. To prove by reason a passage to be on the north 
side of America, to go to Cataia, Moluccae, &c. Cap. III. To 
prove by e.xperience of sundry men's travailes, the opening of lhi.-< 
north-west passage, whereby good hope reraaineth of the rest. 
Cap. IV. To prove by circum.stance, that the north-west passage 
hath bene sailed throughout. Cap. V. To prove that such Indians 
as have bene driven upon the coastes of Germanic came not thilher 
by the south-east and south-west, nor from any part of Afrike oi 
America. Cap. VI. To prove that the Indians aforenamed came 
not by the north-dast, and that there is no thorow passage nav igabie 



20 



HISTORY»OF THE UNITED STATES. 



CHAPTER II. 

HISTORY OF VIRGINIA, FROM ITS SETTLEMENT TO 
THE FRENCH WAR OF 1756. 

Terrible as was the fate of Gilbert and his 
associates, the ardour of Raleigh was not daunted, 
nor his energies depressed. High in favour with 
Elizabeth, he found no difficulty in procuring a pa- 
lent similar to that which had been granted to his 
unfortunate brother. Prompt in the execution, as 
intrepid in the projection of his plans, he speedily 
equipped two small vessels, under Amadas and Bar- 
low, to obtain further information of the coasts, the 
soil, and the inhabitants of the regions he designed 
to colonize. Approaching America by the Gulf of 
Florida, they touched first at the island of Ocakoke, 
which runs parallel to the greater part of North Caro- 
lina, and then at Roanoke, near the mouth of Albe- 
marle Sound. In both they had some intercourse 
with the natives, whom they found to be savages, 
with all the characteristic qualities of uncivilized 
life — bravery, aversion to labour, hospitality, a pro- 
pensity to admire and a willingness to exchange 
their rude productions for English commodities, espe- 
cially for iron, or any of the useful metals of which 
they were destitute. After spending a few weeks in 
this traffic, and in, visitinir some parts of the adjacent 
continent, Amadas and Barlow returned to England, 
and gave a most fervid description of the country 
they had been sent to explore. Their own words, 
as contained in their report to Sir Walter Raleigh," 
will convey a better idea of the mode of narrative 
adopted, and the effect produced, than any language 
of ours. " The soile," say they, " is the most plen- 
tifull, sweete, fruitfull and wholsome of all the 
worlde ; there are above fourteene severall sweete 
smelling timber trees, and the most part of their un- 
derwoods are bayes and such like ; they have those 
okes that we have, but farre greater and better. Af- 
ter they had bene divers times aboord our shippes, 
myselfe, with seven more, went twentie mile into the 
river that runneth towarde the citie of Skicoak, 
which river they call Occam ; and the evening fol- 
lowing, we came to an island, which they call Rao- 

Ihat way. Cap. VII. To prove that these Indians came by the 
north-west, which indnceth a certain'ie of this passage by experi- 
ence. Cap. VIII. What several reasons were alleged before the 
queenes niajestie, and certain lords of her highnesse privie coun- 
cil, by M. Anih. lenkinson, a gentleman of great travailc and ex- 
perience, to prove this passage by the north-east, with my sever.ill 
answeres then alleaged to the same. Cap. IX. How that this pas- 
sage hy the north-west is more commodious for our traffilce, then 
the other by the north-east, if there be any such. Cap. X. What 
commodities would ensue, this passage being once discovered." — 
Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 11. 



noak, distant from the harbour by whicli we entered 
seven leagfues ; and at the north end thereof was a 
village of nine houses, built of cedar, and fortified 
round about with sharpe trees to keep out their ene- 
mies, and the entrance into it made like a turnepike, 
very artificially ; when we came towardes it, stand- 
ing neere unto the waters' side, the wife of Grans:a- 
nimo, the king's brother, came running out to meete 
us very cheerfully and friendly ; her husband was 
not then in the village ; some of her people shee 
commanded to drawe our boate on shore for the 
beating of the billoe, others she appointed to cary us 
on their backes to the dry ground, and others to 
bring our oares into the house for feare of stealing. 
When we were come into the utter roome, having 
five roomes in her house, she caused us to sit down 
by a great fire, and after tooke off" our clothes and 
washed them, and dried them againe ; some of the 
women plucked oflT our stockings, and waslied them, 
some waslied our feete in warm water, and she her- 
self tooke great paines to see all things ordered in 
the best manner she could, making great haste to 
dresse some meate for us to eate. After we had thus 
dryed ourselves, she brought us into the inner roome, 
where shee set on the boord standing along the 
house, some wheate like furmentie ; sodden venison 
and roasted ; fish, sodden, boyled and roasted ; me- 
lons, rawe and sodden ; rootes of divers kindes ; and 
divers fruites. Their drinke is commonly water, but 
while the grape lasteth, they drinke wine, and for 
want of caskes to keepe it, all the yere after they 
drink water, but it is sodden with ginger in it, and 
black sinamon, and sometimes sassaphras, and divers 
other wholesome and medicinable hearbes and trees. 
We were entertained with all love and kindnesse, 
and with as much bountie, after their maner, as they 
could possibly devise. We found the people most 
gentle, loving, and faithfull, voide of all guile and 
treason, and such as live after the maner of the 
golden age. The people onely care howe to defend 
themselves from the cold in their short winter, and. to 
feed themselves with such meat as the soile affbreth ; 
their meat is very well sodden, and they make broth 
very sweet and savorie ; their vessels are earthen 



Ahhough the lapse of time has evinced the futility of the specu- 
lation of Gilbert, the style of this treatise places this author on a 
level with the most distinguished writers of this age. In the 
Senate he was admired for his eloquence, not less than for his 
patriotism and integrity ; but the most interesting feature in his 
character was the strength of his piety. In the extremity of dan- 
ger at sea, he was observed sitting unmoved, with a bible in his 
hand, and heard to say, " Courage, my lads ! we are as near hea 
ven at sea as at land." 

• Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 248, 24B. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



21 



pots, very large, white, and sweete ; their dishes are 
wooden platters of sweet timber. Within the place 
where they feede was their lodging, and within that 
their idoU, which they worship, of whom they speake 
incredible things. While we were at meate, there 
fame in at the gates two or three men with their 
bowes and arrowes from hunting, whom, when we 
espied, we beganne to looke one towardes another, 
and offered to reach our weapons ; but as soone as 
shee espied our mistrust, shee was very much mooved, 
and caused some of her men to runne out, and take 
away their bowes and arrowes and breake them, and 
withal), beate che poore fellowes out of the gate 
againe. When we departed in the evening, and 
would not tarry all night, she was very sory, and 
gave US into our boate our supper half dressed, pottes 
and all, and brought us to our boate side, in which 
we lay all night, removing the same a prettie dis- 
tance from the shoare ; shee perceiving our jelousie, 
was much grieved, and sent divers men and thirtie 
women to sit all night on the banke-side by us, and 
sent us into our boates five mattes, to cover us from 
the raine, using very many wordes to intreate us to 
rest in their houses ; but because we were fewe men, 
and if we had miscarried the voy^e had bene in 
very great danger, we durst not adventure any thing, 
although there was no cause of doubt, for a more 
kinde and loving people there cannot be found in the 
worlde, as far as we have hitherto had triall." 

Delighted with the prospect of possessing a terri- 
tory so far superior to any hitherto visited by her 
subjects, Elizabeth was pleased to honour both the 
newly discovered country and herself, by bestowing 
upon it the title of Virginia. 

These favourable circumstances not only encou- 
raged the enterprising spirit of Raleigh, but, by their 
effect on public opinion, assisted him in his arrange- 
ments to form a permanent settlement ; and he was 
soon enabled to despatch seven ships, under the com- 
mand of Sir Richard Grenville, one of the most 
valorous spirits of the age, with Ralph Lane, as 
governor of the colony, accompanied by Heriot, a 
mathematician of celebrity, and some other men of 
science. Sailing from Plymouth on the 9th of April, 
they proceeded to , Virgmia by the way of the West 
Indies, and, having narrowly escaped shipwreck at 
Cape Fear, anchored at Wocokon, on the 26th of 



• " Most thingrs they saw -with its, as mathematicalt instruments, 
sea-compasses, the vertue of the loadstone, perspective glasses, 
burning glasses, clocks to goe of themselves, booke.s, writing, guns, 
and such like, so far exceeded their capacities, that they thought 
they were rather the workes of gods then men, or at least the gods 
had taught us how to make them, which loved us so much belter 
than them ; and caused many of them to give credit to what we 
Bpake concerning our God. In all places where I came, I did my 



June. From this island Grenville went to the con- 
tinent, accompanied by several gentlemen, and disco- 
vered various Indian towns. He then proceeded to 
Cape Hatteras, where he Avas visited by Granganimo, 
the prince seen by Amadas and Barlow the preceding 
year ; and having viewed the island of Roanoke, he 
embarked for England, leaving one hundred and 
seven persons under the government of Mr. Lane, to 
form a plantation, and to commence the first English 
colony ever planted in America. The chief employ- 
ment of this party, during their year's residence in the 
New World, consisted in obtaining a more correct 
and extensive knowledge of the country ; a pursuit 
in which the persevering abilities of Heriot were ex- 
ercised with peculiar advantage.. His unremitting 
endeavours to instruct the savages, and diligent in- 
quiries into their habits and character, by adding to 
the stock of human knowledge, rendered the expedi- 
tion not wholly unproductive of benefit to mankind. 
He endeavoured to avail himself of the admiration 
expressed by the savages for the guns, the clock, the 
telescopes, and other implements that attested the 
superiority of the colonists, in order to lead their 
minds to the great source of all sense and science." 
But, unfortunately, the majority of the colonists were 
much less distinguished by piety or prudence, than 
by a vehement impatience to acquire svidden wealth: 
their first pursuit was gold ; and eagerly listening to 
the agreeable fictions of the natives, the adventurers 
consumed their time, and endured amazing hardships, 
in pursuit of a phantom, to the utter neglect of the 
means of providing for their future subsistence. The 
stock of provisions brought from England was ex- 
hausted ; and the colony, reduced* to the utmost dis- 
tress, was preparing to disperse into different districts 
of the country in quest of food, when Sir Francis 
Drake appeared with his fleet, returning from a suc- 
cessful expedition against the Spaniards in the West 
Indies. A scheme which he formed, of furnishing 
Lane and his associates with such supplies as might 
enable them to remain with comfort in their station, 
was disappointed by a sudden storm, in which the 
vessel he had destined for their service was dashed 
to pieces ; and as he could not supply them with 
another, at their joint request, as they were worn out 
with fatigue and famine, he carried them home to 
England.t 



best to make his immortall glory kno-n-ne ; and I told them, although 
the bible I shewed them contained all, yet of itselfe, it was not of 
anv such vertue as I thought they did conceive. Notwithsland-ug, 
many would be glad to touch it, to kisse, and embrace it, to hold 
it to their breasts and heads, and stroke all their body over with 
it."_Smith's History of Virginia, p. II. 
t Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 255—280. 



22 



fflSTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



CO 



Had the Virginia adventurers, however, remained 
but a httle time longer at their plantation, they would 
have received supplies from home ; for, a few days 
after their departure, a ship, sent by Sir Walter Ra- 
leigh to their relief, arrived at Hatteras, and made 
diligent search for them, but, not finding them, re- 
turned to England. Within a few days after this 
ship had left the coast, Sir Richard Grenville arrived 
at Virginia with three new vessels laden with provi- 
sions. Searching in vain for the colony that he 
planted, but yet unwilling to lose possession of the 
country, he left fifty* of his crew to keep possession 
of the island of Roanoke, and returned to England. 
This was, indeed, but an inauspicious ccJmmencement 
for English attempts at ti-ansatlantic colonization ; 
but, though its immediate results did not realize the 
high expectations which had been formed, its conse- 
quences were indirectly very beneficial. It gave 
Heriot opportunity to describe its soil, climate, pro- 
ductions, and the manners of its inhabitants, with a 
degree of accuracy which merits no inconsiderable 
praise, when compared with the childish and marvel- 
lous tales published by several of the early visitants 
of the New World. Another consequence of this 
abortive colomr fs important enough to entitle it to a 
place in hislo)/. Lane and his associates, by their 
constant iiitercdurse with the Indians, had acquired a 
relish for Vu^±l favourite enjoyment of smoking to- 
bacco ; to the use of which, the credulity of that 
people not only ascribed a thousand imaginary virtues, 
but their superstition considered" the plant itself as a 
gracious gift of the gods, for the solace of human 
kind, and the most acceptable offering which man can 
present to heaven.* They brought with them a spe- 
cimen of this new commodity to England, and taught 
their countiymen the method of using it ; which 
Raleigh and some young men of fashion fondly 
adopted. From its being deemed a fashionable ac- 
quirement, and from the favourable opinion of its 
salutary qualities entertained by several physicians, 
the practice of smoking spread rapidly among the 
English ; and by a singular caprice of the human 
species, no less inexplicable than unexampled, it has 
become almost as universal as the demands of those 
appetites originally implanted in our nature. 

Amidst all the discourasfing- circumstances with 
which the settlement of Virginia was attended, Ra- 
leigh still remained devotedly attached to the object ; 
and early in the year 1587, equipped another com- 
pany of adventurers, incorporated by the title of the 
Borough of Raleigh, in Virginia. John White was 

• Hakluyt says fifteen, but Smith fifty, which is the more pro- 
bable ntunber. 



constituted governor, in whom, with a council of 
twelve persons, the legislative power was vested. 
They were directed to plant at the bay of Chesapeake, 
and to erect a fort there. This expedition sailed from 
Plymouth on ths 8th of May, and about the 16th of 
July fell in with the Virginian coast. Arriving at 
Hatteras on the 22d of July, the governor, with a 
select party, proceeded to Roanoke, and landed at 
that part of the island where the men were left the 
year preceding ; but discovered no signs of them, 
excepting the bones 'of one man, who had been slain 
by the savages. The next day the governor and 
several of his company went to the north end of the 
island, where Lane had erected his fort, and had built 
several decent dwelling houses, hoping to obtain some 
intelligence of his fellow-countrymen ; biU, on com- 
ing to the place, and finding the fort razed, and all 
the houses, though standing unhurt, overgrown with 
weeds and vines, and deer feeding within them ; they 
returned, in despair of ever seeing the objects of their 
research alive. Orders were given the same day for 
the repair of the houses, and for the erection of new 
cottages ; and all the colony, consisting of one hun- 
dred and seventeen persons, soon after landed, and 
commenced a second plantation. In the month of 
August, Manteo, a friendly Indian, who had been to 
England, was baptized in Roanoke, according to a 
previous order of Sir Walter Raleigh ; and. in reward 
of his faithful service to the English, was called lord 
of Roanoke. About the same period, Mrs. Dare, 
daughter of the governor, and wife of one of the 
assistants, was delivered of a daughter in Roanoke, 
and baptized the next Lord's day by the name of Vir- 
ginia, being the first English child born in the coun- 
try. 

Before the close of the month of August, at the 
urgent solicitation of the whole colony, the governor 
sailed for England to procure supplies. Unfortu- 
nately, on his arrival, the nation was wholly engrossed 
by the expected invasion of the grand Spanish Ar- 
mada ; and Sir Richard Grenville, who was preparing 
to sail for Virginia, received notice that his services 
were wanted at home. Raleigh, however, contrived 
to send out White with two more vessels ; but they 
were attacked by a Spanish ship of war, and so 
severely shattered, that they were obliged to return. 
It was not till 1590 that another expedition reached 
Virginia, when they beheld a similarly dreadful scene 
to that which had been presented on the former oc- 
casion. The houses were demohshed, though still 
surrounded by a palisade ; and a great part of the 
stores was found buried in the earth ; but as no trace 
was ever found of this unfortunate colony, there is 



/ 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



23 



every reason to apprehend that the whole must have 
miserably perished.* Thus terminated the noble and 
persevering efforts of Raleigh in the western hemi- 
sphere ; in which he sent out in four years several 
expeditions, at a cost of £40,000, without any pro- 
fitable return. It cannot be a matter of surprise, 
therefore, that he should be induced to assign his 
right of property in that country, with all the privi- 
leges of his patent, to other hands, especially as he 
was engaged in several other projects wliich now 
-resented, to his imagination at least, a much more 
jromising appearance. Sir Thomas Smith, and a 
lompany of mercantile men, were invested with the 
patent ; but, finding it difficult, probably, to procure 
emigrants for a spot which had proved the grave of 
so many of their brave companions, they satisfied 
themselves with the traffic carried on by a few small 
barks, and made no attempt to take possession of the 
country. Thus, after a period of a hundred and six 
years from the time that Cabot discovered North 
America in the service of Henry VII., and of twenty 
years from the time that Raleigh planted the first 
colony, not a single Englishman remained in the New 
World ; and the colonization of America awaited the 
energy of a new impulse. 

In the last year of Elizabeth, the voyage of Bar- 
tholomew Gosnold tended to revive the spirit of emi- 
gration. He set sail in a small bark from Falmouth, 
with thirty-two persons, for the northern parts of 
Virginia, with the design of beginning a plantation. 
Instead of making the unnecessary circuit by the 
Canaries and West Indies, he steered, as steadily as 
the winds would permit, due west, and acquired the 
honour of being the first Englishman who came in a 
direct course to this part of America. t After a pas- 
sage of seven weeks, he descried the American coast; 
and sailing along the shore, arrived at a head land, 
in the latitude of 42°, where they came to anchor. 
Having taken a great number of cod at this place, 
they designated it Cape Cod. On the day following 

* Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 281—294. Murray, vol. i. p. 204. " And 
thus we left seeking our colony, that was never any of them found, 
nor seene to this day, 1622. And this was the conclusion of this 
plantation, after so much time, labour, and charge consumed; 
whereby we see, 

' Not all at once, nor all alike, nor ever hath if beene. 
That God doth offer and confer his blessings upon men.' " 

Smith, p. 16. 

t Smith (Hist. Vir^. p. 16) says, " this course was shorter than 
heretofore by five hundred leagues." — Belknap, Biog. vol. i. p. 231 ; 
ii. 100. Robertson, b. 9. 

t " Point Care is supposed by Dr. Belknap to be Makbarre, or 
Sandy Point, forming the south-ea'Stern extremity of the county of 
Barnstable, in Massachusetts. Martha's Vineyard was not the is- 
land which now bears that name, but a small island, now called 
No-Man's Land. Dover Cli/f was Gay Bead. Gosnold's Hope 



they coasted the land southerly ; and, in attempting 
to double a point, came suddenly into shoal water, at 
a place they called Point Care. On the 24th they 
discovered an island, which they called Dover C'lifl"; 
and the next day came to anchor, a quarter of a mile 
from the shore, in a large bay they termed Gosnold's 
Hope. On the northern side of it was the main ; 
and on the southern, four leagues distant, was a large 
island, which, in honour of the queen, they deter- 
mined should bear the name of Elizabeth. Consult- 
ing together on a fit place for a plantation, they 
concluded to settle on the western part of this island. 
In it they found a small lake of fresh water, tv\'0 
miles in circumference, in the centre of which was a 
rocky islet ; and here they began to erect a fort and 
storehouse. While the men were occupied in this 
work, Gosnold crossed the bay in his vessel, went on 
shore, trafficked amicably with the natives, and, 
having discovered the mouth of two rivers, returned 
to the island. t In nineteen days the fort and store- 
house were finished ; but discontents arising among 
those who were to have remained in the country, the 
design of a settlement was relinquished, § and the 
whole company returned to England.il 

However inconsiderable this voyage may appear, 
its results were by no means insignificant. It was 
now discovered that the aspect of America was very 
inviting far north of any portion the English had 
hitherto attempted to settle. The coast of a vast 
country, stretching through the most desirable cli- 
mates, lay before them. The richness of its virgin 
soil promised a certain recompense to their industry. 
In its interior provinces unexpected sources of wealth 
might open, and unknown objects of commerce might 
be found. Its distance from England was diminished 
almost a third by the new course which Gosnold had 
pointed out ; and plans for establishing colonies began 
to be formed in different parts of the kingdom. The 
accession of James to the English crown was also 
highly favourable to the colonization of America, and 

was Buzzard's Bay. The narrator in Purchas says, ' it is one of 
the stateliest sounds that ever I was in.' Elizabeth Island was the 
westernmost of the islands which now bear the name of Elizabeth 
Islands. One of the two rivers discovered by Gosnold, was that 
near which lay Hap's Hill ; and the other, that on the banks of 
which the town of New Bedford is now built." — Holmes's Annals 
of America, vol. i. p. 118. 

§ " The I3th beganne some of our corapanie that before vowed 
to stay, to make revolt ; whereupon, the planters diminishing, all 
was given over."— Purchas. " In 1797, Dr. Belknap, with several 
other gentlemen, went to the spot which was selected by Gosnold's 
comjiany on Elizabeih Island, and had the supreme satisfaction to 
find the cellar of Gosnold's storehouse ; the stones of which were 
evidently taken from the neighbouring beach ; the rocks of the 
islet being less moveable, and lying in ledges."— Belknap. Biog, 
vol. ii. p. 115. 

II Smith's Hist. Virg. p. 16—18. 



24 



fflSTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



fatal to the illustrious projector of this design. Peace 
was immediately concluded with Spain ; and Eng- 
land, in the enjoyment of uninterrupted tranquillity, 
was enabled to direct to more bloodless pursuits the 
energies matured in a war which had strongly excited 
the spirit of the nation without impairing its strength. 
These projects were powerfully aided by the judi- 
cious counsel and zealous encouragement of Richard 
Hakluyt, prebendary of Westminster, a man of emi- 
nent attainments in naval and commercial knowledge, 
the patron and counsellor of many of the English 
expeditions of discovery, and the historian of their 
exploits. By his persuasion, two vessels were fitted 
out by the merchants of Bristol, to examine the dis- 
coveries of Gosnold, and ascertain the correctness of 
his statements. They returned with an ample con- 
firmation of his veracity. A similar expedition, 
equipp<^d and despatched by Lord Arundel, not only 
produced additional testimony to the same effect, but 
reported so many additional particulars in favour of 
the country, that all doubts were removed ; and an 
association sufficiently numerous, wealthy, and pow- 
erful, to attempt a settlement, being soon formed, a 
petition was presented to the king for the sanction of 
his authority to its being carried into efl'ect. 

Fond of directing the active genius of his English 
subjects towards occupations not repugnant to his 
own pacific maxims, Jam.es listened with a favoura- 
ble ear to the application. But as the extent as well 
as value of the American continent began now to be 
better known, a grant of the whole of such a vast 
region to any one body of men, however respectable, 
appeared to him an act of impolitic and profuse 
liberality. For this reason he divided that portion 
of North America, which stretches from tlin thirty- 
fourth to the fifty-fifth degree of latitude, into two 
districts nearly equal ; the one called the first or 
south colony of Virginia, the other, the second or 
north colony. He authorized Sir Thomas Gates, 
Sir George Summers, Richard Hakluyt, and their 
associates, mostly resident in London, to settle any 
part of the former which they should choose, and 
vested in them a right of property to the land extend- 
ing along the coast fifty miles on each side of the 
place of their first habitation, and reaching into the 
interior country a hundred miles. The latter district 
he allotted, as the place of settlement to sundry 
knights, gentlemen, and merchants of Bristol, Ply- 
mouth, and other parts of the west of England, with 
a similar grant of territory. The supreme govern- 
ment of the colonies that were to be settled, was 

• Stith, Virg. Appendix, No. 1, and Hazard, Coll. vol.i. p. SO- 
BS, contain entire copies of this patent. 



vested in a council, resident in England, named by 
the king, with laws and ordinances given under his 
sign manual ; and the subordinate jurisdiction waa 
committed to a council, resident in America, which 
was also nominated by the king, and to act conform- 
ably to his instructions. The charter, while it thus 
restricted the emigrants in the important article of 
internal regulation, secured to them and their de- 
scendants all the rights of denizens, in the same 
manner as if they had remained or had been born in 
England ; and granted them the privilege of holding 
their lands in America by the freest and least bur- 
densome tenure. The king permitted whatever was 
necessary for the sustenance or commerce of the new 
colonies to be exported from England, during the 
space of seven years, without paying any duty ; and, 
as a farther incitement to industry, he granted them 
liberty of trade with other nations ; and appropriated 
the duty to be levied on foreign commodities, as a 
fund for the benefit of the colonies, for the period of 
twenty-one years. He also granted them liberty of 
coining for their own use, of repelling enemies, and 
of detaining ships that should trade there without 
their permission.* " In this singular charter," says 
Robertson, "the contents of which have been little 
attended to by the historians of America, some articles 
are as unfavourable to the rights of the colonists as 
others are to the interest of the parent state. By 
placing the legislative and executive powers in a 
council nominated by the crown, and guided by its 
instructions, every person settling in America seems 
to be bereaved of the noblest privilege of a free man ; 
by the unlimited permission of trade with foreigners, 
the parent state is deprived of that exclusive com- 
merce which has been deemed the chief advantage 
resulting from the establishment of colonies. But in 
the infancy of colonization, and without the guidance 
of observation or experience, the ideas of men, with 
respect to the mode of forming new settlements, were 
not fully unfolded or properly arranged. At a period 
when they could not foresee the future grandeur and 
importance of the communities which they were 
about to call into existence, they were ill qualified to 
concert the best plan for governing them. Besides, 
the English of that age, accustomed to the high pre- 
rogative and arbitrary rule of their monarchs, were 
not animated with such liberal sentiments, either 
concerning their own personal or political rights, as 
have become familiar in the more mature and im- 
proved state of their constitution ."T 

We may regard the colonies of North and South 



t History of America, b. ix. p. 290. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



25 



Virginia, or Virginia and New England, as they were 
Bubsequently denominated, as forming, from this 
period, the subject of two distinct and continuous 
histories , that of the former, being earliest in point 
of time, will continue to occupy our attention during 
the remainder of this chapter. 

The proprietors of the royal patent lost no time in 
carrying their plans into effect. It cannot, however, 
be said, that they commenced their operations on a 
scale at all worthy of the magnitude of the under- 
taking, as their fleet consisted only of three ships, 
conveying one hundred emigrants ; and, although 
some persons of rank were among the number of 
proprietors, their pecuniary resources were but 
scanty. The charge of this embarkation was com- 
mitted to Christopher Newport, already famous for 
his skill in western navigation. He sailed from the 
Thames on the 20th of December, 1606, having, in 
a sealed box, the royal instructions, and the names 
of the intended colonial council, with orders not to 
break the seal till twenty-four hours after the expe- 
dition had effected a landing ; to which singular 
policy, may be attributed the dissensions which soon 
commenced among the leaders, and which continued 
to distract them during a voyage long and disas- 
trous.* Captain Newport had designed to land at 
Roanoke ; but fortunately, being driven by a storm 
to the northward, he stood into the spacious bay of 
Chesapeake, that grand reservoir into which are 
poured almost countless tributaries, which not only 
fertilize the country through which they flow, but 
open to it a commercial intercourse which can 
scarcely be said to be surpassed in any portion of the 
globe. The promontory on the south of the bay 
was named Cape Henry, in honour of the prince of 
Wales ; and that on the north. Cape Charles, after 
the then duke of York. At night the box, contain- 
ing the sealed instructions, was opened, in which 
Bartholomew Gosnold, John Smith, Edward Wing- 
field, Christopher Newport, John Ratcliffe, John 
Martin, and George Kendall, were constituted the 
council of government, with power to elect a presi- 
dent from among their number. The adventurers 
were employed in seeking a place for settlement until 



• Cha'.mers, Political Annals, b. i. c. 2. " Their animosities 
weie powerfully inflamed by an arrangement which, if it did nnt 
originate with the king, at least evinces a strong affinity to thai 
ostentatious mystery and driftless artifice which he affected as the 
peileclion of political dexterity." — Grahame, vol. i. p. 47. 

f " It would perhaps be difficult to find any individual who ex- 
peri ;nccd more gallant adventures and daring enterprises, of a 
higl ly romantic character, in various countries, than Captain 
Smith. His life, without any fictitious additions, might easily be 
taken for a mere romaace. He appears to have possessed many 
grcit qualities, and to have been deficient in nothing but that mean 



the thirteenth of May, when they took possession of 
a peninsula, on the north side of the river Powhatan, 
called by the emigrants James River, about forty 
miles from us mouth. To make room for their pro- 
jected town, they commenced clearing away the 
forest, which had for centuries afforded shelter and 
food to the natives. The members of the council, 
while they adhered to their orders in the choice of 
their president, on the most frivolous pretences ex- 
cluded from a seat among them, the individual, who 
was probably of all others the best fitted for the office, 
Captain Smith,t though nominated by the same in- 
strument from which they derived their authority. 
His superior talents, and the fame he had previously 
acquired in war, excited their envy, while possibly 
they induced him to assume, that a greater deference 
was due to his opinion than his coadjutors were 
willing to admit. At length, however, by the prudent 
exliortations of Mr. Hunt, their chaplain, the animo- 
sities which had arisen were composed. Smith was 
adtnitted into the council, and they all turned their 
undivided attention to the government of the colony. 
In honour of their monarch, they called the town, 
the erection of which they now commenced, James 
Town. Thus was formed the first permanent colony 
of the English in America. 

The vicinity of the settlement was a vast wilder- 
ness, though a luxuriant one, inhabited by a race of 
Indian savages, possessing both the virtues and the 
vices peculiar to their state. At first, they treated 
the colonists with kindness ; but misunderstandings, 
from various causes, ere long interrupted the peace, 
and annoyed the proceedings of the English. Nor 
was the hostility of the natives the only occasion of 
discomfort ; the extreme heat of the summer, and the 
intense cold of the succeeding winter, were alike fatal 
to the colonists. From May to September, fifty per- 
sons died, among whom was Bartholomew Gosnold, 
a member of the council! The storehouse at James 
Town accidentally taking fire, the town, thatched 
with reeds, burned with such violence, that the forti- 
fications, arms, apparel, bedding, and a great quantity 
of private goods and provision, were consumed. 

These distresses naturally led them to reflect upon 



cunning and sordid spirit, by the aid of which inferior men were 
able to thwart his views, and deprive him of those stations and 
re«'ards which his services amply merited. He was one of the 
earliest and most ardent of those who undertook the settlement of 
Virginia; his bravery and capacity more than once saved that in- 
fanl^colony from destruction, and kept the enterprise from being 
abandoned for several vears, though the absurdity of the schemes, 
and the profligacy, folly, and dishonesty of those who were to ex- 
ecute them, exposed the colony for many years to every caiamicy, 
and often brought it to the brink of ruin."— North American Re- 
view, vol. iv. p. 146. 



26 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



iheir situation ; and having become sensible of their 
injustice to Smitli, his personal talents and activity 
were, in their adversity, appealed to with that regard 
and deference which, in prosperous times, are yielded 
only to vested authority and official station. From 
some unaccountable jealousy on the part of the go- 
vernor, the fort had been left in an unprotected state, 
but, by the advice of Smith, it was now put into a 
state to defend them against the attacks of the Indians. 
To procure provisions and explore the country, he 
made frequent and distant excursions into the wilder- 
ness. In one of tliese, he seized an Indian idol, made 
with skins stuffed with moss, for the redemption of 
which as much corn was brought him as he required. 
Some tribes he gained by caresses and presents, and 
procured from them a supply of provisions ; others he 
attacked with open force, and defeating them on 
every occasion, whatever their superiority in numbers 
might be, compelled them to impart to him some por- 
tion of their winter stores. As the recompense of all 
his toils and dangers, he saw abundance and content- 
ment re-established in the colony, and hoped tliat he 
should be able to maintain them in that happy 
state, until the arrival of ships from England in the 
spring. But in the midst of his energetic measures, 
while exploring the source of the river Chickahominy, 
he was surprised and attacked by a party of Indians. 
He defended himself bravely until his companions 
were killed, when he took to flight ; but running in- 
cautiously, he sunk up to his shoulders in a swamp, 
and was taken prisoner. The exulting savages con- 
ducted him in triumph through several towns to 
Werowocomoco, where Powhatan, their king, resided 
in state, with a strong guard of Indians around him. 
When the prisoner entered the apartment of the 
sovereign, all the people gave a shout. The queen 
of Appamatuck was appointed to bring him water to 
wash his hands ; and another person brought a bunch 
of feathers, instead of a towel, to dry them. Having 
feasted him in their best manner, they held a Ion? 
consultation, at the conclusion of which, two great 
stones were brought before Powhatan. Smith had 
now reason to consider his career as drawing to a 
close ; by the united efforts of the attendants, he was 
forcibly dragged, his head laid upon one of the stones, 
and the mighty club up-raised, a few blows from 



• Smith's Hist. Virg. p. 49. 

t " So to lames Tomie with twelve guides Powhatan sent him. 
That night they quarter J in the woods, he still expecting (as he had 
done all this long time of his imprisonment) every hoiire to be put 
to one death or other, for all their feasting. But Almightie God 
(by his divine providence) had mollified xke hearts of those sterne 
barbarians with compassion. The next morning betimes they 
came to the fort, where Smith having used the salvages with what 
kindnesse he could, he showed Rawhunt, Powhatan's trusty ser- 



which were to terminate his existence. But a very 
unexpected interposition now took place. Pocahontas, 
the favourite daughter of Powhatan, was seized with 
emotions of tender pity, and ran up to her father, 
pathetically pleading for the hfe of the stranger. 
When all entreaties were lost on that stern and 
savage potentate, she hastened to Smith, snatched his 
head in her arms, and laid her own on his, declaring 
that the fiust blow must fall upon her. The heart 
even of a savage father was at last melted, and Pow- 
hatan granted to his favourite daughter the life oi 
Smith.*" 

It appears at first to have been the intention, of the 
savage monarch to have detained the captive, and 
employed him in manufacturing utensils and orna- 
ments for his majesty's use ; but from some' cause he 
speedily changed his mind, and in two days after his 
deliverance, sent him, to his high gratification, with 
a guard of twelve of his trusty followers, to James 
Town, upon condition that he should remit two culve- 
rins and a millstone as his ransom. t 

After an absence of seven weeks. Smith arrived 
barely m time to save the colony from being aban- 
doned. His associates, reduced to the number of 
thirty-eight, impatient of farther stay in a country 
where they had met with so many discouragements, 
were preparing to return to England ; and it was not 
without the utmost difficulty, and alternately employ- 
ing persuasion, remonstrance, and even violent inter- 
ference, that Smith prevailed with them to relinquish 
their design. Pocahontas, persevering in her gene- 
rous designs, continued to supply the colony with 
provisions till a vessel arrived from England with 
supplies. Having preserved the settlement during 
the winter by his active exertions and his careful 
management. Smith embraced the earliest opportunity, 
in the following manner, to explore the extensive and 
multifarious ramifications of the Chesapeake. In an 
open barge, with fourteen persons, and but a scanty 
stock of provisions, he traversed the whole of that 
vast extent of water from Cape Henry, where it meets 
the ocean, to the rii'er Susquehannah ; trading with 
some tribes of Indians, and fighting with others. He 
discovered and named many small islands, creeks, 
and inlets ; sailed up many of the great rivers ; and 
explored the inland parts of the countrj'. During 

vant, two demi-culverings and a mill-stone to carrj' Powhatan ; 
they found Ihem somewhat too heavie, but when they did see him 
discharge them, being loaded with stones, among the boughs Qf a 
great tree loaded with isickles, the yce and branches came so tum- 
bling downe, that the poore salvages ran away halfe aead with 
feare. But at last we regained some conference with them, and 
gave them such toyes, and sent to Powhatan, his women, and chil- 
dren, such presents as gave them in generail full content.". -Smith's 
Hist. Virg. p. 49 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



27 



this enterpri-ie, the Susquehannah Indians Adsiu^d him, 
End made him presents. At this early period they 
tad hatcliets, and utensils of iron and brass, which, 
by their own account, originally came from the 
French of Canada. After sailing about three thou- 
sand miles, Smith returned to James Town. Having 
made careful observations during this excursion of 
discovery, he drew a map of Chesapeake Bay, with its 
tributary rivers, annexing to it a description of the 
countries, and of the nations inhabiting them, and 
sent it to the council in England.* 

The superior abilities of Smith had now been so 
manifestly subservient to the general welfare, that 
they had silenced, at least, the malignity of envy and 
faction, and although it waii comparatively a short 
period since he had been so unjustly calunmiated, 
and deprived of his seat at the council-board, inmie- 
diately after his return from his voyage, he was, by 
the election of the council and the request of the 
settlers, invested with the government, and received 
letters-patent to be president of the colony. The 
wisdom of his administration inspired confidence, its 
vigour commanded obedience, and the military exer- 
cises, which he obliged all to perform, struck the 
Indians with astonishment, and inspired them with 
aTre.t 

The colony continued to proceed, under the ad- 
ministration of President Smith, as favourably as the 
nature of its materials would permit. They were, 
indeed, by no means of the most desirable description, 
being chiefly " poor gentlemen, tradesmen, serving- 
men, libertines, and such like, ten times more fit to 
spoil a commonwealth than either to begin or main- 
lain one." As they went out usually ■with extrava- 
gant hopes of sudden and brilliant wealth, they paid 
little regard to any solid or substantial pursuit, and 
scorned even the slight labour which was necessary 
to draw subsistence from this fertile soil. The 
caprice and suspicion of the Indians also assailed 
him with numberless trials. Even Powhatan, not- 
withstanding the friendly ties that united him to his 
ancient guest, was induced, by the treacherous arti- 
fices of certain Dutchmen, who deserted to him from 



• This map was made with such admirable exactness, that it is 
the original from which all subsequent maps and descriptions of 
Virgfoia have been chiefly copied. In Purehas, and in some 
copies of Smith's History of Virginia, his own original map is 
still to be found, but it is rery rare. 

t " About this time there was a marriage betwiit lohn Laydon 
and Anne Burras, which was the first marriage we had in Virgi- 
nia." — Smith's Hist. Virg. p. 73. 

t Copies of this second charter, containing the names of the 
proprietors, are preserved in Stith, Virg. Appendix, No. ii. and in 
Haza d. Coll. i. 58 — 72. By this charter the company was made 
" nne Body or Commonalty perpetual," and incorporated by the 
aame of " The Treasurer and Company of Adveninrers and 



James Town, first to form a secret conspiracy, and 
then to excite and prepare open hostility against the 
colonists. Some of the fraudful designs of the royal 
savage were revealed by the unabated kindness of 
Pocahontas, others were detected by Captain Smith, 
and from them all he contrived to extricate the co- 
lony with honour and success, and yet with little 
and only defensive bloodshed. But Smith was not 
permitted to complete the work he had so honourably 
begun. His administration was unacceptable to the 
company in England, for the same reasons that ren- 
dered it beneficial to the settlers in America. The 
patentees, very little concerned about the establish- 
ment of a happy and respectable society, had eagerly 
counted on the accumulation of sudden wealth by 
the discovery of a shorter passage to the South Sea, 
or the acquisition of. territory replete with mines of 
the precious metals. In these hopes they had been 
hitherto disappointed ; and the state of affairs in the 
colony was far from betokening even the retribution 
of their heavy expenditure. 

The company of South Virginia, therefore, treated 
for, and obtained from king James a new charter 
with more ample privileges.* This measure added 
materially to the list of proprietors, among whom we 
find some of the most respectable and wealthy, not 
only of the commoners, but of the peers of the realm. 
The council of the new company appointed Lord 
Delaware governor of Yirginia for life ; Sir Thomas 
Gates, his lieutenant ; Sir George Soniers, admiral ; 
and Christopher Newport, vice-admiral ; and fitted 
out seven ships, attended by two small vessels, having 
on board fire hundred emigrants. Lord Delaware 
did not, however, accompany this expedition, not 
from any want of attachment to the cause, but from 
a desire to preside for a period over the council at 
home, and to make more efiicient arrangements for 
further reinforcements. The ship in which the three 
other oflicers? sailed, becoming separated from tho 
rest of the fleet in a violent storm, was wrecked on 
the Bermudas Islands, where all the company, con- 
sisting of one hundred and fifty persons, were provi- 
dentially saved. One small vessel was lost in the 

Planters of the City of London, for the First Colony in Virginia." 
Charter. To them were now granted in absolute properly, what 
seem formerly to have been conveyed only in trust, the lands e.t- 
tending from Cape Comfort along the sea coast southward, two 
hundred miles; from the same promontory two hundred miles 
northward ; and from the Atlantic westward to the South Sea ; 
and also all the islands Ij-ing within one hundred miles along the 
coast of both seas of the aforesaid precinct.— Chalmers. 

§ Each of these had a commission ; and the first who should 
arrive, was authorized to recall the commission that had been 
granted for the government of the colony ; but " because they 
could not agree for place, it was concluded they should go all in 
one ship."— Smith's Hist Virg. p. 89. 



2S 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



sturin ; the other ships, much damaged and distressed, 
arri"ed aboi.i the middle of August at James river ; 
but so little were they expected, that when they were 
lirst descried at sea, they were mistaken for enemies ; 
and these apprehensions, which were dissipated by 
the nearer approach of the fleet, only gave place to 
mora substantial and more formidable evils, arising 
from the composition of the reinforcement which it 
brought to the colonial body.* A great proportion 
of these new emigrants consisted of profligate and 
licentious youths ; indigent gentlemen, too proud to 
beg, and too lazy to work ; idle retainers ; depend- 
ants too infamous to be decently protected at home, 
less fitted to found a commonwealth than to destroy 
one. In fact, the whole colony was speedily involved 
in distress and disorder by the anarchical state intro- 
duced by their pride and folly, while the Indian 
tribes were alienated and exasperated by their turbu- 
lence and injustice. 

A systematic design was now meditated against 
the whole colony by the sovereign of the country; 
but it was providentially discovered and frustrated. 
Pocahontas, the tutelary friend of Virginia, though 
but a child of thirteen years of age, went in a very 
dark and dreary night to .Tames Town, and, at the 
hazard of her life, disclosed to the president a plot 
of her father to kill him and all the English. This 
timely notice put the colony on its guard ; and some 
favourable occurrences soon after contributed still 
farther toward its preservation. An Indian, appa- 
rently dead through the effect of a charcoal fire in a 
close room, was, on the application of vinegar and 
aqua vitce by the president, reanimated. This sup- 
posed miracle, with an explosion of powder, which 
killed two or three Indians, and scorched and wound- 
ed others, excited such astonishment, mingled with 
such admiration of English power and art, that 
Powhatan and his people came to them with pre- 
sents of peace ; and the whole country, during the 
remainder of Smith's administration, was entirely 
free from molestation, and the colonists pursued 

♦ Speaking of this company, Smith says, " To a thousand mis- 
ehiefes those lewd Captaines led this lewd company, wherein were 
many unruly gallants, packed thither by their friends to escape ill 
destinies, and those would dispose and determine of the govern- 
ment, sometimes to one, the next day to another; to-day the old 
commission must rule, to-morrow the new, the next day neither ; in 
lino, they would rule all, or ruine all : yet in charitie we must en- 
dure them thus to destroy us, or by correcting their follies, have 
brought the worlds censure upon us to be guiltie of their blouds. 
Happie had we beene had they never arrived, and we for ever 
ahandimed, as we were left to our fortunes ; for on eartK, for the 
number, was never more confusion, or misery, then their factions 
occasioned. 

" The president seeing the desire those braves had to rule ; see- 
ing how his authoritie so unexpectedly changed would willingly 
have left all, and have returned for England. Bat seeing there 



their plans of improvement, both in agricuhure and 
in some of the manufactures, with tolerable success. 
Unhappily, however, the president, while exerting 
himself with his usual energy in the concerns of the 
settlement, received a dangerous wound from the 
accidental explosion of a quantity of gunpowder. 
Completely disabled by this misfortune, and destitute 
of surgical aid, he was compelled to resign his com- 
mand, and take his departure (and it was a final one) 
for England. " It was natural," observes Grahame, 
" that he should abandon with regret the society he 
had so often preserved, the settlement he had con- 
ducted through difficulties as formidable as the in- 
fancy of Carthage or Rome had to encounter, and 
the scenes he had dignified by so much wisdom and 
virtue. But our sympathy with his regret is abated 
by the reflection, that a longer residence in the colo- 
ny would speedily have consigned him to very 
subordinate office, and might have deprived the 
world of that stock of valuable knowledge, and 
his own character of that accession of fame, which 
the publication of his travels has been the means of 
perpetuating ."t 

The departure of Smith was, as might have been 
anticipated, a most inauspicious circumstance for the 
colony. The Indians, finding that the person whose 
vigour they had so often felt no longer ruled the 
English settlers, generally revolted, and destroyed 
them wherever they were found. Captain RatcliflT, 
in a small ship, with thirty men, going to trade, and 
trusting himself indiscreetly to Powhatan, he and 
all his people, excepting two, were slain ; one boy 
was saved by the benevolent Pocahontas. The pro- 
visions of the colony being imprudently wasted, a 
dreadful famine ensued, and prevailed to such ex- 
tremity, that this period was many years distinguish- 
ed by the name of " the starving time." Of nearly 
five hundred persons left in the colony by the late 
president, sixty only remained at the expiration of 
six months. In this extremity, they received unex- 
pected relief from Sir Thomas Gates, and the compa- 

was rmall hope this new commission would arrive, longer he would 
not suffer those factious spirits to proceede. It would be too tedi- 
ous, too strange, and almost incredible, should I particularly relate 
the infinite dangers, plots, and practices, he daily escaped amongst 
this factious crew, the chiefe whereof he quickly layd by the 
heeles, till his leasure better served to doe them justice." — Smith's 
Hist. Virg. p. 90. 

* " The History of the Rise and Progress of the United States 
of North America, till the Revolution in 1688. By James Grahame, 
Esq. 2 vols. Svo." This work appears to have been the result of 
lengthened and extensive research, and we know not which most 
to commend, its general correctness, its vigorous and just con- 
ceptions, or its decided advocacy of Christian principles;— and 
we take the liberty of expressing our hope that the volumes con- 
taining the subsequent portions of the history will not be hmgei 
delayed. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



\ 



29 



ny wrecked the previous year at the Bermudas, who, 
having built two small vessels, were at length able 
to leave the Island, and reached Virginia on the 23d 
of May. Finding the small remains of the colony 
in a famishing condition, Sir Thomas Gates consulted 
with Sir George Somers, Captain Newport, and the 
gentlemen and council of the former government; and 
the conclusion was, that they would abandon the 
country. It was their intention to sail for New- 
foundland, where they expected to meet with many 
English ships, into which, it was hoped, they might 
disperse most of the company, and thus get back to 
England. On the 7th of June they all embarked in 
four small vessels, and about noon, fell down the 
river with the tide. The next morning ihey disco- 
vered a boat making toward them; and it proved to 
be the long-boat of Lord Delaware, who had just 
arrived at the mouth of the river, with three ships 
and a hundred and fifty men. Hearing at the fort 
of the company's intention to return to England, he 
had despatched an officer with letters to Sir Thomas 
Gates, informing him of his arrival. Gates instantly 
changed his purpose, and that night relanded all his 
men at James Town. On the 10th, Lord Delaware 
came up with his ships, bringing plentiful supplies 
to the colony, which he proceeded to resettle.* 

Having published his commission, which invested 
him with the sole command, he appointed a council 
of six persons to assist him in the administration. 
An essential change now took place in the form of 
the ancient Virginia constitution; for the original 
aristocracy was converted into a monarchical govern- 
ment, over whose deliberations the people had no 
control. Under the auspices of this intelligent and 
distinguished nobleman, the affairs of the colony 
were soon re-established. He allotted to every man 
his particular business ; — the French who had been 
imported for the purpose, he commanded to plant 
the vine ; the English, to labour in the woodlands ; 
and he appointed officers to see his orders obeyed. 
All patiently submitted to an authority, which expe- 
rience had taught them to be wise and necessary ; 
and peace, industry, and order, now succeeded tu- 
mult, idleness, and anarchy. Lord Delaware speedi- 
ly erected two more forts for the more effectual 
protection of the colony; the one he designated 
Fort Henry, the other Fort Charles. On the report 
of his deputy governors of the plenty they had 

• Smith, Virg. p. 106. Stith, p. 115. Beverly, p. 34, 35. Bel- 
knap, Biog. Art. Delaware. The narrator, in Purchas, gives this 
vivid description of the scene : — " The three and twentieth day of 
May we cast anchor before James Towne, where we landed, and 
onr much grieved governour first visiting the church, caused the 
bell to be rung, at which all such bs were aMe tr come forth of 



found in Bermudas, he despatched Sir George Somers 
to that island for provisions, accompanied by Captain 
Samuel Argal in another vessel. They sailed to- 
gether until, by contrary winds, they were driven 
towards Cape Cod; whence Argal, after attempting, 
pursuant to instructions, to reach Sagadahock, found 
his way back to Virginia. He was next sent for 
provisions to the Potomac, where he found Henry 
Spelman, an English youth, who had been preserved 
from the fury of Powhatan by Pocahontas ; and by 
his assistance procured a supply of corn. Somers, 
after struggling long with contrary winds, at length 
arrived safely at Bermudas, and began to execute the 
purpose of his voyage ; but, exhausted with fatigues, 
to which his advanced age was inadequate, he soon 
after expired. Previously to his death, he had charged 
his nephew, Matthew Somers, who commanded under 
him, to return with the provisions to Virginia ; but, 
instead of obeying the charge, he returned to Eng- 
land, carrying the body of his deceased uncle for 
interment in his native country. 

The health of Lord Delaware not permitting him 
to remain in his office of captain general of the 
Virginia colony, he departed for England, leaving 
above two hundred people in health and tranquillity. 
Not long after his departure, Sir Thomas Dale arri- 
ved at Virginia with three ships, three hundred emi- 
grants, and a supply of cattle, provisions, and other 
articles needful for the colony. In August, Sir Tho- 
mas Gates also arrived with six ships, two hundred 
and eighty men, and twenty women, a considerable 
quantity of cattle and hogs, military stores, and 
other necessaries; and assumed the government. 
Finding the people occupied with but little amuse- 
ments, and verging towards their former state ■ of 
penury, he directed their employment in necessary 
works. The colony now began to extend itself up 
James river, where several new settlements Avero 
effected, and a town built, enclosed with a pali- 
sade, which, in honour of prince Henry, was called 
Henrico. 

To avenge some injuries of the Appamatuck Indi- 
ans, Sir Thomas Dale assaulted and took their town, 
at the mouth of the river of that name, about five 
miles from Henrico. He kept possession of it, call- 
ing it New Bermudas, and annexed to its corporation 
many miles of champaign and woodland ground, in 
several hundreds. 



their houses, repayred to church, where our minister. Master Bucke, 
made a zealous and sorrowful! prayer, finding all things so contrary 
to our expectations, so full of misery and misgovernment. After 
service our governour caused mee to reade his commission, and 
Captaine Percie (then president) delivered up unto him his com- 
mission, the old patent, and the conncell scale." 



30 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



In the following year, application was made to the 
king, by the patentees, for a new charter. The prin- 
cipal objects which they were desirous of obtaining, 
and in which they succeeded, were, their investiture 
with the islands situated within three hundred leagues 
of the coast ; the prolongation of the period of their 
exemption from the payment of duties on their ex- 
ports ; povFer to raise additional funds by lottery; 
and some fresh regulations in the internal manage- 
ment. 

The Bermudas, lying within the limits assigned 
by their new charter, were sold by the company to 
one hundred and twenty of its own members, who, 
in honour of Sir George Somers, named them the 
Somers Islands. To these islands they sent a colony 
of sixty persons, with Richard Moor as their govern- 
or. These colonists having landed in June on the 

• To give a detail of the history of this Indian princess seems 
scarcely compatible with a due regard to other departments of our 
woric ; and yet it is of too remarkable and interesting a character 
to be omitted. We therefore insert, as a note, Captain Smith's 
own account, in a narration made to the Glueen of James I. — 
' Some ten yeeres agoe being in Virginia, and taken prisoner by 
ihe power of Powhatan, their chiefe king, I received from this 
great salvage exceeding great courtesie, especially from his sonne 
Nanlaquaus, the most manliest, comeliest, boldest spirit, I ever saw 
in a salvage, and his sister Pocahontas, the king's most deare and 
wel-beloved daughter, being but a childe of twelve or thirieene 
yeeres of age, whose compassionate pitifuU heart, of my desperate 
estate, gave me much cause to respect her : I being the first Chris- 
tian this proud king and his grim attendants ever saw : and thus 
inthralled in their barbarous power, I cannot say I felt the least 
occasion of want that was in the power of those my mortall foes 
to prevent, notwithstanding al their threats. After some six weeks 
fatting amongst those salvage courtiers, at the minute of my exe- 
cution, she hazarded the heating out of her owne braines to save 
mine, and not onely that, but so prevailed with her father, that I 
was safely conducted to lames Towne, where I found about eight 
and thirtie miserable poore and sicke creatures to keepe possession 
of all those large territories of Virginia. Such was the weaknesse 
of this poore commonwealth, as had the salvages not fed us, we 
directly had starved. 

"And this reliefe, most Gracious dueene, was commonly brought 
us by this Lady Pocahontas ; notwithstanding all these passages 
when incon'.tant fortune turned our peace to warre, this tender 
virgin would still not spare to dare to visit us, and by her our 
jarres have beene oft appeased, our wants still supplyed ; were it 
the policie of her father thus to imploy her, or Ihe ordinance of 
God thus to make her his instrument, or her extraordinarie affec- 
tion to our nation, I know not ; but of this I am sure, when her 
father with the utmost of his policie and power, sought to surprize 
mee, having but eighteene with me, the darke night could not af- 
fright her from comming through the irksome woods, and wilh 
watered eies gave me intelligence, with her best advice, to escape 
his furie, which had hee knowne, hee had surely slaine her. 
lames Towne, wilh her wild traine, she has freely frequented as 
licr falhers habitation ; and, during the time of two or three yeers, 
she ne.M, under God, was still the instrument to preserve this 
colonic from death, famine, and utter confusion, which, if in those 
times, had once beene dissolved, Virginia might have lyne as it 
was on our first arrivall to this day. Since then, this businesse 
having beene turned and varied by many accidents from that I 
iel'l it at, it is most certaine, after a long and troublesome warre 
after my departure, bclwixt her father and our colonic, all which 
liine she was not heard of; about two yeeres after shee herselfe 
wtis taken prisoner, being so detained neere two yeeres longer, the 



principal island, in August subscribed to articles of 
government ; and in the course of the year received 
an accession of thirty persons. The Virginia com- 
pany, at the same time, took possession of other 
small islands discovered by Gates and Somers, and 
prepared to send out a considerable reinforcement 
to James Town. The expense of these extraordi- 
nary efforts was defrayed by the profits of a lottery, 
which amounted nearly to £30,000. 

It was in the year following'the grant of the new 
charter, that the marriage of Pocahontas, the famed 
daughter of Powhatan, was celebrated ; an alliance 
wliich secured peace to Virginia many years. Hav- 
ing been carefully instructed in the Christian reli- 
gion, it was not long before she renoitnced the 
idolatry of her country, made profession of Christi- 
anity, and was baptized in the name of Rebecca.* 

colonie by that meanes was relieved, peace concluded, and at last, 
rejecting her barbarous condition, was mariied to an English gen- 
tleman, wilh whom at this present she is in England ; Ihe first Chris- 
tian ever of that nation, the first Virginian ever spake English, or 
had a childe in marriage by an Englishman, a matter surely, if my 
meaning bee truly considered and well understood, worthy a princes 
understanding. 

" Being about this time preparing to set saile for New England, 
I could not stay to doe her that service I desired, and she well de- 
served ; but hearing shee was at Brenford with divers of my friends, 
I went to see her. After a modest salutation, without any word, 
she turned about, obscured her face, as not seeming well contented ; 
and in that humour her husband, with divers others, we all left 
her two or three houres, repenting myselfe to have writ she could 
speake English ; but not long after, she began to talke, and remem- 
bered mee well what courtesies she had done, saying, ' you did 
promise Powhatan what was yours should bee his, and he the Jike 
to you; you called him father, being in his land a stranger, and 
by the same reason so must I doe you ;' which, though I wcitld 
have excused, I durst not allow of that title, because she was a 
kings daughter; with a well set countenance, she said, 'Were you 
not afraid to come into my falhers counlrie, and caused feare in 
him and all his people, (but mee,) and feare you here I should call 
you father'? I tell 3'ou ^hen I will, and you shall call mee child, 
and so I will bee for ever and ever your countrieman. They did 
tell us alwaies you were dead, and I knew no other lill I came to 
Plimolh, yet Powhatan did command Vitamatomakkin to seeke 
you and know the truth, because your countriemen will lie much.' 

" The treasurer, councell, and companie, having well furnished 
Captaine Samuel Argall, the Lady Pocahonlas, alias Rebecca, 
with her husband and others, in the good ship called the George, 
it pleased God, al Gravesend, to lake this young l.ndy to his mercie, 
where she made not more sorrow for her unexpected death, than 
joy to Ihe beholders, to heare and see her make so religious and 
godly an end."— Smith's Hist. Virg. p. 121—123. 

As lliis eulogy of Pocahontas does not give us such a detail as 
the reader might wish lo have, the American editor adds the fol- 
lowing froin " Knapp's Female Biography." 

Pocahontas. In every age and nation, rare instances of genius 
and benevolence have been found ; but in the whole range of un- 
educated nations, no female can be produced that has superior 
claims to Pocahontas, Ihe Indian princess, daughter to the sachem 
of Virginia, Powhalan. This princess was born somewhere about 
1594, according to Captain Smith's conjecture, for the savages 
have no methods of keeping an exact register of births, or deaths, 
and ihcir compulations by seasons or moons were seldom accur.nte. 
The first that was known of Pocahonlas was in the year 16 07, 
when that prince of chivalry, Captain John Smith, whose fame 
had filled the old world, came to this continent for adventures, 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



31 



In some measure connected with this event, by the 
influence so powerful an alliance was calculated to 
have upon the minds of the natives in the vicinity, 
was the treaty which Sir Thomas Dale effected with 
the Chickahominy tribe of Indians, a bold and free 
people, who now voluntarily relinquished their name, 
for that of Tassantessus, or Englishmen ; and solemn- 
ly engaged to be faithful subjects to King James. 

During the interval of tranquillity procured by the 
alliance with Powhatan, an important change was 

no right 



made in the state of the colony. Hitlierto 



and in exploring the country about James's river, was taken pri- 
soner by some of the warriors of the tribes under Powhatan, and 
brought this powerful chief to be disposed of according to hiswill 
and decree. The fame and exploits of Smith had reached Pow- 
hatan. The prowess he had shown when taken was sufficient for 
their justification in taking him off; for he had been a wonder and 
terror to all his foes, Powhatan was as far an absolute despot as 
can e.\ist in a state of nature. But the chief did not decide alone 
upon Captain Smith's fate ; he called a council of his chiefs upon 
his case. In this convention the most wonderful stories of the 
while man's prowess, since he had been in this country, were told. 
Smith understood enough of the Indian language to comprehend 
the course of the debate, and made up his mind to die. Poca- 
hontas was a listener in the council. Heroism and beauty have 
always an effect on the female heart ; and even age and philoso- 
phy are not proof against these magicians. It was decided that 
he must die, as being too formidable a foe to suffer to escape. His 
death was to be by beating him on the head with clubs while he 
was in a recumbent posture, with a stone for a pillow. He was 
first boimd, and then thrown down, and the clubs were uplifted, 
when Pocahonlas, then a mere child, rushed forward and tlirew 
herself on the body of Smith, and protected his life at the risk of 
her own. The fierce savage hearts of the warriors were affected, 
and Smith was at once released and became an inmate, for a while, 
of the wigwam of Pou'hatan, and soon afterwards released, carry- 
ing with him a grateful sense of the services rendered him by this 
noble daughter of the forest. Sometime after this the Indians 
became alarmed, by witnessing the extraordinary feats of Smilli, 
and laid a plan to get him into their power, under the pretence of 
wishing an interview with him in their territory. But Pocahontas, 
knowing the designs of the warriors, left the wigwam after her 
father had gone to sleep, and ran more than nine miles through 
the woods to inform her friend Captain Sinith of the dangers that 
awaited him, either by stratagem or attack. For this service, 
Captain Smith offered her some trinkets ; but young as she was, 
and no doubt had a natural fondness for finery, which belongs to 
her age, sex, and nation, yet she refused to accept any thing, or 
stop to refresh herself, for fear of being discovered by her father, 
or his wives. She returned before any one awaked, and laid 
herself gently in her blanket near where her father slept. 

For several years she continued to assist the whites against her 
father's plots for their destruction. Although she was a great 
favourite with her father, he was so incensed against her for favour- 
ing the English, that he sent her to a chief of a neighbouring tribe ; 
or, perhaps, he feared that the other chiefs of his omi might, in 
Indian style, sacrifice her for want of patriotism. Such a sacrifice 
would not be a rare occurrence in Indian history. Here she 
remained for some time, when Captain Argall coming up the 
Potomac, and finding out that she was with Jopazaws, tempted 
the deceitful wretch to deliver her to him as a prisoner, for the 
bribe of a brass kettle, of which the chief had become enamoured, 
as the biggest trinket he had ever seen. Argall thought, by hav- 
ing her as a hostage, he should be able to bring Powhatan to 
terms of peace, but he refused to ransom her on the hard terms 
proposed by the colonists. He offered five hundred btishels of 
torn for her ransom, which was not accepted. She was well 
treated while a pri-soner, and Mr. Thomas Rolfe, a pious yotmg 



of private proverty in land had been established. 
The fields that were cleared had been cultivated by 
the joint labour of the colonists; their product was 
carried to the common storehouses, and distributed 
weekly to every family, according to its number and 
exigencies. However suitable such an arrangement 
might have been deemed for the commencement of a 
colony, experience proved that it was decidedly oppo- 
sed to its progress in a more advanced state. In 
order to remedy this. Sir Thomas Dale divided a 
considerable portion of the land into small lots, am' 



man, and a brave officer, undertook to teach her (he English lan- 
guage, as it was an object to have an influential interpreter omonj* 
them. From a knowledge of what she had done for his friend 
Smith, and from finding her intelligent, brave, and noble, he 
became attached to her, and offered her his hand. This was 
commrmicated to Powhatan, who gave his consent to the union, 
and she was married after the form of the church of England, in 
presence of her tmcle and two brothers. She was then but litile 
past seventeen years of age. Powhatan did not attend the mar 
riage, perhaps from a fear that some treachery might be in the 
business, but finding none, he extended the hand of friendship to 
his new allies as long as he lived. 

The colon}' was now relieved from war, and for a while seemed 
to flourish. Pocahonlas vvas a great favourite among the colonists, 
and her husband having business in England, it v/as thought best 
for her to make Ihe voyage with him. She took several Indians 
of bolh sexes with her, such a number as her brothers and uncle 
thought belonged to her lineal honours. In England she was bap- 
tized and called Rebecca. She was there a subject of great curi- 
osity, and was treated by all classes as a princess. She had made 
great progress in the English studies, and spoke the language with 
wonderful fluency. In London she was visited by Captain Smilh, 
whom she supposed to have been dead. When she first beheld 
him, she was overcome with emotion, and shrunk from him as from 
one from the grave, hiding her face with her hand. An exjilana- 
tion soon look place, and she again used the endearing aiiiiellaiion 
of father, in conversation with her old friend. The only solution 
of this deception is, that the colonists wished to bring about a 
match between lier and some one of their number, and feared, 
perhaps, that she cherished too fond a recollection of the gal- 
lant Smith, to think of tuiiting herself to another, while he was 
living. 

Captain Smith wrote a memorial to the queen in her behalf, 
setting forth in a free and noble m'nner the services of the Indian 
princess, rendered to himself and to the colony; and the queen 
became her personal friend. She only lived long enough in Eng- 
land to prove to them that genius and virtue are Uie productions 
of every age and clime. She died as she was about to embark for 
her native land, at Gravescnd, leaving an infant son. She was 
deeply lamented in England, and sincerely mourned in Virginia. 
The son she left, was educated by his uncle in England, and 
afterwards became a worthy and highly respectable character in 
Virginia, from whom has descended several distinguished families, 
now of that state. Several works of fiction have been founded on 
the incidents in the life of Pocahontas, but they have not been 
successful. The whole of her story surpasses all that fiction could 
create, and the embellishments were not wanted along side of the 
simple character of this child of nature. A thousand artificial 
flowers, in gilded vases, have not, to the true botanist, the beauty 
and perfume of the rose in the garden where it grew ; nor can the 
Geraldines and Cherubines, those monsters of loveliness in fiction, 
reach the unsophisticated elegance of character displayed in Poca- 
hontas. There is now a strong sympathy felt and acknowledged 
for the Indians. Books are written to defend them from many 
slanders which have been thrown upon them by former historians, 
and when this race has become nearly extinct, all will feel how 
greatly they have been injured. 



32 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, 



granted one of these to each individual in full pro- 
perty. From the moment that industry had the 
certain prospect of a recompense, it advanced rapid- 
ly. The articles of primary necessity were cultivated 
with so much attention as secured the means of sub- 
sistence; and such schemes of improvement were 
formed as prepared the way for the introduction of 
opulence into the colony. 

The increased industry of the colonists was not 
long before it found a new and somewhat singular 
channel — the cultivation of tobacco ; indeed, so in- 
considerately and exclusively were their energies 
directed to that object at this time, that the most fatal 
consequences were rendered almost inevitable. The 
land which ought to have been reserved for raising 
provisions, and even the streets of James Town, were 
planted with tobacco. Various regulations were 
framet. 'o restrain this ill-directed activity ; but, from 
eagerness for present gain, the planters disregarded 
every admonition. Tobacco, however, had many 
trials to pass through before it reached its present 
established station. King James declared himself its 
open enemy, and drew against it his royal pen. In 
the work which he entitled " Counterblast to To- 
bacco," he poured the most bitter reproaches on this 
" vile and nauseous weed." He followed it up by a 
proclamation to restrain the disorderly trading in 
tobacco, as tending to a general and new corruption 
of both men's bodies and minds. Yet tobacco, like 
other proscribed objects, throve under persecution, 
and achieved a final triumph over all its enemies. 

The prosperity of the colony, in a financial point 
of view, may now be considered as rapidly advancing ; 
but its government was by no means in a satisfactory 
state. After the brief and somewhat lax administra- 
tion of Mr. Yeardley, the ofiice of presiding over the 
affairs of the colony devolved on Captain Argal. 
The severity of his measures occasioned a multipli- 
city of complaints, though some of them appear to 
have been for the general benefit. The representa- 
tions made by the colonists to the company in Lon- 
don, induced Lord Delaware, who ever took a lively 
interest in their welfare, to venture a second time to 
embark for America. He took with him two hun- 
dred passengers and abundant supplies. He was 
not, however, permitted to realize his benevolent pur- 
poses, but died on the voyage, in or near the bay 
which bears his name. His ship safely arrived at 
Virginia, and was soon after followed by another, 
with forty passengers. On the death of Lord Dela- 
ware, the administration of Argal, deputy governor 
of Virginia, became increasingly severe. Martial 
law, which had been proclaimed and executed during 



the former turbulent times, was now made the com- 
mon law of the land. He published several edicts 
of most absurd severity : as a specimen of his tyranny 
we quote his decree, " That every person should go 
to church on Sundays and holidays, or be kept con- 
fined the night succeeding the ofFence, and be a slave 
to the colony the following week ; for the second of- 
fence, a slave for a month ; and for the third, a year 
and a day." 

The tidings of the death of Lord Delaware were 
followed to England by increasing complaints of the 
odious and tyrannical proceedings of Argal ; and the 
company having conferred the office of captain-gene- 
ral on Mr. Yeardley, the new governor received the 
honour of knighthood, and proceeded to the scene of 
his administration. He arrived in April, and imme- 
diately proceeded, in a truly liberal spirit, to take 
measures for convoking a colonial assembly, which 
accordingly met at James Town, on the 19th of 
June. The people were now so increased in their 
numbers, and so dispersed in their settlements, that 
eleven corporations appeared by their representatives 
in this convention, where they exercised the noblest 
rights of freemen, the power of legislation. They 
sat in the same house with the governor and council, 
and acted as one body.* This was the first legisla- 
ture which ever assembled in the transatlantic states, 
and may be considered the progenitor of the most 
pure and effective system of representative govern- 
ment which the world has ever witnessed. The 
laws which they enacted were transmitted to Eng- 
land for the approbation of the treasurer and com- 
pany, who passed an ordinance by which they ap- 
proved and established this constitution of the Vir- 
ginian legislature, reserving to themselves the crea- 
tion of a council of state, which should assist the 
governor, and form a part of the colonial assembly. 

This period of the history of the colony is distin- 
guished by several other occurrences, the narration 
of which may be regarded as the history of the 
" home department " of the colony. We shall first 
notice the efforts which were made to introduce edu- 
cation, both among the natives and the settlers. King 
James having formerly issued his letters to the seve- 
ral bishops of the kingdom for collecting money to 
erect a college in Virginia for the education of In- 
dian children, nearly £1500 had been already paid 
towards this benevolent design. Henrico had been 
selected as a suitable place for the seminary, and the 
Virginia company granted 10,000 acres of land, to 
be laid off for the university of Henrico ; a donation 

• Stith, p. 160, 161. Smith's Hist. Virg. p. 126. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



33 



which, while it embraced the original object, was in- 
tended also for the foundation of a seminary of learn- 
ins: for the En2:lish. Two other circumstances, of a 
different character to that which we have now re- 
corded, occurred about this time. The company 
were directed by James to transport to Virginia one 
hundred idle and dissolute persons, then in custody 
for various misdemeanors. They were distributed 
through the colony as servants to the planters. Much 
has been said on this subject by writers; but the influence 
of these outcasts was not of long continuance, for nearly 
the whole number of them died single. The stain upon 
the colony is unjustly continued by modern historians, who 
copy their predecessors without examining the sources of 
the information they retail. In this manner, error and 
prejudice are often perpetuated, and, when once fixed, 
however inconsistent with the whole current of events, if 
they have a slight foundation, gain strength by the lapse 
of years. In 1620, a Dutch man-of-war brought into 
James River twenty Africans, and landed them for sale. 
The scarcity of labourers made them acceptable to the 
planters. These were the first seen in North America. 
The other colonies soon followed the example. The race, 
prolific every where, soon multiplied in the colonies, and 
became new sources of wealth to their owners, greatly in- 
creasing the exports of the country. 

At this early period of colonial enterprise, it may 
readily be supposed that few females had ventured to 
cross the ocean. This was necessarily a great im- 
pediment to the prosperity of the colony, as it not 
only prevented the increase of the population, but 
prohibited the settlement being regarded as a perma- 
nent residence. Most of the adventurers sought 
only to amass wealth with all possible expedition, 
that they might return to their native country, where 
only the enjoyments of domestic life were attainable. 
It was therefore proposed by some intelligent mem- 
bers of the company in London to send out a num- 
ber of agreeable and virtuous young women, and no 
less than ninety were prevailed on, by the high pro- 
bability of forming respectable matrimonial engage- 
ments, to embark for Virginia. The speculation 
proved so acceptable to the planters, and so profitable 
to the company, that, in the following year, sixty 
more were sent over, and, like the former, were very 
speedily disposed of to the young planters as wives. 

» Stith, p. 166, 197. Robertson, book ix. Holmes's American 
Annals, vol. i. p. 165. Grahame's History, vol. i. p. 86. 

+ " The two and twentieth of March, as also in the evening 
before, as at other times they came unarmed into our houses, with 
deere, turkies, fish, fruits, and other provisions to sell us, yea, in 
some places set downe at breakfast with our people, whom immedi- 
ately, with their own tooles, they slew most barbarously, not sparing 
either age or sex, man, woman, or childe, so sudden in their execu- 



The price was at first one hundred, and afterwards 
one hundred and fifty, pounds of tobacco, then valued 
at three shillings per pound ; and it was ordered, 
that debts contracted for wives should be paid in pre- 
ference to all others.* 

The full tide of prosperity was now enjoyed by 
the colony. Its numbers greatly increased, and its 
settlements became widely extended. At peace with 
the Indians, it reposed in perfect security, and realized 
the happiness its fortunate situation and favourable 
prospects aflbrded, without suspecting the sudden and 
terrible reverse of fortune it was doomed to experi- 
ence. Opechankanough, the successor of Powhatan, 
had adopted with ardour all the early enmity of his 
native tribe against the settlers ; and he formed one 
of those dreadful schemes, so frequent in Indian 
annals, of exterminating the whole race at one blow. 
Such was the fidelity of his people, and so deep the 
power of savage dissimulation, that this dire scheme 
was matured without the slightest intimation reach- 
ing the English, who neither attended to the move- 
ments of the Indians, nor suspected their machina- 
tions ; and though surrounded by a people whom 
they might have known from experience to be both 
artful and vindictive, they neglected those precautions 
for their own safety that were requisite in such cir- 
cumstances. All the tribes in the vicinity of the 
English settlements were successively gained, except 
those on the eastern shore, from whom, on account 
of their peculiar attachment to their new neighbours, 
every circumstance that might discover what they in- 
tended was carefully concealed. To each tribe its 
station was allotted, and the part it was to act pre- 
scribed. On the morning of the day consecrated to 
vengeance, each was at the place of rendezvous ap- 
pointed ; and at midday, the moment they had previ- 
ously fixed for this execrable deed, the Indians, raising 
a universal yell, rushed at once on the English in all 
their scattered settlements, butchering men, women, 
and children, with undistinguishing fury, and every 
aggravation of brutal outrage and savage cruelty. 
In one hour, three hundred and forty-seven persons 
were cut off, almost without knowing by whose hands 
they fell.t Indeed, the universal destruction of the 
colonists was prevented only by the consequences of 
an event, which perhaps appeared but of little im- 



tion that few or none discerned the weapon or blow that brought 
them to destruction ; in which manner also they slew many of our 
people at several! works in the fields, well knowmg in what places 
and quarters each of our men were, in regard of their famiharUie 
with us for the eflecting that great masterpiece of work, their 
conversion ; and by this means fell, that fatall morning, under the 
bloudy and barbarous hands of that perfidious and inhumane people, 
three hundred and forty-seven men, women, and children, most by 



34 



HISTOKV OF THE L.MTED STATES. 



portance in the colony at the time when it took 
place — the conversion of an Indian to the Christian 
faith. On the night before the massacre, this man 
was made privy to it by his own brotlier, bnt as soon 
as his brother left him he revealed the dreadful secret 
to an English gentleman in whose house he was re- 
siding, who immediately carried the tidings to James 
Town, and communicated them to some of the near- 
est settlers, scarcely in time to prevent the last hour 
of the perfidious truce from being the last hour of 
their lives.* 

The horrid spectacle before them roused the 
English from repose to vengeance; and peace was 
succeeded by a vindictive and exterminating war. 
The colonists were victorious, destroying many of 
their enemies, and obliging the remainder to retire 
far into the wilderness. But their own number 
melted away before the miseries of war ; their settle- 
ments were reduced from eighty to eight, and famine 
again visited them with its afflicting scourge. These 
calamities, and the dissensions which had agitated 
the company, having been represented to King James 
and his privy council as subjects of complaint, a 
commission was issued under the great seal, to in- 
quire into all matters respecting Virginia, from the 
beginning of its settlement. A writ of quo warranto 
was also issued by the court of king's bench against the 
company. The colony, however, had received infor- 
mation of the whole proceedings in England, and had 
already in its possession copies of several papers 
which had been exhibited against it. A general 
assembly was called, which met on the 14th of 
February, and drew up answers to the charges in a 
spirited and masterly style, appointing an agent to 
go to England to advocate its cause. The quo 
■warranto was brought to trial in the court of king's 
bench, and, as was usually the case with the courts 
in this reign, judgment was given in favour of the 
kins:, and against the company; James, therefore, 
availed himself of the opportunity, vacated the char- 
ter, and dissolved a company which had consisted 
of gentlemen of noble and disinterested views, 
who expended more than 100,000/. of their own 
fortunes, and sent out more than nine thousand per- 



tlicir own weapons; and not being content with their lives, they 
fell ag-aine upon the dead bodies, making as well as they could a 
fresh murder, defacing, dragging, and mangling their dead car- 
kases into many peeces, and carrying some parts away in derision, 
with base and brutish triumph."— Smith's Hist. Virg. p. 145. 

• " The slaughter had beene universal, if God had not put it into 
the heart of an Indian, who, lying in the house of one Pace, was 
urged by another Indian, his brother, that lay with him the night 
before, to kill Pace, as he should doe Perry, which was his friend, 
being so commanded from their king, telling him also how the next 
flay the execution should be finished : Perry's Indian presently 



sons from the mother country, to plant the first 
English colony in America. It is trae that success, 
though considerable, had not equalled the expendi- 
ture, either of money or of human life. The annual 
exportation of commodities from Virginia to England 
did not exceed 20,000/. in value ; and, at the disso- 
lution of the company, scarcely two thousand per- 
sons survived. 

Kino- James now issued a new commission for the 
government of Virginia, continuing Sir Francis Wyat 
governor, with eleven assistants or counsellors. The 
governor and council were appointed during the 
king's pleasure ; and, in correspondence with the 
arbitrary tendencies of the father of Charles 1., no 
assembly was mentioned or allowed. Though the 
commons of England were submissive to the dictates 
of the crown, yet they showed some regard to the 
interest of Virginia, in petitioning the king that no 
tobacco should be imported but of the growth of the 
colonies.; and his majesty condescended to issue a 
new proclamation concerning tobacco, by which he 
restrained the culture of it to Virginia and the 
Somer Islands.t 

James I. died on the 8th of April, 1625 ; and the 
demise of the crown having annulled all former ap- 
pointments for Virginia, Charles I. reduced that colo- 
ny under the immediate direction of the crown, ap- 
pointing a governor and council, and ordering all 
patents and processes to issue in his own name. Hi.<; 
proclamation " for settling the plantation of Virginia," 
is dated the 18th of May. It partakes of all the self- 
sufficiency and tyrannical ideas of royal prerogative 
which so fatally distinguished that unfortunate mo- 
narch. "Our full resolution is," says Charles, "that 
there may be one uniforme course of government in 
and through the whole monarchic, that the govern- 
ment of the colony of Virginia shall ymmediately 
depend upon ourselfe, and not be commytted to anie 
company or corporation, to whom itt male be proper 
to trust matters of trade and commerce, but cannot 
be fitt or safe to communicate the ordering of state 
affairs, be they of never soe mean consequence." 
That his Majesty possessed no eminent capacity for 
"orderinsr state affairs," the issue of his reign afford 



arose and reveales it to Pace, that used him as his sonne; and 
thus them that escaped was saved by this one converted infidell ; 
and though three hundred and fortie-seven were slaine yet thou- 
sands of ours were by the meanes of this alone thus preserved, for 
which Gods name be praised for ever and ever. Pace, upon this, 
securing his house, before day, rowed to lames Townc, and told 
the governor of it, whereby they were prevented, and at such 
other plantations as possibly intelligence could be given." — 3id, p. 
147. 

t Belknap, Biog. vol. ii. p. 85 — 98. Rymer's Foedera, vol. xvii. 
p. 618- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



35 



ample proof; and it was speedily evident to the Vir- 
ginians, whose commerce was injured by the re- 
straints, as their persons were enslaved by the prero- 
gatives of " ourselfe."* 

The first governor appointed by Charles to preside 
over the "state affairs" of Virginia was Sir George 
Yeardley ; but his early death prevented the evils of 
the despotic principles, of which he was the represen- 
tative, from being felt to their full extent. He was 
succeeded by one who was the very type of his royal 
master. Sir John Harvey. He exercised his authority 
with insolence, and even with cruelty ; and took 
pains to evince that the system of tyranny he was 
selected to conduct, was perfectly congenial with his 
disposition. Indeed, such was his excessive solici- 
tude to play the part of a tyrant in a bold style, that 
even Charles himself deemed it expedient at first to 
appear to check his career. Roused at length by 
reiterated provocation, the Virginians seized the per- 
son of Harvey, and sent him a prisoner to England, 
along with two deputies, charged to represent the 
grievances of the colony, and the misconduct of the 
governor. So far from redressing their wrongs, 
however, Charles regarded their conduct as little 
short of rebellion ; he refused even to hear a smgle 
charge against Harvey, and sent him back to Vir- 
ginia, with an ample renewal of the powers which 
he had so grossly abused, where he resumed and 
aggravated a tyrannical sway that has entailed infa- 
my on himself and disgrace on his sovereign. Had 
his government been continued much longer, it must 
have ended in the revolt or the ruin of the colony. 
But a great change was now at hand, which was to 
reward the patience of the Virginians with a blood- 
less redress of their grievances. After a long inter- 
mission, Charles was forced to contemplate the re- 
assembling of a parliament ; and, well aware of the 
ill humour which hi.s government at home had exci- 
ted, he had the strongest reason to dread that the 
displeasure of the commons would be inflamed by 
complaints of the despotic sway he had exercised 
over Virginia. There was yet time to soothe the 
irritation, and even to secure the adherence of a peo- 
ple, who, in spite of every wrong, retained a gene- 
rous attachment to .the prince whose sovereignty was 
felt still to unite them with the parent state. Harvey 

* ChalmRrs' Political Annals, p. 110 — 113. 

t " By ihese it was agreed, among other things, that the inha- 
bitants of the colony should remain in due obedience and subjection 
to the commonwealth of England ; should enjoy such freedom and 
privileges as belonged to the free-born people of England ; and 
that the former government, by commission and instruction, be 
null and void ; that the grand assembly should convene and trans- 
act the affairs of the colony ; but nothing was to be done contrary 
to the laws of the commonwealth; that they should have as free 



was therefore recalled, and the government of Vir- 
ginia committed to Sir William Berkeley, a person 
distinguished by every popular virtue in which 
Harvey was deficient. 

The new governor was instructed to restore the 
colonial assembly, and to invite it to enact a body 
of laws for the province. Thus, all at once, and 
when they least expected it, was restored to the colo- 
nists the system of freedom which they had originally 
derived from the Virginia Company ; universal joy 
and gratitude were excited throughout the colony; 
and the king, amidst the hostility that was gathering 
around him in every other quarter, was addressed in 
the language of affection and attachment by this peo- 
ple. Indeed, such was their gratitude to the king 
for this favoiir, that, during the civil wars, they were 
faithful to the royal cause, and continued so even 
after he was dethroned, and his son driven into exile. 
The parliament was irritated by this conduct of the 
Virginians, and it was not the mode of that age to 
wage a war of words alone. The efforts of a high 
spirited government in asserting its own dignity were 
prompt and vigorous. A powerful squadron, with a 
considerable body of land forces, was despatched to 
reduce the Virginians to obedience. Berkeley, obtain- 
ing the assistance of some Dutch vessels, witli more 
spirit than prudence, opposed this formidable arma- 
ment ; but, after making a gallant resistance, was 
obliged to yield. His bravery, though unsuccessful 
in its primary object, obtained the most favourable 
terms for the colony,t while he disdained to make 
any stipulations in his own favour, with those whose 
authority he disowned. Withdrawing to a retired 
situation, he lived beloved and respected by the peo- 
ple whom he had governed. 

The political state of the colony, from the time of 
this capitulation to the restoration of Charles II. has 
not, until lately, been perfectly understood. The 
early historians of Virginia have stated, that, during 
this period, the people of that colony were in entire 
subjection to the government of Cromwell ; and that 
the acts of parliament in relation to trade were there 
rigidly enforced, while they were relaxed in favour 
of the New England colonies. Recent researches, 
however, prove these statements to be incorrect.} 
Under the articles of capitulation, parliament and the 



trade as the people of England do enjoy, to all places and wilh all 
nations, according to the laws of that commonwealth, and enjoy all 
privileges, equal wilh any plantations in America; and likewise 
be free from all taxes, customs, and impositions whatsoever, and 
none to be imposed upon them, without the consent of the grand 
assembly."— Pitkin's Civil and Political History, vol. i. p. 74. 

t See Henning's Statutes at large. The publication of these 
statutes, comprising the whole from the commencement of the 
colony of Virginia, in thirteen or fourteen volumes, throws much 



36 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



lord protector, left the inhabitants of the colony to 
govern themselves. The burgesses, or grand assem- 
bly, elected their governor and councillors, and all 
other officers, and the people enjoyed a free trade 
with all the world. The inhabitants, indeed, expected 
instructions and orders from England concerning 
the government, but none were sent during this 
whole period. The commissioners of parliament as- 
sumed the government for a short time, but in April, 
1652, the grand assembly met, and, with the consent 
of the commissioners, proceeded to elect a governor 
and councillors. Richard Bennet, one of the com- 
missioners, was appointed governor, until the further 
pleasure of the commonwealth should be known. 
In 1G55, Edward Digges was chosen governor by 
the house of burgesses, and after him, in 1657, Samuel 
Matthews. After the resignation of Richard Crom- 
well, the house expressly declared, that the supreme 
power of government should reside in the assembly, 
and that all writs should issue in the name of the 
"grand assembly of Virginia," until such a command 
and commission come out of England, as should be 
by the assembly judged lawful. At the same session. 
Sir William Berkeley was appointed governor,* and, 
by a special act, was directed to call an assembly 
once in two years at least, and oftener if necessary. 
He was empowered to choose a secretary and council 
of state, with the approbation of the assembly, and 
restrained from dissolving the legislature, without 
the consent of a major part of the house. 

The colonists of Virginia, or a majority of them, 
were episcopalians, and attached to the church of 
England ; the religion of that church, indeed, was 
established by law in the colony ; and it is evident 
that they were strongly in favour of the royal cause. 
Their warm-hearted loyalty could not fail to be exhi- 
Hrating to the spirits of Charles II., during his ba- 
nishment. He transmitted from Breda a new com- 
mission to Sir William Berkeley, as governor of 
Virginia, declaring his intention of ruling and order- 
ing the colony according to the laws and statutes of 
England, which were to be established there. Thus, 
while that prince was not permitted to rule over a 
foot of ground in England, he exercised the royal 
jurisdiction over Virginia. On receiving the first 
account of the restoration, the joy and exultation of 

light oa the history of that colony, and does great credit to the 
industry and researches of the publisher, and lo the state, under 
whose patronage, it is understood, the publication was made. 

• Robertson, following Beverley and Chalmers, gives a differ- 
ent account of these transactions ; but he is incorrect, at least as 
to the government being appointed by Cromwell. " On the death 
of Matthews, the last governor named by Cromwell," observes 
Robertson, " the sentiments and inclination of the people, no longer 
onder the control of authority, burst out with violence. They 



the colony were universal and unbounded, though 
not of long continuance. 

It had been observed with concern, during tlie 
commonwealth, that the English merchants for seve- 
ral years past had usually freighted the Hollander's 
shipping for bringing home their own merchandise, 
because their freight was lower than that of the Eng- 
lish ships. For the same reason the Dutch ships 
were made use of for importing American products 
from the English colonies into England. The Eng- 
lish ships meanwhile lay rotting in the harbours ; 
and the English mariners, for want of employment, 
went into the service of the Hollanders. The govern- 
ment, therefore, not unnaturally, titrned its attention 
towards the most effectual mode of retaining the co- 
lonies in dependence on the parent state, and of secu- 
ring to it the benefits of their increasing commerce. 
With these views the parliament enacted, " That no 
merchandise, either of Asia, Africa, or America, in- 
cluding also the English plantations there, should be 
imported into England in any but English built ships 
and belonging either to English or English plantation 
subjects, navigated also by an English commander, 
and three fourths of the sailors to be Englishmen : 
excepting such merchandise as s'hould be imported 
directly from the original place of their growth or 
manufacture in Europe solely ; and that no fish 
should thenceforward be imported into England or 
Ireland, nor exported thence to foreign parts, nor 
even from one of their own home ports, but what 
should be caught by their own fishers only." The 
first house of commons after the restoration, instead 
of granting the colonies that relief which tliey ex 
pected from the restraints on their commerce imposed 
by Cromwell, not only adopted all their ideas con 
cerning this branch of legislation, but extended them 
further. Thus arose the navigation act, the most 
important and memorable of any in the statute-book 
with respect to the history of English commerce. 
By these several and successive regulations, the plan 
of securing to England a monopoly of the commerce 
with its colonies, and of shutting up every other 
channel into which it might be diverted, was per- 
fected, and reduced into complete system. On one 
side of the Atlantic these laws have been extolled as 
an extraordinary effort of political sagacity, and have 



forced Sir William Berkeley to quit his retirement ; they unani- 
mously elected him governor of the colony : and as he refused to act 
under a usurped authority, they boldly erected the royal standard, 
and acknowledging Charles II. to be their lawful sovereign, pro- 
claimed him with all his titles ; and the Virginians long boasted, 
that as they were the last of the king's subjects who renounced 
their allegiance, they were the first who returned to their duty." — 
Robertson's History of America, b. ix. Chalmers, p. 125. Be- 
verley, p. 55. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



37 



been considered as the great charter of national com- 
merce, to which the parent state is indebted for its 
opulence and power ; on the other, they have been 
regarded as instruments of oppression, more charac- 
terized by ignorance of the true principles of political 
economy, than by legislative wisdom. At this mo- 
ment that branch of the colonial code which regu- 
lates, or rather restrains, the intercourse of the West 
India islands with the United States, forms the sub- 
ject of continued negotiation between the American 
and British governments.* 

This oppressive system excited great indignation 
in Virginia, where the extensive commerce and pre- 
eminent loyalty of the people rendered the pressure 
of the burden more severe, and the infliction of it 
more exasperating. No sooner was the navigation 
act knov/n in Virginia, and its effects experienced, 
than the colony warmly remonstrated against it as a 
grievance, and petitioned earnestly for relief, but 
without success ; so that the discontents, far from 
being abated by the lapse of time, were aggravated 
by the constant pressure of the commercial restric- 
tions. Various additional causes concurred to in- 
flame the angry feelings of the colonists ; a consider- 
able native population had now grown up in Virginia, 
whose dissatisfaction was not mitigated by the fond 
remembrance which emigrants retain for the parent 
state, which is also the land of their individual nati- 
vity ; and a complication of exasperating circum- 
stances brought the discontents of the colony to a 
crisis. The indignation of the people became gene- 
ral, and was worked up to such a pitch, that nothing 
was wanting to precipitate them into the most despe- 
rate acts, but some leader qualified to unite and to 
direct their operations. Such a leader they found in 
Nathaniel Bacon. He was a lawyer, educated in 
London, and was appointed a member of the council 
a short time after his emigration to Virginia. Young, 
bold, ambitious, with an engaging address, and com- 
manding eloquence, he harangued the colonists upon 
their grievances ; inflamed their resentment against 
their rulers ; declaimed particularly against the lan- 

* "Great Britain has, in her colonial regulations, deemed it ex- 
pedient, on the grovmd of political necessity, to overlook our just 
claims in measuring out general privileges to all nations. She 
might have had some excuse, barely plausible, however, for decli- 
ning to negotiate on this question in 1826 ; but she can now have 
no sound apology for persevering in the same course towards those 
who advocated the acceptance of her colonial commerce, on the 
terms proposed by the acts of Parliament in 1825. Should she 
continue to suffer her commercial interests to be controlled and 
sacrificed through a jealousy of us ; should her coimcils be too 
much influenced by the apprehension expressed by one of her 
late ministers, that ' in commerce, in navigation, in naval power, 
and maritime pretensions, the United States are her most formida- 
ble rival ;' she must pardon us for responding that sentiment, and 



guor with which the war, then existing with the In- 
dians, had been conducted ; and such was the effect 
of his representations, that he was elected general by 
the people. To give some colour of legitimacy to 
the authority he had acquired, and perhaps expecting 
to precipitate matters to the extremity which his in- 
terest required that they should speedily reach, he 
applied to the governor for an official confirmation of 
the popular election, and offered instantly to march 
against the common enemy. This Sir William 
Berkeley firmly refused, and issued a proclamation 
commanding the dispersion of the insurgents. Bacon 
had advanced too far to recede ; and he hastened, at 
the head of six hundred armed followers, to James 
Town, surrounded the house where the governor and 
council were assembled, and repeated his demand. 
Intimidated by the threats of the enraged multitude, 
the council hastily prepared a commission, and, by 
their entreaties, prevailed on the governor to sign it. 
Bacon and his troops then began their march against 
the Indians ; but no sooner were the council relieved 
from their fears, than they declared the commission 
void, and proclaimed Bacon a rebel. Enraged at 
this conduct, he instantly returned, with all his forces, 
to James Town. The aged governor, unsupported, 
and almost abandoned, fled precipitately to Accomack, 
on the eastern shore of the colony ; collecting those 
who were well affected towards his administration, 
he began to oppose the insurgents, and several skir- 
mishes were fought, with various success. A party of 
the insurgents burned James Town, laid waste those 
districts of the colony which adhered to the old ad- 
ministration, and confiscated the property of the 
loyalists. The governor, in retaliation, seized the 
estates of many of the insurgents, and executed seve- 
ral of their leaders. In the midst of these calamities, 
Bacon sickened and died. Destitute of a leader to 
conduct and animate them, their sanguine hopes of 
success subsided ; all began to desire an accommo- 
dation ; and after a brief negotiation with the go- 
vernor, they laid down their arms, on obtaining a 
promise of general pardon. 

for adopting the most efficient measures to countervail a spirit and 
policy so unfriendly to our navigation. If her peculiar conduct 
towards us should drive us to measures of specific retaliation — to 
a more extensive and effective interdiction of our intercourse with 
her colonies— she will have no just reason to complain, that we 
have not afforded her every opportunity to re-establish our inter- 
course on terms of the most general and friendly reciprocity. It 
will remain for Great Britain to determine, whether she will open 
the whole of her vast empire to our commerce on mutually ad- 
vantageous terms ; or whether, by persisting in excluding us from 
a part of her dominions, she will allow other nations to supersede 
her in the trade with North America." — Report of the Committee 
on the Commerce and Navigation of the United States, 1830, p. 
47, 48. 



38 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Thus terminated an insurrection, which, in the 
annals of Virginia, is distinguished by the name of 
Bacon's rebellion. During seven months this daring 
L-ader was master of the colony, M'hile the royal 
governor was shut up in a remote and ill-peopled 
corner of it. In addition to the cause already re- 
ferred to, the prejudicial influence of the navigation 
laws, this popular commotion was probably much 
influenced by the extremely low price of tobacco ; 
the splitting of the territory into proprietaries, con- 
trary to the original charters; the extravagant taxes 
to which the colonists were subjected ; and the inef- 
fective manner in which the governor and council 
had protected the inhabitants against the Indians. It 
is said to have injured the colony to an amount not 
less than 100,000Z. As soon as Berkeley found him- 
self reinstated in his office, he called together the re- 
presentatives of the people, that by their advice and 
authority public order might be re-established. Al- 
thougli this assembly met while the memory of reci- 
procal injuries was still recent, and when the passions 
excited by such a fierce contest could scarcely have 
subsided, its proceedings were conducted with a mo- 
deration seldom exercised by the successful party in 
a civil war. No man suffered capitally, and a small 
number only were subjected to fines. The council 
made, however, a somewhat singular exception to 
their charitable forbearance. While they spared the 
living, they wreaked their vengeance on the dead, 
and passed an act of attainder against Bacon long 
after he was beyond the reach of their enmity. 

On hearing of the disturbances in Virginia, Charles 
despatched, though with no great haste, a fleet with 
some troops for its pacification. These did not ar- 
rive, however, till they might well have been dis- 
pensed with. With them came Colonel Jefl!'reys, 
appointed to recall and replace Sir William Berkeley 
in the government of the colony. This brave and 
benevolent man did not long survive his dismissal, 
and may justly be said to have lived and died in the 
service of Virginia. 

The only event of importance during the adminis- 
tration of Colonel Jeffreys, was the conclusion of the 
Indian war, which, by the aid of the troops he brought 
with him, he speedily effected, and arranged a treaty 
which afforded universal satisfaction. On the death 
of Jeff"reys, the government devolved on Sir Henry 
Chicheley. During his presidency, the extensive 
and unjustifiable grants of the crown, which had- 
long been a most ruinous grievance, were recalled, 
and the colony enjoyed an interval of repose pre- 
vious to the arbitrary rule of Lord Culpepper, who 
had l)een sometime appointed by Charles, but, hap- 



pily for the colony, delayed the assumption of his 
office. 

In May, 1680, Lord Culpepper commenced his 
administration, in the true spirit of a representative 
of the then British monarch ; and, as a masterpiece 
of tyrannical legislation, he endeavoured to silence all 
complaints, both against his despotism and his plun- 
der, by creating a law which prohibited, under the 
severest penalties, all disrespectful allusions to his per- 
son, and all observations on his proceedings. A just 
discontent, thus denied its natural and legitimate 
mode of expression, broke forth as it should do, as 
much for the good of the oppressor as the oppressed, 
in a more substantial form ; and an insurrection en- 
sued, which would have been attended with very 
serious consequences, had not the prudence, kindness, 
and vigour of Sir Henry Chicheley been ready at 
hand. Having diffiised terror through the colony 
by his trials and executions. Lord Culpepper proceed- 
ed to England to report the success of his experi- 
ments on colonial government. His services do not 
appear to have been appreciated even by the kindred 
spirit of his royal master ; for, on his arrival, he was 
ordered into confinement for returning without leave ; 
and being brought to trial, he was found guilty, and 
deprived of his commission.* 

In the exercise of his royal pleasure, Charles select- 
ed, for the loyal colony of Virginia, a governor very 
little better than his predecessor. Lord Effingham, 
among other instructions equally illiberal, brought 
with him an order that no person should use a print- 
ing press in the colony on any pretence whatever !— ^ 
an example, by the way, which both our African 
and Indian colonial governments have frequently 
evinced a considerable inclination to imitate. Hav- 
ing thus set the press perfectly free from all its labours, 
he felt himself at ease in the pursuit of plans of ag- 
grandizement, which have frequently formed a most 
important branch of the science of colonial political 
economy ; and, in order to attach to plunder the 
sanction of a mock legality, he established a court of 
chancery, with suitable powers, appointing himself 
the judge! He institxUed fees worthy of so high an 
office, provided that nearly the whole should centre 
in himself, and even divided with the clerks of the ' 
court the emoluments which nominally appertained 
to them. 

Although the press was silenced, the governor 
could not prevent the assembly from delegating an 
agent to advocate their cause in England, and to 
urge his removal. But before Lord Effingham or 

• Chalmers, p. 340—346. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



39 



his accuser coiild cross the Atlantic, the revolution 
of 1668 had happily occurred. Some of the requests 
forwarded by Colonel Ludwell were complied with, 
but William was either unable or unwilling to dis- 
place the officers appointed by the preceding go- 
vernment ; and Lord Effingham was continued till 
1692, when he was replaced by Sir Edmund Andros, 
■i/ho, as might have been anticipated from his pro- 
«edings in New England, was no less obnoxious to 
he colonists. 

It was during this year that William and Mary, 
<t the solicitation of the general assembly of Vir- 
ginia, granted a charter for " The College of William 
ind Mary in Virginia." Tlie preamble states, " that 
.he church of Virginia may be furnished with a 
seminary of ministers of the gospel, and that the 
youth may be piously educated in good letters and 
inanners, and that the Christian faith may be propa- 
gated among the Western Indians, to the glory of 
Almighty God" — their trusty and well beloved sub- 
jects, constituting the general assembly of their colony 
of Virginia, have had it in their minds, and have 
proposed to themselves, to found and establish a cer- 
tain place of universal study, or perpetual college of 
divinity, philosophy, languages, and other good arts 
and sciences, consisting of one president, six masters 
or professors, and a hundred scholars more or less, 
according to the ability of said college, and its sta- 
tutes, to be made by certain trustees nominated and 
elected by the general assembly of the colony.* An 
attempt was also made at this time to establish a 
post throughout Virginia. A patent was laid before 
the Virginian assembly, for making Mr. Neal post- 
master-general of that and other parts of America; 
but, though the assembly passed an act in favour of 
this patent, it had no effect. The reason assigned 
'«!, that it was impossible to carry it into execution, 
on account of the dispersed situations of the inhabit- 
ants. 

From this period to the French war in 1756, 
(which, as it affected the interests of all the settle- 
ments, will form a distinct chapter subsequent to the 
history of the several colonies,) there is scarcely any 
memorable occurrence in the history of Virginia. 
Notwithstanding some unfavourable circumstances, 

• " Francis Nicholson, lieutenant-governor of Virginia and 
Maryland, and seventeen other persons nominated and appointed 
by the assembly, were confirmed as trustees, and were empowered 
to hold and er.joy lands, possessions, and incomes, to the yearly 
value of 2000Z. and all donations, bestowed for their use. The 
Rev. James Blair, nominated and elected by the assembly, was 
made first president, and the bishop of London was appointed and 
confirmed by their majesties to be the first chancellor of the college. 
To defray the charges of building the college, and supporling the 
president and masters, the king and queen gave nearly 2000?., and 



the colony continued to increase. The use of tobacco 
becoming general in Europe, gave constant employ 
ment to the industry of the planters, and diti'used 
wealth among them. Its position, remote from the 
settlements of the French in Canada, and of the 
Spaniards in Florida, was favourable to its quiet ; 
and New England and New York, on the one hand, 
Georgia and the Carolinas on the other, protected it 
from savage incursions. 

New England had no rest until the peace of 1763. 
The French and Indians were constantly harassing the 
frontier settlers, by massacres and conflagrations, while 
Virginia was biiikllng up her institutions. She had in her 
infancy drunk deeply of the cup of miseries which is filled 
by Indian warfare ; but now it had passed from her, and 
peace and plenty were in all her borders — a inost desirable 
situation for any country. 



CHAPTER III. 



MASSACHt;SETTS. 



The world presents no parallel to the history on 
which we now enter. The love of glory or of gold 
has been the impelling cause of the commencement 
of other colonies, and the foundation of other empires ; 
but in this instance religion, and that of no ordinary 
kind, either as to its purity or its intensity, was the 
grand principle of colonization. It was a church 
rather than a kingdom that these master-spirits of the 
age sought to establish on the transatlantic shores ; 
and the selection of their location seems to have well 
accorded with their object. " Arrived at this outside 
of the world, as they termed it, they seemed to them- 
selves to have found a place where the Governor of 
all things yet reigned alone. The solitude of their 
adopted land, so remote from the communities of 
kindred men that it appeared like another world,— a 
wide ocean before them, and an unexplored wilder- 
ness behind, — nourished the solemn deep-toned feel- 
ing. Man was of little account in a place where the 
rude grandeur of nature bore as yet no trophies of 
his power. God, in the midst of its stern magnifi- 
cence, seemed all in all ; and with a warmer and 



endowed the college with 20,000 acres of the best land, together 
with the perpetual revenue arising from Ihe duly of one penny 
per pound on all tobacco transported from Virginia and Maryland 
to the other English plantations. By Ihe charier, liberty was 
given to the president and masters or professors to elect one mem- 
ber of the house of burgesses of the general assembly. In grateful 
acknowledgment of the royal patronage pnd benefaction, the col- 
le<'e was called William and Mary." — Holmes's American Annals, 
vol. i. p. 14S. 



40 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



dcvouter fancy than that which of old peopled the 
groves, the mountains, and the streams, each Avith its 
tutelary tribe, they mused in the awful loneliness of 
their forests on the present Deity, saw him directing 
the bolt of the lightning, and pouring out refreshment 
in the flood ; throned on the cloud-girt hill, and 
smiling in the pomp of harvest. If ever the character 
of men has been seen more than any where else in 
powerful action or development, and operated on by 
the force of peculiar and strongly-moving causes, it 
was here. Nor, wrought on as all were by similar 
influences of place, fortune, and opinion, was ever 
any thing produced like a lifeless unpoetical mono- 
tony of character. Nothing could be more opposed 
to this than was the spirit of puritanism. Wrong or 
right, every thing about these men was at least pro- 
minent and high-toned. Excitement was their daily 
bread, as it is other men's occasional luxury ; and 
the diversities of character in this community, where, 
for the most part, people thought so much alike, were 
more strongly marked than they have often been in 
other places in the most violent conflicts of opinion. 
To a religious model, by force or accord, every thing, 
even relating to the most private and secular con- 
cerns, was made as far as might be to conform ; for 
' noe man,' saith Mr. Cotton, ' fashioneth his house to 
his hanjrinsrs, but his hangings to his house.' Reli- 
gion, politics, fashion, and war, never came elsewhere 
into so close companionship. The meeting-house 
and the armory were built side by side, as yet, by the 
force of old habit, they stand the country through. 
A desperate courage and dexterity in arms were en- 
joined as religious duties. The old considered ques- 
tions of polity at the meeting. The demure youth 
went from testifying with his mouth in the assembly, 
to testify with his firelock in the field ; and the muf- 
fled maiden lisped in biblical phrase her soft words 
of encouragement or welcome."* This is a powerful 
description ; but the reality will be found much to 
exceed it. 

We can barely allude to the attempt to form a 
settlement on the Sagadahock, or Kennebeck river, 
in the year 1607 ;t the voyage of Hudson in the ser- 
vice of the Dutch, in 1609 ; and the discoveries of 
the celebrated Captain Smith.! Although these voy- 
ages tended to keep alive the spirit of colonization, 
they did not produce any permanent results. It is 
not till the arrival of Mr. Robinson's church, in 1620, 



• North American Review, vol. xii. p. 480 — 482. 

t Hutchinson's History of Massacliusetts, vol. i. p. 2. Holmes's 
Annals, vol. i. p. 130. Robertson, b. x. Grahame, vol. i. p. 184. 
Smith's Hist. Virg. and New England, p. 203. 

J Smith's Hist. Virg. and New Englajid, p 207. Hutchinson, 



that the settlement of New England can date its 
origin. 

As the whole history of this important colony is so 
closely interwoven with the religious sentiments of 
its founders, it will' be desirable briefly to notice the 
circumstances in which they originated. The re- 
formation is an event, with the character of which, 
doubtless, all our readers are Avell acquainted ; but of 
all the churches that underwent the purifying process 
of that age, the English was placed, perhaps, in cir- 
cumstances the least favourable. While governed by 
a proverbially libidinous and tyrannical monarch, 
who sought his own aggrandizement from the reve- 
nues of the monasteries, and revenge on the papacy 
for opposition to his insatiable desires, rather than 
any beneficent influence on the corruptions of the 
clergy, little could be expected, and less was realized. 
The young and pious Edward would have efllected a 
thorough reform, both in the constitution and the 
forms of the church, but his life was too brief to al- 
low of the completion of his designs. The horrors 
of the reign of Mary had a powerful tendency to pro- 
mote the spirit of puritanism which had arisen during 
the previous reigns ; and Elizabeth found that her 
most strenuous endeavours, though plentifully sealed 
with innocent blood, could not qxiell it, but only left 
her to indulge in unavailing self-reproach for the 
cruelties which disgraced her otherwise brilliant 
reign. 

The accession of James of Scotland to the Eng- 
lish crown naturally excited the hopes of the puri- 
tans. He had been bred a presbyterian, and was 
known to have publicly declared that the Scotch 
church was the purest under heaven, and that the 
English liturgy sounded to him like " an ill-mumbled 
mass ;" but availing himself liberally of that privi- 
lege of altering his opinion with circumstances, which 
kings have at all times found a most convenient and 
truly royal prerogative, when he found himself safely 
seated on the English throne, he discovered that " a 
Scottish presbytery agreed as well with monarchy, as 
God with the devil." He gratified the puritans so 
far as to appoint a conference between them and 
the high church party, at Hampton Court, but the 
result showed that they had no reason to expect 
favour or justice at his hands. 

In these circumstances, many of them prepared to 
seek a refuge in Virginia, but were prevented from 



vol. i. p. 2. Hubbard, New England, e. 2. Mather's Magnal. b. 
i. c. 1. Chalmers, b. i. c. 4. Belknap. Biog. Art. Smith, vol. i. p, 
305. Robertson, b. x. Holmes's Annals, vol. i. p. 147. Grabame, 
vol. i. p. 186. Murray, vol. i. p. 239. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



4] 



carrying their intentions into effect by a proclama- 
tion, commanding that none should settle in that 
colony without express license under the authority 
of the great seal. Thus harassed and oppressed, 
the puritans emigrated in considerable numbers to 
the protestant states of Europe. Among these dis- 
sentients, it might very naturally be expected that 
considerable variety of opinion should exist ; some 
were for a total separation from the established church, 
and would not even receive any as members of their 
association, who would hold any kind of communion 
with their episcopal and endowed brethren ; others 
were desirous only of a more effectual reformation of 
the corruptions of the church, and objected little, 
either to its episcopal form, or its emoluments. The 
former class were termed Brownists, from one of their 
principal ministers ; but Mr. Robinson* and his 
church were of the more liberal party : they retired 
to Amsterdam, in the year 1607, and subsequently 
removed to liCyden. 

After residing several years in that city, various 
causes influenced them to entertain serious thoughts 
of a removal to America. The imhealthiness of the 
low country where they lived ; the hard labours to 
which they were subjected ; the dissipated manners 
of the Hollanders, especially their lax observance of 
the sabbath ; the apprehension of war at the conclu- 
sion of the truce between Spain and Holland ; the 

» Most of the historians of New England have confounded Mr. 
Robinson and his congregation with the Brownists. Robertson has 
(lone so ; and even Grahame, who is usually peculiarly accurate, 
has followed him. From the attention we have given this point, 
we agree with the opinion of the writer in the North American 
Review. " The term Brownist," says the reviewer, " is one by 
which the people, who emigrated to Leyden and afterwards found- 
ed the Plymouth colony, were stigmatized by their contemporaries ; 
but it was an appellation which they disavowed, and which Dr. 
Prince, in his invaluable New England Chronology, has satisfac- 
torily shown did not belong to them. The Brownists were the most 
rigid sect of the puritans, and vehemently insisted on a total sepa- 
ration from the church of England. Robinson, on the contrary, 
the father of the Leyden church, published a book, in which he 
allowed and defended the lawfulness of communicating with the 
church of England ' in the word and prayer,' and allowed the pious 
members of the church of England, and of all the reformed churches, 
to communicate with his church. This liberality was so offensive 
to the Brownists, that they would hardly hold communion with the 
church of Leyden. The members of this church were more pro- 
perly called Independents • or Congiegationalists. They acknow- 
ledged all the doctrinal articles of the chuirh of England, and dif- 
fered from it only in matters of an ecclesiastical nature. In respect 
lo these, they maintained the principles which are at the founda- 
tion of the congregational churches of this country to this day. 
Robinson, in his farewell address to that part of his flock which 
embarked for this continent, after a discourse which breathes a 
noble spirit of Christian charity, not only remarkable at that day, 
but which has been often quoted with admiration in the present 
age, adds, 't must also advise you to abandon, avoid, and shake off 
the name of Brownist. It is a mere nickname ; and a brand for the 
making religion, and the professors of it, odious to the Christian 
world.' The followers of Brown, who emigrated to Amsterdam, 
never came to this country. There is no truth, therelore, in tra- 



fear, lest their young men would enter utto the mili- 
tary and naval service ; the tendency of their little 
commtmity to become absorbed and lost in a foreign 
nation ; the natural and pious desire of perpetuating 
a church, which tliey believed to be constituted after 
the simple and pure model of the primitive church 
of Christ ; and a commendable zeal to propagate the 
gospel in the regions of the New World ; all con- 
curred to direct their attention to the selection of an 
abode free from the evils they dreaded, and affording 
a field for the perpetuation and extension of their re- 
ligious sentiments. In 1617, having concluded to go 
to Virginia,t and settle in a distinct body under the 
general government of that colony, they sent two oi 
their brethren to England to treat with the Virginia 
company, and to ascertain whether the king would 
grant them liberty of conscience, in that distant coun- 
try. Though these agents found the company very 
desirous of the projected settlement, and Avilling to 
grant them a patent with as ample privileges as they 
had power to convey, yet they could prevail with the 
king no farther, than to engage that he would con- 
nive at them, and not molest them, provided they 
should conduct themselves peaceably. Toleration in 
religious matters by his pubhc authority, under his ♦ 
seal, was denied ; the agents therefore returned to 
Leyden with tidings which tended to discourage tlie 
design of the cono-reo-ation. Resolved to make ano- 



eing the origin of the New England settlements to ' the obscure sect 
of the Brownists.' " — North American Review, vol. ix. p. 368, 369. 
So far, indeed, from Mr. Robinson being a bigot, he was in ad- 
vance of his age in the liberality of his sentiments; and many 
who now boast much of their attachment to truth alone, would do 
well to attend to this excellent man's charge to his congregation 
delivered two centuries ago. " If God reveal aiiyihing to you, by 
any other insirument of his, be as ready to receive it as ever you 
were to receive any truth by my ministry ; for I am verily per- 
suaded, I am very confident, the Lord has more truth yet to break 
forth out of his holy word. For my part, I cannot sufficiently be- 
wail the condition of the reformed churches, who are come to a 
period in religion, and will go at present no farther than the instru- 
ments of their reformation. The Lutherans cannot be drawn to 
go beyond what Luther saw ; whatever part of Jiis will our God 
has revealed to Calvin, they will rather die than embrace it ; and the 
Calvinisis, you see, stick fast to where they were left by that great 
man of God, who yet saw not all things. This is a misery much to 
be lamented, for though they were burning and shining lights in 
their limes, yet they penetrated not into the whole counsel of God ; 
but, were they now living, would be as willing to embrace farther 
light, as that which they first received. I beseech you remember 
it, 'tis an article of your church covenant, that you be ready to re- 
ceive whatever truth shall be made known to you from the written 
word of God. Remember that, and every other article of your 
sacred covenant. But I must herewithal exhort you to take heed 
what you receive as truth. Examine it, consider it, and compare it 
with other scriptures of truth, before you receive it; for 'tis not 
possible tlie Christian world should come so lately out of anti- 
christian darkness, and that perfection of knowledge should break 
forth at once."— Mather, b. i. c. iii'. ^ 8. 

•f The whole of British North America at this period still re- 
tained this appellation. 



42 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



ther trial; they sent two other agents to England, in 
the following Febrnary, to make arrangements with 
the Virginia company ; but dissensions then arising 
in that body, the bnsiness was necessarily procrasti- 
nated. After long attendance, the agents obtained a 
patent ; but, though procured with much expense 
and labour, it was never used, because the gentleman, 
in whose name it was taken out, was prevented from 
executing his purpose of accompanying his intended 
associates. This patent, however, being carried to 
Leyden for the consideration of the people, with seve- 
ral proposals from English merchants and friends for 
their transportation, they were requested to prepare 
immediately for the voyage. It was agreed that some 
of their number should go to America to make pre- 
paration for the rest. Mr. Robinson, their minister, 
was prevailed on to stay with the greater part at Ley- 
den ;* Mr. Brewster, their elder, was to accompany 
the first adventurers ; but these, and their brethren 
remaining in Holland, were to continue to be one 
church, and to receive each other to Christian com- 
munion, without a formal dismission, or testimonial. 
Several of the congregation sold their estates, and 
•made a common bank, which, together with money 
• received from other adventurers, enabled them to 
purchase the Speedwell, a ship of sixty tons, and to 
hire in England the May-flower, a ship of one hun- 
dred and eighty tons, for the intended enterprise. 
Preparation being thus made, the emigrants having 
left Leyden for England in July, sailed on the 5th of 
August from Southampton for America ; but, on ac- 
count of the leakiness of one of the vessels they were 
twice obliged to return. Dismissing this ship, as im- 
fit for the service, they sailed from Plymouth on the 
6th of September in the May-flower. After a boister- 

• " [t was his intention to follow them wilh the majoritv that re- 
mained, buj various disappointments prevented. He died March 
I, 1625, in the fiftieth year of his age, and in the height of his use- 
fulness. Another portion of his church, with his widow .and child- 
ren, afterwards" came to New England." — Allen's Biography, p. 
501. 

t Ft was as follows : — " In the name of God, .amen. We, whose 
names are under-written, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign 
Lord, King James, &c., having undertaken, for the glory of God 
and advancement of the Christian faith, and honour of our king 
and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts 
of Virginia, do, by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the 
presence of God, and of one another, covenant and :ombine our- 
selves together, into a civil body politic, for our belter ordering 
and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid ; and by 
virtue hereof, to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal 
laws and ordinances, acts, constitutions, and ofiicers, from lime to 
time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general 
good of the colony; unio which we promise all due submission 
and obedience." — Pitkin's Civil and Political History of the United 
Stales, vol. i. p. 33. 

i John Carver, the first governor of the Plymouth colony, was 
a native of England, and one of those who fled to Holland with 
Mr. Robinson, to enjoy, in that Protestant country, Wi'hout fear of 



ous passage, they, at break of day, on the 9th of No- 
vember, discovered the land of Cape Cod. Perceiving 
that they had been carried north of tlie place of their 
destination, they stood to the southward, intending 
to find some place near Hudson's river, for settle- 
ment ; but they were ultimately induced, by the ad- 
vanced season of the year, and the weakness of their 
condition, to relinquish that part of their original 
design. The master of the ship, availing himself of 
the fears of the passengers, and of their extreme 
solicitude to be set on shore, gladly shifted his course 
to the northward ; and it is said he had been clan- 
destinely promised a reward in Holland, if he would 
not carry the English to the Hudson river. Steering 
again, therefore, for the cape, the ship was clear of 
danger before night ; and the next day, a storm com- 
ing on, they dropped anchor in Cape harbour, where 
they felt themselves secure. 

Never were any civilized people placed more com- 
pletely in a state of nature than this little band of 
pilgrims, as they have been justly called. They had, 
•indeed, literally, a world before them; but that world 
was a wilderness, and Providence was their only 
guide. Being without the limits of the South Virgi- 
nia patent, they were destitute of any right to the soil 
on which they landed ; nor had they any powers of 
government derived from authority. Sensible of the 
necessity of some compact or form of civil govern- 
ment among themselves, they voluntarily entered 
into, and subscribed a written constitution.t This 
brief but comprehensive code of civil government, 
was signed by forty-one persons. It contained the 
elements of those forms of government peculiar to 
the New World. Under this system, John Carvert 
was, by general consent, chosen their first governor. 



a hierarchy that dealt in fagots and stakes, the religion of their 
choice. New difliculties beset them here; although they were not 
persecuted for their belief, they were apprehensive that their child- 
ren would be led away by the people about them, who were not 
sufficiently strict for those pilgrims. — The history of these adventu- 
rers ought never to be forgotten. It is wonderful to think what 
changes have been produced in the world by Ihe simple circum- 
stance that a handful of men should have left one continent to find 
a resting place on another. On Ihe 22d day of December, 1620, a 
small vessel, of a hundred and eighty tons burthen, not much larger 
than some of our coastmg vesseis at this period, on board of which, 
according to the noliocs of modern comfort, not more than a dozen 
passengers could be accommodated for a short voyage, entered the 
harbour of Plymouth, and from her landed, with the intention of 
making it a permanent residence, one hundred and one persons. 
The bleak shores of New England received this little band of pil- 
grims, at this inclement season of the year, after they had been a 
hundred and si.xty-nine days from Holland, and a hundred and 
seven from England. The deed was one of daring, and one which 
could alone have been supported by religion, enthusiasm, and for- 
titude : their minds were braced up to it ; there was something of 
that glow which beamed from the countenance of the first martyr 
in every breast of the pilgrims. They had lived nearly eleven 
years in a strange land, and had learned to concentrate their mental 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



43 



^ confiding," as the electors say, " in his prudence, 
that he would not adventure upon any matter of mo- 
ment without the consent of the rest, or, at least, 



I advice of such as were known to he the wisest 
amonsr them." 

Government being thus established, sixteen men. 



energies, anj to bring them to bear on this one purpose — on find- 
ing an asylum, where they could, without being molested, enjoy 
their religion in llieir own way. The whole time of their exile 
ivas one continued training fur the enterprise, both as to body and 
mind. Their great leader and patriarch, John Robinson, was a 
man of true evangelical piety, and of the most consummate poli- 
tical sagacity ; his religious creed was simple and pure — the doc- 
trines of his divine Master. He held in reverence the mighty 
names of the reformers, but he spurned the thoughts of holding on 
the skirls of the garments of mortal, sinful man, to raise him to 
eternal life, and he bade his followers beware of names. His part- 
ing blessing to the pilgrims should have a brighter glory than being 
written in letters of gold, in temples reared by hands; they should 
be written on the hearts of every Christian republican. His doc- 
trines were the essence of human reasoning, aided by the lights of 
revelation. He implored them in the name of his Father in hea- 
ven ; by all they sufl'ered, and by all they enjoyed, to become wiser 
and better. They followed his principles from love and duty; and 
every wind that lacerated the branches of the trees they planted, 
drove the roots deeper into the soil. 

The first days of the pilgrims were dark and sorrowful ; before 
the return of spring, many of them had paid the debt of nature : 
mourning was in every family, and the cold and snowy bosom of 
the virgin earth had been consecrated by the ashes of their beloved 
dead, and hallowed by the hopes of the resurrection and the life to 
come, before the soil had been turned up for the planting of a sin- 
gle vegetable for their sustenance, or a flower had sprung from it 
by the hand of cultivation. Forty-four had died before the end of 
March, and the rest were weary and heavy laden with many cares; 
but the sickened soul has a eommimion with God that no language 
can reach ; it rests on the promises of revelation, and has a fore- 
taste of immortality. 

The settlement of Massachusetts Bay, ten years after the land- 
ing of the pilgrims, was in pursuance of the same great plan of 
enjoying their own thoughts in their own way. This expedition 
was on a tenfold broader scale than the former, with a better di- 
gested system of operations, and, of course, was more successfully 
executed : but those settlers had days of sickness, of heart-ache, of 
hardships and trials; but in their march, they cheered the pilgrims, 
and made their safety a common cause. The usual view of this 
subject is, that the settlement of New England grew out of the re- 
ligious persecutions in England, after the death of Elizabeth. I 
am not content with so confined a view, and will venture on a wider 
range of thought than this ; for I consider the discovery and set- 
tlement of this countrj' the greatest event in the history of man, 
saving and excepting the introduction of our holy religion ; and I 
think I see through the vista of history the finger^f God pointing 
to it for six centuries before its accomplishment. The crusades open- 
ed the drama ; they did indeed exhaust Europe, ignorant and fana- 
tical Europe, of her best blood and treasure ; but they brought 
home many lessons of experience. They learnt much from the 
virtues of the infidels they went out to extirpate or proselyte. In 
the Saracenic character was a sturdiness of virtue, far transcend- 
ing that which passed well in the Christian world at that time ; and 
that they were far better informed, cannot now be questioned. 
Every battle, and all the bloodshed of the crusades sprung, from the 
excitement which at that period awakened the human mind to ac- 
tion ; and out of the sum of human errors were brought many true 
results. In the year 1453, the Turkish emperor turned his sword 
on Europe ; and Constantinople, so long the proud seat of the 
Greek emperors, fell before his conquering arm. The Christian 
world was amazed and terrified beyond description : they saw in 
the standard of the Turk, a meteor, that was to blaze over Europe. 
Churches were to sink before minarets and mosques ; and the Al- 
coran was to supplant the Sacred Scriptures : but short sighted man 
vfas disappointed most happily in this : the arms of the conqueror 
went no farther, and the seeming evil produced abundance of good. 
The Mussulman drove out, from this ancient and lovely seat of 
learning, the Greek scholars and philosophers who had long con- 



gregated there, and made them schoolmasters for all Europe. They 
brought out with them many rich manuscripts, which had been con- 
cealed from the greatest portion of the world for ages. Kings, 
nobles, and sovereign pontiffs, contended with one another for the 
posse.ssion of these treasures ; but while they were engaged in this 
noble strife, the art of printing was discovered ; and almost fault- 
less copies of the classics were multiplied, until the humblest scho- 
lar could enjoy the company of the poets and orators of ancient 
days, with the same fieedom as the potentates of the earth. From 
this moment the intellectual world was changed. This invention 
was at once the sign and the proof, that the world should ne\'cr 
again be deluged by a flood of ignorance : not only were the classics 
disseminated, but the Scriptures also were put into every one's 
hands. The human mind began to throw off its shackles, and a 
spirit of free inquiry went abroad. Every one was active in the 
pursuit of knowledge. This was not all : about this time gun- 
powder, which had been previously discovered, came into general 
use, in military and naval warfare, and the campaign was now 
more often decided by science and skill than by mere physical 
force. 

This change in warfaie was absolutely necessary to the settle- 
ment of this country, in order that the skill of the few should be 
equal to the strength of the many. This skill saved the New 
England colonies in the Pequot war. If piinting had not been 
discovered, in all probability, Columbus would not have received 
suflncient of the elements of geometry to have assisted him in tra- 
versing the Atlantic ; and if fire-arras and cannon had not } een in 
use, the handful of Spaniards would not have got a fooling on the 
continent. 

The discovery of the new world gave a new spring to huma 
enterprise, opened new trains of thought, new paths of gain and 
of information. Man, before this period, was more dependant on 
his own thoughts for improvement than afterwards, when by a rapid 
circulation oi^books his mind became enriched by the rays of light from 
ten thousand other minds. Guided by these new impulses, he arose and 
swept awav the thousand little errors of thinking, and grappled with 
dogmas, which in formcrdays he feared to touch. The sovereign pon- 
tiff, whose ecclesiastical reign was not bounded by seas and empires, 
grew more proud by this extent of authorily, and more lavish of his 
wealth, believing that the western world was lull of gold. Still the 
fulness of time had not come for planting a colony in New England. 
It was necessary not only that man should become enlightened and 
polished, but that his morals should become stricter, and his reason- 
ing powers made more acute and discriminating, before he could 
set out upon the doctrine of self-government, and to fix his own 
articles of belief. The awful responsibility of reasoning for oiie's 
self had not been for ages assumed. Scinlillaiions of frf 'dom of 
thought were seen here and there, when Lullicr burst in a blaze 
upon the errors of the pontifl^, the church, and all who had sustain- 
ed them. Like other reformers, he was often more zealous than 
wise, and sometimes laboured harder to correct a folly, than to de- 
stroy a lalse principle ; but his ends were noble, and his means ho- 
nest and primitive. He dared, single-handed, to pluck Ihe wizard 
beard, of hoary error ; to meet the idols of wealth and power, with 
reason and scripture, as his only weapons. He wrestled with ig- 
norance and sophistry ; fought bigotry ; and unappalled, met tyrar.ny 
and oppression. With the natural courage of a Cesar, he united 
the inflexible spirit of the Christian martyr. His labours weie 
wonderful, and their eff'ects still more so. In imitation of his di- 
vine master, he entered the temple with a scourge, and drove out 
the changers of money, the extortioners, and those who daily pol- 
luted the sacred fane. But one man, however great his powers, 
could not reform an age, or correct a church, grown calloiii and 
proud, and a^tsping at still greater sway over the minds of men. 
Another reformer followed with equal genius, and equal zeal. Lu- 
ther attacked practices and habits ; but Calvin, striving to root out 
false principles, plunged into the depths of metaphysics, and set the 
world to reasoning on all abstruse subjects. He came more to re- 
form thoughts and pomions, than acts and deeds ; still he was not 



44 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



well armed, with a few others, were sent on shore 
the same day, to fetch wood and make discoveries ; 
but they returned at night without having found any 
person or habitation. The company, having rested 

unmindful of these things. In the ways of God, the wrath of man 
shall praise him ; so do liis weaknesses, his follies, and his passions ; 
the quarrel between Henry YIII. and the Pope, was another cause 
of the advancement of true religion. Henry's case proved that all 
that was done on earth, by man assuming to be holy, was not rati- 
fied in heaven ; for England flourished notwithstandhig all the ana- 
themas launched from the Vatican. After men had begun to rea- 
son for themselves in every part of Europe, sects grew up, and 
boldly assailed the established order of things. Some of them rose 
iu frenzy, and died in shame ; but others have continued, and will 
continue, because they were founded upon immutable principles. 
Among those who held their faith steadfast and immoveable, were 
our Pilgrim Fathers ; for their belief contained what no other creed 
ever did before — a declaration that it was susceptible of improve- 
ment, and with this frank avowal — that God has more truth yet to 
break forth from his holy word ; and it was their firm persuasion, 
that new lights would constantly arise, and new and refreshing 
views of the will of God would be given from the Scriptures ; that 
man, as a religious being, was to be progressive, as well as an intel- 
lectual one. The pilgrims were of the order called Puritans, and of 
the sect improperly called Brownites ; but the great divine at their 
head conjured them to sink the name, and they did so among them- 
Belves, after they arrived in this country ; but the appellation of 
Pilgrims they retained with fondness ; for the first child born among 
them, on these shores, they baptized Peregrine, in allusion to their 
wanderings. 

Thus the moral, intellectual, religious, and political seed sown 
on these northern shores, was as pure and as full of life as any ever 
sown on any soil in any age of the world. In examining the course 
pursued by the pilgrims, every one must be struck with the strong 
moral honesty, in their first intercourse with each other. A com- 
munity of interests they soon found would not answer their purpose, 
and they came to an amicable understanding of having separate 
worldly interests, preserving the integrity of ecclesiastical, legisla- 
tive, and military power. There were still so few of them for 
many years, and they were so closely connected in every thing, that 
they understood each other's minds, dispositions, and course of 
thinking, as well as acting. They were truly one people, of one 
heart, and of one mind. Labour gave them muscular strength, 
and their habits of reasoning upon every thing, taught them saga- 
city and quickness of thought. The philosophy of man as a think- 
ing and an immortal being, tried by the standard of the Scriptures 
— the nature of governments — the doctrine of equal rights — the du- 
ties of rulers — how far obedience to civil institutions should extend 
— were constant topics of discussion in the labours of the field, in the 
chase over the hunting grounds, in the fishing smack, or on their 
travels in search of their foes. The constant alarm they were in 
for their personal safety, and the protection of their dwellings, in- 
structed them in the true grounds of human courage— a confidence 
in themselves and in one another. Almost any man will fight 
bravely who is sure of the courage of his associates. They knew 
with whom they went out to fight, against whom they were to fight, 
and for what they fought ; not only for their own existence, but for 
their wives and little ones. It was necessity that made them war- 
riors ; there was no prince or potentate to reward their valour ; no 
spoil of an opulent enemy to gain and divide ; no wreaths of glory ; 
no huzzas of a grateful people were known to them. To fight well, 
was an every day duty, and their ties grew stronger by every shock. 
They were anxious for their offspring ; and not for their immedi- 
ate descendants alone, but for more remote posterity. They wisely 
came to the conclusion, that a republican government could not be 
supported without a more than ordinary share of ijitelligence, and 
they set about establishing schools on the broadest basis ; and de- 
clared, that as the community shared in the benefits of a general 
diffusion of knowledge, they should be at the expense of educating 
the whole mass of the children. In the seven teen th year of the 
settlement of Massachusetts Bay, (May, 1647,) they passed this or- 



during the sabbath, disembarked on Monday, the 13th 
of November ; and soon after proceeded to explore 
the interior of the country. In their researches they 
discovered heaps of earth, one of which they dug 

dinance, the most remarkable on the page of history. It was at 
once a proud tribute to their ancestors, and a spirited determination 
of their own, not to sutler their descendants to degenerate. They 
ordered that every town containing fifty families, or householders, 
should maintain a school for reading and writing ; and that every 
town lliat numbered one hundred families or householders, should 
support a grammar school. The reasons given may seem qiiain 
at the present day, but they are most admirable, and should never 
be forgotten. Some have attempted to lake from Ihem the honour 
of first establishing public schools at the common expense ; this 
was a vain attempt ; our records show the fact without difficulty; 
and we know that our records are true. The ordinance was car- 
ried into effect, if possible, in a more republican manner than one 
would expect from the very letler of the ordinance ; for when a 
town was divided into school districts, each districi was taxed in 
proportion to its properly, and the school money was divided among 
the districts in proportion to the number of persons in it. And 
this principle, in many parts of New England, is still exiant. The 
ordinance referred to runs thus : " It being one chief project of 
Satan, to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures, as in 
former times, keeping them in unknown tongues, so in these lailer 
times, by persuading from the use of tongues, that so at least the 
true sense and meaning of the original might be clouded and cor- 
rupted with false glosses of deceivers ; to the end that learning 
may not be buried in the graves of our forefathers in church and 
commonwealth, the Lord a.ssisting our endeavours; it is ordered," 
&c., making the requisitions we have mentioned. In May, 1671, 
the penalty for neglect of thi« ordinance was increased ; and in Oc- 
tober, 1683, it was ordered, that every town, consisting of more 
than five hundred families or householders, should support two 
grammar schools and two writing schools. At the very threshold 
of their political existence, a college was founded; and from that 
time to this, most liberally supported. The system of parish, town, 
and county government, gave all, who strove for it, an opportunity 
to display their talents in some public way ; there was noparlicular 
rank aside from the elective franchise, for the aspiring youth to bow 
to for office or favour. A man must then have had regard to the feel- 
ings of a virtuous and an enlightened people to rise into power. 
The government was in its form simple ; but there is more wisdom 
in simplicity than in complexity. 

The machinery of government was understood by all, for there 
were no concealed wires or hidden springs known to a favoured 
few, but unknown to the mass of the people ; and there was but 
very little party spirit existing among them. The good of the 
whole was IheiJiappiness of each. 

For the first century their growth was slow, but solid and hardy. 
Their numerous wars, and their traffic to the unhealthy climate of 
the West Indies, made great inroads upon the ranks of those jnsl 
entering, and of those who had just entered, into life. The whole 
community were like that class in other countries, in which it has 
been said, that nearly all virtue and intelligence centres; in the 
class which has not reached opulence, and yet is above want. Our 
forefathers put in no claims for ancestral honours or splendid alli- 
ances, but they were justly proud of a pure honest blood ; there 
were no left-hand marriages among them, and none of the poison 
of licentiousness, or the lainl of crime. The women were as 
brave as the men, and a heroic mother .seldom has a coward son. 
He who learns his lessons of valour on the knee of her who bore 
him, never shrinks from tales of fear, told by other tongues. Pure 
principles, early instilled into the human mind, where there are no 
evil communicalions to corrupt them, generally last through life. 
The other portions of New England were settled principally by 
■emigrants from the old colony and Massachusetts Bay, and pos- 
sessed the same characteristics, and have retained them quite as 
well as the parent stales. 

Carver did not live long to enjoy this land of religious freedom, 
I for after enacting a few laws, and making a treaty with tbe Tn- 



HISTORY OP Tlffi UNITED STATES. 



45 



open, but, finding within implements of war, they 
concluded these were Indian graves ; and therefore, 
replacing what they had taken out, they left them 
inviolate. In different heaps of sand they also found 
'■'askets of corn, a large quantity of which they car- 
ried away in a great kettle, found at the ruins of an 
Indian house. This providential discovery gave 
them seed for a future harvest, and preserved the in- 
fant colony from famine.* On the 6th of December 
the shallop was sent out with several of the princi- 
pal men, to sail round the bay in search of a place 
for settlement. During their researches, part of the 
company travelled along the shore, where they were 
surprised by a flight of arrows from a party of In- 
dians ; but, on the discharge of the English muskets, 
the Indians instantly disappeared. The shallop, 
after imminent hazard from the loss of its rudder and 
mast in a storm, and from shoals, which it narrowly 
escaped, reached a small island on the night of tlie 
8th ; here the company reposed themselves, grateful 
for their preservation during the week ; and on this 
island they kept the sabbath. The day following 
they sounded the harbour, and found it fit for ship- 
ping; went on shore, and explored the adjacent land, 
where they saw various corn-fields and brooks ; and, 
judging the situation to be convenient for a settle- 
ment, they returned with the welcome intelligence to 
the ship. 

On the 23d, as many of the company as could, 
with convenience, went on shore, and felled and car- 
ried timber to the spot appropriated for the erection 
of a building for common use. On the 25th, they 
commenced the erection of the first house. A plat- 
form for their ordnance demanding the earliest atten- 
tion, they formed one upon a hill, which commanded 
an extensive prospect of the plain beneath, of the ex- 
panding bay, and of the distant ocean. They divided 
their whole company into nineteen families ; mea- 
sured out the ground ; and assigned to every person 
by lot half a pole in breadth, and three poles in 
length, for houses and gardens. In grateful remem- 
brance of the Christian friends whom they found at 
the last town they left in their native country, they 
called their settlement Plymouth. Thus was founded 
the first British town of New England.t 

The climate was found much more severe than the 
colonists had anticipated ; and they had arrived when 
winter was neatly one third advanced. They had 



dians, he died suddenly on the 23d of March, 1621, and was suc- 
ceeded by Mr. Bradford, as governor. Carver was a man of ta- 
lents and integrity, and was a great loss to the infant cotony, — as 
these pioneers of religions and political liberty required all that 
was firm in purpose and steadfast in faith to surmount the diffi- 
culties thai beset ikcm.^- American Editor. 



every thing to do, and in this season could do very 
little, even of what was indispensable. Their shelter 
was wretched ; their sufferings were intense ; their 
dangers were not small, and were rendered painful 
by an absolute uncertainty of their extent. All these 
evils they encountered with resolution, and sustained 
with fortitude. To each other they were kind : to 
the savages they were just : they loved the truth of 
the gospel ; embraced it in its purity ; and obeyed it 
with an excellence of life, which added a new wreath 
to the character of man. 

" Such," says Dr. Dwight, " was the first coloniza- 
tion of this country. Almost every country on this 
globe has been originally settled by savages ; or, if 
settled by civilized people, has been peopled solely for 
political or commercial purposes. Here the enjoy- 
ment and perpetuation of civil and religious liberty, 
conformity to the dictates of conscience, and a reve- 
rential obedience to the law of God, were the con- 
trolling principles. It is not contended that every 
individual was governed by tliese principles ; but 
that this was the character of the great body is un- 
answerably evinced, if history can evince*liny thing. 
The manner in which they acted, and the spirit with 
which they endured distress, both in England and in 
Holland ; the cool determination with which they 
resolved on so difficult an enterprise ; the honoura- 
ble testimonies which they received from the Dutch 
magistrates and people ; the sacrifices which they 
made of property, safety, and comfort ; the affection 
which they manifested to each other; the serenity, 
firmness, and submission with which they sustained 
the distresses of their voyage ; the undiscouraged 
perseverance with which they encountered danger 
and suffering after they had landed ; the wisdom of 
the government which they established ; the steadi- 
ness of their submission to its regulations ; their 
ardent piety to God ; and the equity, gentleness, and 
good-will with which they treated the Indians, form 
a constellation of excellence eminently brilliant and 
distinguished. No iirtelligent Englishman would 
hesitate to acknowledge it as a luminous spot on the 
character of his nation ; were he not, in a sense, com- 
pelled to remember, that he may be descended from 
those very men, by whose injustice these pilgrims 
were driven into this melancholy exile.":!: 

James I. about this time, being dissatisfied with the 
limited extent of the colony which had proceeded to 



• "Before the close of the month, Mrs. Susannah White was de- 
livered of a son, who was called Peregrine ; and this was the first 
child of European e-xtraction born in New England." 

t Hubbard's History of New England, c. 9. p. 35—61. Smith's 
Hist. Virg. p. 230—233. I. Mather's Hist. New England, p. 5. 

J Dwighf a Travels, vol. i. p. 107. 



46 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



establish his dominion on the vast tract over which 
he claimed the sovereignty ; and the old chartered 
company of Plymonth having done nothing effectual 
towards any permanent settlement, he issued a new 
charter to the duke of Lenox, the marquis of Buck- 
ingham, and several other persons of distinction in 
his court, by whicli he conveyed to them a right to a 
territory in America, still more extensive than what 
had been granted to the former patentees, incorpora- 
ting them as a body politic, in order to plant colonies 
there, with powers and jurisdictions similar to those 
contained in his charters to the companies of South 
and North Virginia. This society was distinguished 
by the name of the Grand Council of Plymouth for 
planting and governing New England ; and their 
patent was the only civil basis of all the subsequent 
patents and plantations which divided this country. 
The expectations of the king respecting his new com- 
pany were, however, disappointed ; and after many 
schemes and arrangements, all the attempts towards 
colonization proved imsuccessful. 

While this was transpiring in England, the New 
Plymouth colonists were advancing under favourable 
circumstances. After commencing their town, they 
took the earliest opportunity to ascertain the state of 
the surrounding country ; and tliey found, to their 
surprise, that it had been absolutely depopulated, 
throughout a considerable extent, by the small pox, a 
short time before their arrival. This event opened 
to them a place of settlement, not only without any 
jealousy, but even with the good wishes of their 
aboriginal neighbours. The people who had been 
destroyed were Wampanoags. Massasoit, the chief 
sachem of his tribe, was continually threatened, after 
this destruction of his people, by their formidable 
neighbours, the Narrhagansetts. Having gained 
some knowledge of the character of the English from 
one of his own people, named Squanto, or Tisquan- 
tum, (one of twenty-four Indians kidnapped, carried 
off, and sold to the Spaniards of Malaga, by Thomas 
Hunt, as slaves, but afterwards conveyed to liOndon, 
and thence again to America,) Massasoit believed, 
that the colonists might be made useful allies in the 
present state of his affairs. Accordingly he soon 
came to Plymouth, and entered into a treaty, offensive 
and defensive, with the colonists, which he maintained 
without any serious interruption to his death. He 
appears to have been a fair, honest, benevolent man. 
All these circumstances were favourable to the 



• " Morton took the counsel of the wicked husbandmen about the 
vineyard in the parable ; for making the company merry one night, 
he persuaded them to turn out Filcher, and keep possession for 
themielTes, promising himself to be a partner with them, and tell- 



English, but they deemed it piudent to use the means 
of farther security. They accordingly surrounded 
the town with fortifications, and erected three gates, 
which were guarded every day, and locked every 
night. In the succeeding summer they built a strong 
and handsome fort, on which cannon were mounted, 
and a watch kept ; it was also used as a place of 
public worship. 

During this year, Thomas Weston, a merchant of 
good reputation in London, having procured for him- 
self a patent for a tract of land in Massachusetts 
Bay, arrived with two ships and fifty or sixty men, 
at his own charge, to settle a plantation at a place 
since called Weymouth, midway between Plymouth 
and Boston. But the colonists were of a dissolute 
character, and therefore totally unqualified for such 
an enterprise. The Indians whom they abused 
formed a plot for their destruction, but it was pre- 
vented from issuing fatally by the interference of the 
Plymouth settlers. The colony, however, was ruin- 
ed the next year. Several other attempts of a simi- 
lar nature were made soon after, but failed. 

Of thess fruitless efforts, we can only notice very 
briefly that of Robert Gorges, son of Sir Ferdinando, 
sent by the Plymouth council as general governor of 
New England, who arrived at Massachusetts Bay 
with several passengers and families, and purposed 
to begin a plantation at Wessagusset ; but he return- 
ed home, with scarcely saluting the country within 
his government. Gorges brought with him William 
Morrell, an episcopal minister, who had a commission 
from the ecclesiastical courts in England to exercise 
a kind of superintendence over the churches which 
were, or might be, established in New England : 
but he found no opportunity to execute his commis- 
sion. This was the first essay for the establishment 
of a general government in New England ; but, like 
every succeeding attempt, it was totally unsuccessful. 
Among the attempts at forming settlements at this 
time was one of a character as peculiar as it was 
undesirable. Captain Wollaston began a plantation, 
which he named after himself. One Morton, of 
Furnival's inn, was of this company. He was not 
left in command, but contrived to make himself chief, 
changed the name of Mount Wollaston to Merry 
Mount, set all the servants free, erected a may-pole, 
and lived a life of dissipation, until all the stock 
intended for trade was consumed.* He was charged 
with furnishing the Indians with guns and ammuni 

ing them, that otherwise they were like all to bo sold for slaves, «B 
were the rest of their fellows, if ever Rasdale returned. This 
counsel was easy to be taken, as suiting well with the genius of 
young men, to eat, drink, and be merry, while the good things Iset- 



*6N 



era 







& ^^^^^i^^^^^.^ 



1 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



47 



tion, and teaching them the use of them. At length, 
he made himself so obnoxious to the planters in all 
parts, that, at their general desire, the people of New 
Plymouth seized him by an armed force, and confin- 
ed him, until they had an opportunity of sending 
him to England. 

During the year 1628, the Plymouth colonists 
obtained a patent for Kennebeck ; and up this river, 
in a place convenient for trade, erected a house, and 
furnished it with corn and other commodities ; and 
while the trade of their infant colony was thus com- 
mencing toward the East, it became also gradually 
extended toward the west. After this commence- 
meiu of trade, the Dutch often sent goods to the same 
place, and a traffic was continued several years. 
The offers of commercial intercourse made by the 
Dutch, who were settled upon the Hudson, were 
willingly accepted ; and the arrangements then 
entered into laid the foundation of an advantageous 
trade, which was carried on for many years between 
the English and Dutch plantations, much to their 
mutual benefit.* 

The time was now at hand, when the causes which 
had induced the voluntary exile of the Leyden con- 
gregation should produce an effect far more exten- 
sive. Applications to the Plymouth company from 
puritan congregations were now becoming frequent ; 
and, in the year 1628, the council of Plymouth sold 
to Sir Henry Roswell and others, their heirs and 
associates, that part of New England which lies 
between two boundaries, one three miles north of the 
Merrimac, and the other three miles south of Charles 
river, from the Atlantic to the South sea. The same 
year Mr. Endicot, one of the patentees, came to New 
England, and planted himself, with a small colony, 
in Naumkeag, now Salem. The following year they 
were joined by about two hundred others, making 
three hundred in the whole, one hundred of whom, 
however, removed the same year, and settled them- 
selves, with the consent of Mr. Endicot, governor of 
the colony, at Mishawum, now Charlestown. The 
second Salem company brought with them a consi- 
derable number of cattle, horses, sheep, and goats ; 
which, after a little period, became so numerous as 
to supply all the wants of the inhabitants. Powers 
of government were granted to these colonists by 
Charles I., which constituted them a corporation, by 
the name of the Governor and Company of Massa- 



ed, which was not long, by that course which was taken with them, 
more being flung away in some merry meetings, than, with fru- 
gality, would have maintained the whole company divers months. 
In fine, they in proved what goods they had, by trading with the 
Indian! awhile, and spent it as merrily about a may-pole; and, as 
if thpy had found a mine, or spring of pleniy, called the place 



chuseits Bay, in New England, with power to elect 
annually a governor, deputy governor, and eighteen 
assistants ; four great and general courts were to be 
held every year, to consist of the governor, or, in his 
absence, the deputy governor, the assistants, or at 
least six of them, and the freemen of the company. 
These courts were authorized to appoint such offi- 
cers as they should think proper, and also to make 
such laws and ordinances for the good and welfare 
of the company, and for the government of the colo- 
ny, as to them should seem meet, provided such 
laws and ordinances should not be contrary or re- 
puo;nant to the laws of England. The readiness 
with which this application was acceded to, and the 
principles on which this charter was constituted, are 
not easily accounted for, except that Charles and 
his ecclesiastical counsellors were desirous, at this 
time, to disencumber the church, in which they me- 
ditated extensive innovations, of a body of men, from 
wliom the most unbending opposition to their mea- 
sures might be expected. 

The arbitrary proceedings of the British court, in 
affairs both of church and state, continued without 
any abatement, and induced many gentlemen of 
wealth and distinction to join the Plymouth com- 
pany, and remove to New England. In 1629, many 
persons of this character, and among them the dis- 
tinguished names of Isaac Johnson, John Winthrop, 
Thomas Dudley, and Sir Richard Saltonstall, pro- 
posed to the company to remove, with their families, 
on condition that the charter and government should 
be transferred to New England. To this the com- 
pany assented, and in the course of the next year, 
John Winthrop, who had been chosen governor, 
with about one thousand five hundred persons, 
embarked. The fleet consisted of ten sail, one of 
which was of three hundred and fifty tons, and, 
from Lady Arabella Johnson, who sailed in her, was 
called the Arabella. Among the passengers were a 
number of eminent nonconformist ministers. The 
most highly esteemed was Mr. Wilson, the son of a 
dignitary of the church, who, by his connexions and 
talents, might have aspired to its highest honours, 
but chose to renounce all, in order to suffer with 
those whom he accounted the people of God. But 
the circumstance which threw a greater lustre on 
the colony than any other, was the arrival of Mr. 
John Cotton, the most esteemed of all the puritan 



Merry Mount. ' Thus stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten 
in secret is pleasant,' till it be found, that ' the dead are there, and 
her guests in the depths of hell.' "—Hubbard's Hist. New England, 
p. 103, 104. 

* Hubbard's Hist. New England, p. iOO. 



48 



HISTORY OF THl] UNITED STATES. 



ministers in England. Becoming an object of the 
joersecuting fuiy of Laud, he left Boston in disguise, 
and spent some time in London, seeking a proper 
opportunity to emigrate. There went out with him 
Mr. Hooker and Mr. Stone, who were esteemed to 
make a glorious triumvirate, and were received in 
New England with the utmost exultation. Mr. 
Cotton was appointed to preach at Boston, now the 
principal town in Massachusetts Bay, and was mainly 
employed in drawing up the ecclesiastical constitu- 
tion of the colony. 

On the arrival of the principal ships of the fleet 
at Charlestown, the governor and several of the 
patentees, having viewed the bottom of the Bay of 
Massachusetts, and pitched down on the north side 
of Charles river, took lodgings in the great house 
built there the preceding year, and the rest of the 
company erected cottages, booths, and tents, about 
the town hill. Their place of assembling for 
divine service was under a tree. When the fleet 
had safely arrived, a day of thanksgiving was kept 
in all the plantations. Early attention was paid to 
the great object of the enterprise. On the 30th of 
July, a day of solemn prayer and fasting was kept 
at Charlestown, when Governor Winthrop, Deputy 
Governor Dudley, and Mr. Wilson, first entered into 
church covenant ; and at this time was laid the 
foundation of the church of Charlestown, and of the 
first church in Boston. On the 27th of August, the 
congregation kept a fast, and chose Mr. Wilson their 
teacher. " We used imposition of hands," says 
Governor Winthrop, " but with this protestation by 
all, that it was only a sign of election and confir- 
mation, not of any intent that Mr. Wilson should 
renounce the ministry he received in England." 

On the 23d of August, the first court of assistants, 
since the arrival of the colonists, was holden at 
Charlestown. The first question proposed was. How 
the ministers should be maintained? The court 
ordered, that houses be built, and salaries raised for 
them, at the common charge. At the second court 
of assistants held at Charlestown, it was ordered, that 
no person should plant in any place within the limits 

• Cotton Mather, in his Magnalia, bestows this just, though 
soniewnat quaint tribute to their character. " Of those who soon 
dy'<l after their first arrival, not the least considerable was the 
Lady Arabella, who left an earthly paradise in the family of an 
earldiim, to encounter the sorrows of a wilderness, for the enter- 
tainments of a pure worship in the house of God ; and then im- 
mediately left that wilderness for the heavenly paradise, whereto 
the compassionate Jesus, of whom she was a follower, called her. 
We have read concerning a noble woman of Bohemia, who forsook 
her friends, her plate, her house, and all ; and because the gates 
of the city were guarded, crept through the common sewer, that 
she might enjoy the institutions of our Lord at another place 
where ihey mght be had. The spirit which acted that noble wo- 



of the patent, without leave from the governor and 
assistants, or the major part of them ; that a warrant 
should presently be sent to Agawam, to command 
those who were planted there to come immediately 
away ; and that Trimountain be called Boston ; 
Matapan, Dorchester ; and the town on Charles 
river, Watertown. The governor, with most of the 
assistants, about this time removed their families to 
Boston ; having it in contemplation to look for a 
convenient place for the erection of a fortified town. 

The first general court of the Massachusetts colo- 
ny was also held this year at Boston ; when many 
of the first planters attended, and were made free of 
the colony. It was now enacted, that the freemen 
should in future elect assistants, who were empow- 
ered to choose out of their own ntimber the governor 
and deputy governor, who, with the assistants, were 
to have the power of making laws, and choosing 
officers for their execution. This measure was fully 
assented to by the general vote of the people; but 
when the general court met, early the next year, it 
rescinded this regulation, and ordained, that the 
governor, deputy governor, and assistants, should be 
chosen by the freemen alone. 

The colony was now gaininff strength from its 
numbers and organization ; but it had also its trials 
to contend with, not the least of which was the sick- 
ness arising from the severity of the climate, or, more 
truly, from the means of counteracting the injuri- 
ous tendencies of the climate not being yet properly 
understood. Among those who fell an early sacri- 
fice, none were lamented more than Lady Arabella 
Johnson and her husband, who had left the abodes 
of abundance and of social comfort for the American 
wilderness, purely from religions principle." As 
soon as the severity of the winter was abated suffi- 
ciently to admit of assemblies being convened, the 
colonists proceeded to enact laws for their internal 
regulation. It has been before observed, that those 
who so resolutely ventured to cross the ocean, and 
to brave the hardships attendant on clearing the 
American forests, sought rather to establish churches, 
than to found a kingdom ; it will naturally be sup- 
man, we may suppose, carried this blessed lady thus to and thro' 
the hardships of an American desert. But as for her virtuous 
husband, Isaac Johnson, Esq., 

He try'd 

To live without her, lik'd it not, and dy'd. 
His mourning for the death of his honourable consort was too 
bitter to be extended a year ; about a month after her death, his en- 
sued, unio the extreme loss of the whole plantation. But at the 
end of this perfect and tipright man, there was not only peace, but 
joy ; and his joy particularly expressed itself, that God had kept 
his eyes open so long as to see one church of the Lord Jesus Christ 
gathered in these ends of the earth, before his own going av/ay to 
heaven." — Cotton Mather's Magnalia, p. 21 22. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



49 



posed, therefore, that their legislation partook largely 
of an ecclesiastical character. Indeed the history of 
this colony (thongli we shall endeavour to make it 
as prominently a civil history as the case will admit) 
presents more matter for the ecclesiastical than the 
civil historian. At the very first court of election, a 
law was passed, enacting that none should hereafter 
be admitted freemen, or be entitled to any share in 
the government, or he capable of being chosen ma- 
gistrates, or even as serving as jurymen, but such 
as had been or should hereafter be received into the 
ciuirch as members.* " This Vv'as a most extraordi- 
nary order or law," says Hutchinson, " and yet it 
continued in force until the dissolution of the 
government, it being repealed in appearance only 
after the restoration of King Charles H. Had they 
been deprived of their civil privileges in England 
by an act of parliament, unless they would join in 
communion with the churches there, it might very 
well have been the first in the roll of grievances. 
But such were the requisites to qualify for church- 
membership here, that the grievance was abun- 
dantly greater." 

This is a very interesting-, though reprehensible, 
feature in the history of the New England states. It 
has been justly observed, by a living author, that the 
puritans, whom the English dissenters claim as their 



* " None may now be a freeman of that company, unless he be 
a church member among them ; none have voice in elections of 
governor, deputy, and assistants ; none are to be magistrates, 
officers, or jiiiymen, grand or petit, but freemen. The ministers 
give their votes in all elections of magistrates. Now the most of 
the persons at New England are not admitted of their church, and 
therefore are not freemen ; and when they come to be tried there, 
be it for life or limb, name or estate, or whatsoever, they must be 
tried and judged too by those of the church who are, in a sort, 
their adversaries. How equal that hath been, or may be, some by 
experience do know, others may judge. "^Lechford. " This law 
at once divested every person who did not hold the prevailing opi- 
nions, not only on the great points of doctrine, but with respect to 
the discipline of the church and the ceremonies of worship, of all 
the privileges of a citizen. An uncontrolled power of approvmg 
or rejecting the claims of those who applied for admission into com- 
munion with the church, being vested in the ministers and leading 
men of each congregation, the most valuable civil rights were 
made to depend on their decision with respect lO qualifications 
purely ecclesiastical. Even at a later period, when the colonists 
were compelled, by the remonstrances of Charles II., to make some 
alteration of this law, they altered it only in appearance, and en- 
acted that every candidate for the privilege of a freeman, should 
produce a certificate from some minister of the established church, 
that they were persons of orthodox principles, and of honest life 
and conversation — a certificate which they who did not belong to 
the established church necessarily solicited with great disadvantage. 
The consequence of such laws was to elevate the clergy to a very 
btgh degree of influence and authority ; and, happily for the colony, 
she was long blessed with a succession of ministers whose admira- 
ble virtues were calculated to counteract the mischief of this inor- 
dinate influence, and even to convert it into an instrument of good. 
Various persons, indeed, resided in peace within the colony, though 
ijxcluded from political franchises; and one episcopal minister is 
particularly noted for having said, when he signified his refusal to 



ancestors, had none of, what he is pleased to term, 
tlie latitudinarian ideas which the moderns possess. 
It does not appear that they disapproved of the prin- 
ciples of persecution ; but rather of the extent to 
which it was carried, and of tliemselves being its 
objects. They adhered firmly to the doctrine that 
the sword of the magistrate should be employed to 
prevent the promulgation of sentiments diflfering from 
their own, never, apparently, having perceived that 
the principle would also justify the Romish church, 
and would call upon heathen magistrates to repel all 
christian instructers by a similar method : thus, what 
they regarded as pious in themselves, they felt to be 
iniquitous in others. Surely the dreadful results to 
which this erroneous principle so speedily led even 
these excellent men, to their irretrievable disgrace, 
must stagger, if not convince, the most ardent advo- 
cate for the intermixture of the civil power with the 
spiritual. In censuring, we must however bear in 
mind, that the light of experience had not shone on 
them with the lustre it sheds on the present genera- 
tion, although it must be admitted, that the truth on 
this point was clearly stated to them by some of the 
objects of their persecution, especially by Roger 
Williams,t whose history we shall have more parti- 
cularly to record. 

It has already been observed, that the small-pox 

join any of the colonial congregations, that, as he had left England 
because he did not like the lurd bishops, so they might rest assured 
he had not come to America to live under the lord brethren." — 
Grahame, vol. i. p. 263, 264. 

t Dr. Dwight makes the following apology for the founders of 
New England. " Every government in the Christian world claim- 
ed, at that time, the right to control the religious conduct of its sub- 
jects. This claim, it is true, finds no warrant in the scriptures; but 
its legitimacy had never been questioned, and therefore never in- 
vestigated. All that was then contended for was, that it should be 
exercised with justice and moderation. Our ancestors brought 
with thein to America the very same opinions concerning this sub- 
ject which were entertained by their fellow-citizens, and by all 
j other men of all Christian countries. As they came to New Eng- 
land, and underwent all the hardships incident to colonizing it, for 
the sake of enjoying their religion mimolested, they naturally were 
very reluctant that others, who had borne no share of their bur- 
thens, should wantonly intrude upon this favourite object, and dis- 
turb the peace of themselves and their families. AVith these views, 
they began to exercise the claim which I have mentioned, and, like 
the people of all other countries, carried the exercise to lengths 
which nothing can justify. But it ought ever to be remembered, 
that no other civilized nation can take up the first stone to cast 
against them. An Englishman certainly must, if he look into the 
ecclesiastical annals of his own country, he for ever .silent on the 
subject. It ought also to be remembered, that they scrupulously 
abstained fromdisturbing all others, and asked nothing of others, 
but to he unmolested at home."— Dwight, vol. i. p. 134. "It is 
suflicient to remark," says a writer in the North American Re- 
view, " that they never professed themselves the advocates of tole- 
ration. Toleration was not a virtue of the age in which they 
lived ; and they ought not to be reproached with the want of it. 
since they cannot be charged with the opposite error, beyond every 
other Christian sect of that dav. Their grand object wa.s to wor- 
ship God according to the dictates of conscience, and for this objacl 



50 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, 



had devastated the neighbourhood of the English 
settlements to a very considerable extent. As several 
of the vacant Indian stations were well chosen, such 
was the eagerness of the English to take jjossession 
of them, that their settlements became more numerous 
and more widely dispersed than suited the condition 
of an infant colony. This led to an innovation 
which totally altered the nature and constitution of 
the government. When a general court was to be 
held in 1634, the freemen, instead of attending it in 
person, as the charter prescribed, elected representa- 
tives in their different districts, authorizing them to 
appear in their name, with full power to deliberate 
and decide concerning every point that fell under the 
cognizance of the general court. Before the court pro- 
ceeded to the choice of magistrates, they asserted their 
right to a greater share in tlie government than they 
had hitherto been allowed, and passed several reso- 
hitions, defining the powers of the general court, and 
ordaining trial by jury. After the election of magis- 
trates, they further determined, that there should be 
four general courts every year ; that the whole body 
of freemen should be present at the court of election 
only ; and that the freemen of every town might 
choose deputies to act in their names at the other 
general courts, whicli deputies should have the full 
power of all the freemen. The legislative body thus 
became settled ; and, with but inconsiderable altera- 
tions, remained in this form during the continuance 
of the charter. The colony must henceforward be 
considered, not as a corporation whose powers were 
defined, and its mode of procedure regulated by its 

Ihey sought an asylum in the wilderness of this continent, where 
they should be removed from the sight of antichristian errors of 
every description. Nothing was farther from their thoughts, than 
to build up a republic, in which sectarians and fanatics of every 
denomination under hea en might mingle their multifarious rites, 
and confound their modes of Christian worship with their own." — 
North American Review, vol. ix. p. 375. " In the first moment 
that they began to taste of Christian liberty themselves, they for- 
got that other men had an equal title to enjoy it. With an incon- 
sistency, of which there are such flagrant instances among Chris- 
tians of every denomination, that it cannot be imputed as a reproach 
peculiar to any sect, the very men who had themselves fled from 
persecution became persecutors ; and had recourse, in order lo en- 
force their own opinions, to the same unhallowed weapons, against 
the employment of which they had lately remonstrated with so 
much violence." — Robertson's Hist. America, b. x. 

* Lest our readers should be incredulous that many of these po- 
sitions, which are now considered as indubitable truths, and acted 
on by most civilized nations, were then regarded as criminal errors, 
by men who were justly considered the excellent of the earth, we 
refer them to the following extracts from the authentic histories of 
Hubbard and Mather. 

" Mr. Williams proceeded vigorously to vent many dangerous 
opinions ; as amongst many others, these that follow are some : 
1. First, that it was the duly of all the female sex to cover them- 
selves with veils when they went abroad, especially when they ap- 
peared in the public assemblies. 2. Another notion diffused by him, 
occasioned more disturbance ; for, in his zeal for advancing the 



charter, but as a society, which, having acquired or 
assumed political liberty, had, by its own voluntary 
deed, adopted a constitution or government framed 
on the model of that in England. 

The baneful influence of the erroneous principles 
of the union of the civil and ecclesiastical power now 
became apparent, in the persecution of the most libe- 
rally minded man in the colony, Roger Williams. It 
is true, that he enthusiastically supported some tenets 
which were deemed heterodox, and occasioned con- 
siderable excitement by inveighing against the use of 
the cross in the national flag. In consequence of the 
spread of his opinion, some of the troops would not 
act till the relic of popery, as they considered it, was 
cut out of the banner, while others would not serve 
under any flag from wliich it was erased. At length 
a compromise was entered into, by which it was 
agreed that the obnoxious emblem should be omitted 
from the banners of the militia, while it was retained 
in those of the forts. This, however, was only one 
of the errors charged against Williams ; it is said that 
he maintained that no female should go abroad unless 
veiled ; that unregenerate men ought neither to pray 
nor to take oaths ; that, indeed, oaths had better be 
altogether omitted ; that the churches of New Eng- 
land should not acknowledge or communicate with 
the hierarchy from which they had separated ; that 
infants should not be subjects of baptism ; that the 
magistrate should confine his authority wholly to 
temporal afiairs ; and that James or Charles of Eng- 
land had no right at all to grant away the lands of 
the Indians without their consent.* For the zealous 



purity of reformation, and abolishing all badges of superstition, he 
inspired some persons of great interest in that place, that the cross 
in the king's colours ought to be taken away, as a relic of antichris- 
tian superstition. 3. Thirdly, also he maintained, that it is not 
lawful for an imregenerate man to pray, nor to take an oath, and 
in special not the oath of fidelity to the civil government; nor was 
it lawful for a godly man to have any communion, either in family 
prayer, or in an oath, with such as they judged unregenerate, and 
therefore he himself refused the oath of fidelity, and taught others 
so to do. 4. And that it was not lawful, so much as to hear the 
godly luinislers of England, when any occasionally went thither ; 
and therefore he admonished any church members that had so 
done, as for heinous sin. Also he spake dangerous words against 
the patent, which was the foundation of the government of the Mas- 
sachusetts colony. 5. He affirmed also, that magistrates had nothing 
to do with matters of the first table, but only the second, and that 
there should be a general and unlimited toleration of all religions, 
and for any man to be ptmished for any luatlers of his conscience, 
was persecution." — Hubbard's General History of New England, 
p. 204—206. 

" I tell my reader that there was a whole country in America 
like to be set on fire by the rapid motion of a windmill in the head 
of one particular man. Know, then, that about the year 1630, ar- 
rived here, one Mr. Roger Williams, who, being a preacher that 
had less light than fire in him, hath, by his own sad example, 
preached unto us the danger of that evil, which the apostle men- 
tions in Roiu. X. 2, ' They have a zeal, but not according to know- 
ledge.' He violently urged, that the civil magistrate might not 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



51 



propagation of these sentiments, he was deemed wor- 
thy of banishment from the colony of Massaciiusetts. 
The order of the court was, that he should be trans- 
ported to England ; but he escaped the limits of their 
jurisdiction, repaired to the Narraganset country, and 
became the founder of a new colony. 

There is scarcely any writer that has done the 
sentiments or character of this eminent, though some- 
what eccentric man, even tolerable justice ; all his 
historians are his opponents ; and they have evidently 
laboured hard to justify the proceedings of his perse- 
cutors, while they could not conceal the benevolent 
and unexceptionable character of the far greater por- 
tion of his life.* His reputation has, however, been 
placed in its true light by at least one of the Ameri- 
can writers. " The first legislator who fully recog- 
nised the rights of conscience," says Mr. Verplanck, 
" was Roger Williams, a name less illustrious than it 
deserves to be ; for, although his eccentricities of con- 
duct and opinion may sometimes provoke a smile, lie 
was a man of genius and of virtue, of admirable firm- 
ness, courage, and disinterestedness, and of unbounded 
benevolence. After some wanderings, he pitched his 
tent at a place, to which he gave the name of Provi- 
dence, and there became the founder and legislator 
of the colony of Rhode Island. There he continued 
to rule, sometimes as the governor, and always as 



punish breaches of the first table in tlie laws of the ten command- 
menis; which assertion, besides the door which it opened unto a 
thousand profanities, by not being duly limited, it utterly took away 
from the authority all capacity lo prevent the land, which they had 
purchased on purpose for their own recess from such things; its 
becoming such a sink of abominations, as would have been the re- 
proach and ruin of Christianity in these parts of the world. The 
church taking the advice of their fathers in the slate, on this occa- 
sion Mr. Williams removed unto Plymouth, where he was accept- 
ed as a preacher for the two years ensuing. These things were, in- 
deed, very disturbant and offensive ; but there were two other 
things in his quixotism, lliat made it no longer convenient for the 
civil authority to remain unconcerned about him; for, first. Whereas 
the king of England had granted a royal charter unto the governor 
and company of this colony, which patent was, indeed, the very 
life of the colony, this hot-headed man publicly and furiously 
preached against the patent, as an instrument of injustice, and 
pressed both rulers and people to be humbled for their sin in taking 
such a patent, and utterly tlirow it up, on an insignificant pretence 
of wrong thereby unto the Indians, which were the natives of the 
country, therein given lo the subjects of the English crown. Se- 
condly, An order of the court, upon some just occasion, had been 
raaile, that an oath of fidelity should be, though not imposed upon, 
yet offered unto the freemen, the better to distinguish those whose 
fidelity might render them capable of employment in the govern- 
ment ; which order this man vehemently withstood, on a pernicious 
pretence, that it was the prerogative of our Lord Christ alone to 
have his office established with an oath ; and that an oath being the 
worship of God, carnal persons, whereof he supposed there were 
many in the land, might not be put upon it. These crimes at last pro- 
cured a sentence of banishment upon him." — Mather, b. vii. chap. ii. 
* Giaharae has followed Mather, Hubbard, and Hutchinson, too 
closely ; and has by no means perceived the true merit of his cha- 
racter. We are surprised he should have censured so strongly the 
objection'jble traits, (vol. i p. 26S,) while he has passed over, with 



the guide and father of the settlement, for forty-eight 
years, employing himself in acts of kindness to his 
former enemies, affording relief to the distressed, and 
offering an asylum to the persecuted. The govern- 
ment of his colony was formed on his favourite prin- 
ciple, that in matters of faith and worship, every 
citizen should walk according to the light of his own 
conscience, without restraint or interference from tlu; 
civil mao-istrate. Durinsf a visit which Williams 
made to England, in 1643, for the purpose of procu- 
ring a colonial charter, he published a formal and 
laboured vindication of this doctrine, under the title 
of The Bloody Tenet, or a Dialogue between Truth 
and Peace. In his work, which was written with 
his usual boldness and decision, he anticipated most 
of the arguments, which, fifty years after, attracted 
so much attention, when they were brought forward 
by Locke. His own conduct in power was in perfect 
accordance with his speculative opinions ; and when, 
in his old age, the order of his little community was 
disturbed by an irruption of quaker preachers, he 
combated them only in pamphlets and public dispu- 
tations, and contented himself with overwhelming 
their doctrines with a torrent of learning, invective, 
syllogisms, and puns. It should also be remembered, 
to the honour of Roger Williams, that no one of the 
early colonists, without excepting William Penn him- 



but a slight notice, those principles which immortalize the name of 
Roger AVilliams. Murray is brief, but, in this case, exercises more 
penetration, and is more impartial. Even the North American Re- 
view seems embarrassed by an attempt to commend both parties: 
" We are not prepared to defend the proceedings against Roger 
Williams, and especially the ultimate sentence ; but many consi- 
derations in extenuation, may be offered. The settlement was in 
its infancy. Some of the opinions which he pertinaciously incul- 
cated, were dangerous to the establishment; and his conduct, in 
several particulars, may be justly viewed as seditious. In a more 
advanced state of the colony, his peculiar sentiments might have 
been inculcated without hazard, and would, probably, have been 
less seriously regarded. The new settlement had enemies of power- 
ful influence, and its leaders were compelled to observe the most 
vigilant course in every transaction. Williams was continually 
gaining adherents by his perseverance and zeal, and some oT his 
tenets were so extravagant, that their adoption would have con- 
vulsed and degraded the country. The leading characters, both in 
church and state, solicitious for the preservation of the system of 
religious and civil polity which they had sacrificed and suffered so 
much to erect, were desirous of recommending it to others by a 
discreet deportment, which might invite sober and considerate men 
to unite with them, and repel the malignant suggestions of their 
enemies." The fact is, the puritan emigrants were decidedly 
wrong in the principle they laid down as the basis of their common- 
wealth ; and the proof of their error is abundant in the absurdity, 
injustice, cruelty, and murder, to which it seduced the noblest and 
purest spirits of the age, results which never arose from the influ- 
ence of truth. All Ihat can be said in Iheir palliation is, that all 
the world, except the banished Roger Williams and a few other.', 
were in the same error; and that hundreds of learned and pro- 
fessedly enlightened men found il very hard to abandon the error 
in the nineteenth century, till touched by the magic wand of the 
greatest captain of the age, and the first lord of the richest trua- 
.sury in the world. 



52 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



self, equalled him in justice and benevolence towards 
the Indians."* 

While the colonies were occupied with internal 
disputes, the English parliament, inquiring into the 
grievances of the nation, had turned their attention 
to the charters of the New England states ; and 
deeming them injurious monopolies, both that of 
Plymouth and Massachusetts were declared forfeited 
to the king, and the colonies removed from the juris- 
diction of the companies to that of the crown, an ar- 
rangement which, for some time, proved rather bene- 
ficial than detrimental. 

During the year 1635, no less than three thousand 
persons arrived in New England.! Among them 
was Henry Vane, a young man of noble family, ani- 
mated with a devotion to the cause of religion and 
liberty, which induced him to relinquish all his hopes 
in England, and settle in an infant colony which as 
yet afforded little more than a bare subsistence to its 
inhabitants: he was naturally received in New Eng- 
land with high regard and admiration, and was in- 
stantly complimented with the freedom of the colony. 
Enforcing his claims to respect by the address and 
ability which he showed in conducting business, he 
was elected governor in the year subsequent to his 



♦ Anniversary Discourse, delivered before the New- York Histo- 
rical Society, December 7, 1818, by Gulian C. Verplanck, Esq. p. 
23—26. 

f It was at this time that Charles 1. prevented Pym, Hampden, 
and Cromwell, from emigrating to New England. The destitution 
of foresight with which despots are frequently visited, cannot but 
be admired as one of the most excellent arrangements of a merci- 
ful Providence. Two Charleses now have set their seal to the 
truth of this proverb, " Cluem Deus vnlt perdere, prius demenlat." 

t It often happens, that persons live in an age too early to have 
Uieir merits duly estimated. This was the case of Galileo and 
others, who have done much for mankind. It often takes whole 
ages to set history right upon matters of fact and opinion. No 
person, in our annals, has suffered more obloquy without cause, 
than Mrs. Hutchinson. She came with her husband from Lincoln- 
shire to Boston, in 1636. Her husband was a man of note, being 
a representative of Boston, and in good repute. Mrs. Hutcliin- 
.son was a well educated, shrewd woman ; she was a great admirer 
of Mr. Cotton, then a popular preacher in Boston, with whom, it 
is probable, she was well acquainted in England, as they came from 
the same county. She was ambitious and active, and was delight- 
ed with metaphysical subtleties and nice distinctions. She had a 
.■eady pen, and a fine memory, and from the habit of taking notes 
in church, she possessed herself of all the points in Mr. Cotton's 
sermons, which she was fond of communicating to others of less 
retentive faculties. She held conference meetings at her own 
house, and commented on the great doctrines, of salvation. She 
cnlerlained several speculative opinions, that, in the present state 
of intelligence, would be considered as harmless as a poet's dream, 
but which, at that time, " threw the whole colony into a flaiue." 
Every household was fevered by religious discussions upon cove- 
nants of faith and covenants of works, always the most bitter of 
all disputes. In all probsbilily, the vanity of Mrs. Hutchinson 
was raised, to see that she tould so easily disturb the religious and 
metaphysical world about her; and no doubl, but that the persecu- 
tions she suffered, made her more obstinate than she otherwise 
would have been. If they had let her alone, her doctrines would 
liave passed away with a thousand ot'acr vagariHs ; but the clergy 



arrival, by the universal consent of the colonists, and 
with the highest expectations of an advantageous ad- 
ministration. These hopes, we shall find in the se- 
quel, were by no means realized. He entered too 
deeply into polemical theology, to allow him to devote 
the energies of his mind to the civil and political 
duties which aflbrded so abundant a field for their 
exercise. During his administration, the increase 
which had taken place in the colony promoted the 
settlement of Connecticut, and indirectly led to the 
war with the Pequod Indians, both of which circum- 
stances we shall notice in the history of that state. 

A brief period elapsed after the expulsion of Roger 
Williams, before the repose of the colony was again 
interrupted by religious dissensions. The puritans 
had transported, with their other religious practices, 
that of assembling one evening in the week to con- 
verse over the discourses of the preceding sabbath ; 
a proceeding well calculated to keep alive that zeal 
which arises from the vigorous exercise of private 
judgment, but not to promote the subserviency requi- 
site to a quiet submission to the uniformity of autho- 
rized opinions. These meetings had been originally 
confined to the brethren ; but Mrs. Hutchinson, t a 
lady of respectable station in life, of considerable 

would not suffer this to be, notwithstanding they risked something 
in calling this popular woman to an account. She was considered 
wiser and inore learned in the scriptures than all her opponents. 
She had powerful friends. Sir Henry Vane, the governor, a popu- 
lar young man, of large wealth, was her friend, and Cotton and 
Wheelwright, the ministers, were her warm supporters, and had a 
profound respect for her talents and virtues ; but still the majority 
of the clergy was against her. 

In 1637 a synod w.as called, the first in our history, which was 
held in conclave at Cambridge. It was composed of the governor, 
the deputy governor, the council of assistants, and the teachers and 
the elders of churches. They .sat in conclave for fear of the people, 
particularly Mrs. Hutchin.son's followers. Her friend. Sir Henry 
Vane, was no longer in the chair of state. In this body she was 
charged with heresy, and called upon to defend herself before 
these inquisitors. The charges and specifications were numerous, 
as is proved by the judgment of the court. Before the tribunal she 
stood for three weeks, defending herself against a body of inqui- 
sitors, who were at once the prosecutors, the witnesses, and the 
judges. The report of the trial is said to be from the minntesof 
Governor Winthrop, certainly not from her own brief The 
charges froiu the governor, who presided, were vituperations and 
vague, consisting of general matters, rather than of special allega- 
tions ; to all of which she returned the most acute and pregnant 
answers, evincing a mind of the first order. One after another of 
her judges questioned and harangued, but she never lost her self- 
possession. The only circumstance in the whole case that shows 
the sincerity of her judges, is the report they have made of her 
trial. Her judges were the first in the land, comprising every one 
in the colony, who had not fallen under the suspicion of having been 
her friend. That intolerant old Dudley, the lieutenant governor, 
was the most inveterate of her enemies. Cotton, who was called 
as a ■witness, behaved well, and, grave and holy as he was, was 
treated with great severity as a witness. On the whole, they 
proved nothing against her, hut that she had expressed her own opi- 
nions freely, and supported them manfully, by unanswerable texts of 
scripture. No defence ever recorded in profane history has ever 
beep equal to this. Socrates before his judges did not meet his ao- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



53 



native talent, and of affable manners, deemed it de- 
sirable that the sisters should also exercise a similar 
privilege. Unfortunately, it was not long before this 
lady and her assocfates discovered that there Avould 
be much more propriety in their instructing their 
ministers than in the reverse process, which had 
hitherto prevailed. They adopted that most conve- 
nient dogma, that good works are no evidence of 
being a true Christian, or one of the elect ; and that 
the only testimony to a state of justification, was the 
overpowering assurance of the mind, produced by 
the immediate influence of the divine Spirit. It is 
not our place to discuss doctrines, but to record 
facts ; or it would not be difficult to demonstrate, 
that it is through the incongruous and irrational 
ideas which have existed among the great mass of 
those who have been accustomed to deem themselves 
sound in doctrine, that these vagaries have acquired 
and maintained so utterly undeserved a prominence 
in what is termed the religious world. It has ever 
been a prime mancEuvre of the great enemy of man, 
to connect the most magnificent truths with the most 
absurd errors ; and thus to raise a cloud which en- 
circles itself with the brilliancy of that very orb 
whose rays it obscures. 

The disturbance occasioned by the propagation of 
these offensive sentiments, was aggravated by the 
circumstance of the governor, Mr. Vane, being their 
decided advocate. Vehement discussions and bitter 
accusations abounding ; but the antinomian party, 
though most zealous, were least numerous ; and at 
the annual election, Mr. Vane was displaced by Mr. 
Winthrop, by a very decided majority. After various 

cusers with half the aciiteness. Eugene Aram's defence had not 
the same directness and power nor that of Maria Antoinette more 
high mindcdness. St. Paul's alone, before the Arcopagii, can bear 
any comparison. He was charged of inlrodiicing a new God, 
which, by an Athenian law, was death, to prevent an increase of 
their catalogue of divinities. He escaped by declaring that he had 
not enlarged their number, but that he taught them who was the 
unknown God, whose temple he had seen among them, and whose 
name was inscribed on its walls. 

Instead of raising a monument, as they should have done, to this 
most acute metaphysician and eloquent defender of herself, they 
found her guilty of more than eighty heretical opinions; but fortu- 
nately for themselves, they did not venture to specify them in her 
sentence, but ordered her to recant and renounce them, under the 
penalty of excommunication and banishment. Mrs. Hutchinson 
was firm ; she made a fair explanation, but would not renounce 
what she conscientiously believed to be right, and was accordingly 
banished. She went to Rhode Island, but did not long remain 
there. After the death of her husband, in 1642, she went to the 
Dutch country beyond New Haven, and was, with most of her 
large family, massacred by the Indians. This, the superstitious 
considered as a judgment, " for many evils in her conversation, as 
well as for corrupt opinions ;" and to this day she is called an artful 
woman, but not one of her accusers dare name one of those evils 
of conversation, and but two or three of those corrupt opinions. 
The writer feels ashamed of the land of his birth, in reading the 
whole course of this fanatical and unjust sentence, but would not 



measures had been resorted to, in order to bring the 
dissentients within the pale of orthodoxy, a synod 
was called, which determined that the sentiments of 
Mrs. Hutchinson and her followers were grievously 
erroneous, and, as they still refused submssion, the 
favourite measure of banishment was had recourse 
to. Another accession was thus made to the " allu- 
vies," as Mather terms it, of Rhode Island ; but not 
finding that land of liberty perfectly to her taste, 
Mrs. Hutchinson removed to a Dutch plantation, 
where, not long after, she was basely murdered, 
with many of her family, by the Indians.* 

While these transactions were occurring in Ame- 
rica, the enemies of the colonists in England were 
busily engaged in promoting the destruction of the 
Massachusetts charter. That of Plymouth had been 
already surrendered. " The principal reasons as- 
signed for this surrender were, that the people of 
Massachusetts had improperly extended the limits of 
their patent, so as to include lands granted to others, 
and that in civil and ecclesiastical affairs, they had 
made themselves independent of the council, as well 
as the crown. These evils, the council said, they 
were rniable to remedy ; and therefore deemed it ne- 
cessary for his majesty to take the whole business 
into his own hands. t Soon after the surrender of 
the Plymouth charter, a quo warrnnto was issued 
against that of Massachusetts. The writ was served 
only on those in England, who either then were, or 
had been members of the company ; but no notice 
was given to the company in New England. Some 
on whom the writ was served in England appeared, 
and disclaimed any right under the charter, others 



have it erased from the records, as it is calculated to humble the 
pride of the infallible bigot, and serves as a good lesson for modern 
times, in more than in one instance. That woman must have been 
of virtuous life, that such a band of inquisitors could not find cause 
to condemn, except as to opinions. "The whole story is a les,son, 
for it shows, that men, in a body, may do that which but few of 
them, separately, would dare to support. In that body were to be 
found the learned Phillips, the apostle Elliot, the honest Welde, 
with many other excellent men, who voted against the great female 
metaphysician of her time. Three only of the synod had the 
courage to di.ssent from the judgment. It seems, after all, that the 
sentence was more a matter of policy than of law, as may he 
drawn from the scantiness of the record on this head ; for Win- 
throp was an acute lawyer, and if he had found any thing which 
he dared to put on record, in justification of this body, it would 
have been found there. That they should have erred, is not sur- 
prising; but that historians of a later age should have continued 
to justify them, is astonishing, and shows how little independence 
or original thinking there is among those who venture to call them- 
selves historians. — American Eililor. 

* Various other persons, besides the immediate adherents of 
Mrs. Hutchinson, were di.ssatisfied with the proceedings of the 
synod and council of Massachusetts, migrated from the colony, 
and assisted in the formation of the settlements of Rhode Island, 
New Hampshire, and Maine ; the circumstances of which will be 
recorded at length in the history of those states. 

t Pitkin, vol. i. p. 39. 



54 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



were defaulted, and the rights and franchises in the 
charter \yere seized and taken into the hands of the 
king, so far as tliose in England were concerned, and 
the other patentees were outlawed. No judgment, 
in form, was ever rendered against the corporation 
itself. Not satisfied with this proceeding, a special 
order was sent by the lords of trade and plantations, 
to Massachusetts, in April, 1638, requiring the go- 
vernor, or such other person as had the custody of 
the charter, to transmit the same by the return of the 
ship which carried the order, with a threat, in case 
of neglect or refusal, that the king would resume the 
whole plantation into his own hands. The general 
court of Massachusetts, before whom this order was 
laid, resolved not to send the charter, but presented 
an humble petition to the commissioners. The colo- 
nists found on this, as on many other occasions, the 
advantage of the delay arising from their distance 
from the mother country ; for, while these negotia- 
tions were pending, the disputes between Charles and 
his parliament acqaiied an importance that left little 
opportunity for the monarch to trouble himself with 
colonial affairs ; and thus the charter of Massachu- 
setts, and the liberties of New England, were pre- 
served.* 

Scarcely had the venerable founders of New Eng- 
land felled the trees of the forest, when thoy began 
to provide means to insure the stability of their co- 
lony. Learning and religion they wisely judged to 
be the firmest pillars of the commonwealth. The le- 
gislature of Massachusetts, having previously founded 
a public school or college, had, the last year, directed 
its establishment at Newtown, and appointed a com- 
mittee to carry the order into effect. Tiie liberality 
of an individual now essentially contributed to the 
completion of this wise and benevolent design. 



• A copy of Charles's " commission for regulating the planta- 
tions;" of the " letter of the lords of the council for the patent of 
the plantation to be sent to them;" and of the " humble petition of 
the Massachusetts in the general court there assembled ;" are all 
to be found in Hubbard's History, chap, xxxvi. 

t Hubbard, chap, xxxii. p. 237. There were several benefac- 
tors to this college, besides Mr. Harvard ; and " the otlier colonies 
sent some small help to the undertaking ; and several gentlemen 
did more than whole colonies to support and forward it." — Mather's 
Magnalia, b. iv. p. 120. " There were probably, at that time, forty 
or fifty sons if the university of Cambridge in Old England, one 
for every two hundred or two hundred and fifty inhabitants, dwell- 
ing in the few villages of Massachusetts and Connecticut. The 
sons of Oxford were not few." — Savage : note upon Winthrop. 

t " A printing house was begrm at Cambridge by one Daye, at 
the charge of Mr. Glover, who died on sea hitherward. The first 
thing which was printed was the freemen's oath ; the next was an 
Almanack, made for New England by Mr. William Peirce, ma- 
riner ; the next was the Psalms, newly turned into metre." Win- 
throp, vol. i. p. 289. lb. Hist. Camb. Mass. Hist. Soc. vol. vii. 
p. '9. Thomas's History of Printing in America, vol. i. p. 227. 
"Mr Glover was a worthy and wealthy nonconformist minister. 



John Harvard, a worthy minister, dying this year at 
Charleston, left a legacy of nearly 800/. to the pub- 
lic school at Newtown. In honour of their benefac- 
tor, tiie collegiate school was, by an order of court, 
named Harvard College ; and Newtown, in compli- 
ment to the institution, and in memory of the place 
where many of the first settlers of New England re- 
ceived their education, was called Cambridge. t At 
this time also, Rowley, in Massachusetts, was founded 
by about sixty industrious families from Yorkshire, 
under the guidance of Ezekiel Rogers, an eminent 
minister. These settlers, many of whom had been 
clothiers in England, built a fulling mill ; employed 
their children in spinning cotton wool ; and were 
the first who attempted to make cloth in North Ame- 
rica. A still more important branch of business was 
introduced this year, that of printing, the first press 
ever used in North America being established at 
Cambridge.! 

The colony of Massachusetts, as well as its rural 
neighbours, continued rapidly to increase. In the 
year 1639, a settlement was begun on the north side 
of Merrimack, called Salisbury ; and another at 
Winicowet, called Hampton. 

New England was henceforth to be left almost ex- 
clusively to her own resources. The state of affairs 
in England was now reversed ; and the persecuting 
power of Charles was wrested from his grasp. The 
principal motive to emigration, therefore, no longer 
existed ; indeed, several of the most considerable 
colonists, and many of the ministers in New Eng- 
land, returned to their native country ;§ but the great 
majority of the settlers had experienced so much 
happiness in the societies which had been formed in 
the colony, that they feh themselves united to New 
England by stronger feelings than those of attach- 



He contributed liberally toward a sum sufficient to purchase print- 
ing materials ; and for this purpose solicited the aid of others in 
England and Holland. He gave to the .college a fount of printing 
letters, and some gentlemen of Amsterdam gave, towards furnish- 
ing of a printing press with letters, forty-nine pounds, and some- 
thing more."— Records of Harvard College; American Annals, 
vol. i. p. 255. 

§ " Now that fountain began to be dried, and the stream turned 
another way, and many that intended to have followed their neigh- 
bours and friends into a land not sown, hoping by the turn of the 
times, and the great changes that were then afoo*, to enjoy that at 
their own doors and homes, which the other had travelled so far to 
seek abroad, there happened a total cessation of any passengers 
coming over ; yea, rather, as at the turn of a tide, many came back 
with the help of the same stream, or sea, that carried them thither; 
insomuch, that now the country of New England was to seek of a 
way to provide themselves of clothing, which they could not attain 
by .selling of their cattle as before; which now were fallen from 
that huge price forementioned, 25/., first to 141. and 10/. an head, 
and presently after (at least, within a year) to bl. a piece ; nor 
was there at that rate ready vent for them neither." — Hubbard, 
p. 23S. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



55 



nient to their native soil, and resolved to remain in 
the region whicli their virtue had converted from a 
wilderness into a garden. 

There does not appear to be any authentic state- 
ment of the population of the New England colonies 
at this period. It would seem to have been under 
twenty thousand.* In the twenty years which had 
elapsed since the settlement of Plymouth, nearly three 
hundred vessels had transported more than twenty- 
one thousand persons across the Atlantic, at the im- 
mense cost of nearly 200,000/. an amazing sum in 
that age, which nothing but the determined and per- 
severing zeal which animated the puritans could 
have induced them to expend, in the laborious work 
of converting a vast wilderness into the abode of 
civilized man.t 

The following year, the general court of Massa- 
chusetts established one hundred laws, called The 
Body of Liberties.}; Having already been submitted 
to the court, and sent into every town for considera- 
tion, they were now amended, and were to remain in 
force for the term of three years ; after that period, 
to be again revised, and established in perpetuity. 
As it is in the laws of an infant people that we trace 
their principles, and discover their policy, a sketch 
of the most remarkable laws in the first New Eng- 
land code is introduced. It was enacted, that there 
never should be any bond-slavery, villanage, or cap- 
tivity, among the inhabitants of the province, except 
in lawful captives taken in just wars, or such as 
should willingly sell themselves, or be sold to them ; 
and such should have the liberties and Christian 
usage which the law of God, establislied in Israel 
concerning such persons, morally requires : That if 
any strangers, or people of otlier nations, professing 
the Christian religion, should fly to them from tyran- 
ny or oppression of their persecutors, or from famine, 
wars, or the like necessary and compulsory cause, 
they should receive entertainment and succour : That 
there should be no monopolies, but of such new in- 
ventions as were profitable to tlie country, and those 
for a short time only : That all deeds of conveyance, 

» Grahame says, " about twentv-one thousand persons," (vol. i. 
p. 302,) but this is evidently the gross number of those who emi- 
grated during the twenty years ; and the probability is, that the 
actual population at this period was considerably short of that 
number. 

t " They, who then professed to be able to give the best account, 
say, that in two hundred and ninety-eight ships, which were the 
whole number from the beginning of the colony, there arrived 
twenty-one thousand two hundred passengers, men, women, and 
children, perhaps about four thousand families. A modest compu- 
tation then made of the whole charge of transportation of the per- 
sons, their goods, the stock of cattle, pr-ovisions until they could 
support themselves, necessaries for building, artillery, arms, and 
ammumiion, amounts, to I92,000Z. sterling. A dear purchase, if 
8 



whether absolute or conditional, should be recorded, 
that neither creditors might be defrauded, nor courts 
troubled with vexatious suits and endless contentions 
about sales and mortgages : That no injunction 
should be laid on any church, church officer, or 
member, in point of doctrine, worship, or discipline, 
whether for substance or circumstance, besides the 
institution of the Lord ; and that, in tlie defect of a 
law, in any case, the decision should be by the word 
of God. 

The dispersed situation of the New England colo- 
nists rendered union among them necessary, not only 
for their mutual defence against the savages, but also 
for protection and security against the claims and 
encroachments of the Dutch. This union, or con- 
federation, was formed in 1643, by the name of The 
United Colonies of New England. It had been pro- 
posed by the colonies of Connecticut and New Ha- 
ven, as early as IC38, but was not finally completed 
until five years after. This confederacy, which con- 
tinued about forty years, constituted an interesting 
portion of tlie political history of New England. It 
consisted of the colonies of Massachusetts, New Ply- 
mouth, Connecticut, and New Haven. By the arti- 
cles of confederation, as they were called, these colo- 
nies entered into a firm and perpetual league of 
friendship and amity, for offence and defence, mutual 
advice and succour, upon all just occasions, both for 
preserving and propagating the truth and liberties of 
the gospel, and for their own mutual safety and wel- 
fare. Each colony was to retain its own peculiar 
juri.sdiction and government ; and no other planta- 
tion or colony was to be received as a confederate, 
nor any two of the confederates to be united into one 
jurisdiction, without the consent of the rest. The 
affairs of the united colonies were to be managed by 
a legislature, to consist of two persons, styled com- 
missioners, chosen from each colony. The commis- 
sioners were to meet aniuially in the colonies, in suc- 
cession, and wlien met, to choose a president, and 
the determination of any six to be binding on all.§ 
This confederacy, which was declared to be perpe- 

they had paid nothing before to the council of Plymoulh, and no- 
thing afterwards to the sachems of the country. Well might they 
complain, when the titles to their lands were called in question by 
Sir Edmund Andros; their labour in clearing and improving them 
was of more value than the lands after ihey were improved, and 
this other expense might be out of the question." — Hutchinson, 
vol. i. p. 93. 

t " They had been composed by Mr. Nathaniel Ward, minister 
of Ipswich, who had formerly been a student and practitioner at 
law." — American Annals, vol. i. p. 260. 

§ " These commissioners had power to hear, examine, weigh, 
and determine all affairs of war, or peace, leagues, aids, charges, 
and number of men for war, division of spoils, and whatsoever is 
gotten by conquest, receiving of more confederates for plantations. 



5(i 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



tual, continued without any essential alteration, until 
the New England colonies were deprived of their 
charter by the arbitrary proceedings of James H. 
This union evidently served as tlie basis of the great 
confederacy afterwards formed between the thirteen 
states of America. An examination of the two sys- 
tems will prove a similarity not only in names, but 
in general principles.* 

The contest between the Iving and tire parliament 
at length resuhed in open war; and the New Eng- 
land colonies, actuated by the same feeling as the 
puritans in England, embraced with ardour the cause 
of the latter. Tlie parliament, however, did not lose 
sight ol' its right to govern the colonies ; and in 1643, 
they passed an ordinance, no less remarkable for the 
extent of power exerted, than for the extraordinary 
regulations it established. By it, the Earl of War- 
wick was appointed governor-in-chief and lord high- 
admiral of the colonies, with a council of five peers 
and twelve commoners to assist him. It empowered 
him, in conjunction with his associates, to examine 
the state of their affairs ; to send for papers and per- 
sons ; to remove governors and officers, appointing 
others in their place ; and to assign over to these 
such part of the powers that were then granted as 
he should think proper. Such was the authority 
which the parliament exerted over its transatlantic 
dominions. The colonists implicitly admitted its 
rectitude, by applying to the commissioners for pro- 
tection and patents. The right of parliament, in- 
deed, was not doubted in those days ; it was the ir- 
regular exertion of prerogative, and not the authority 

into combination with any of the confederates, and all things of a 
like nature, which are the proper concomitants and consequences 
of such a confederation for amity, offence and defence, not inter- 
meddling with the government of any of the jurisdictions, which, 
by the third article, is preserved entirely to themselves. The ex- 
penses of all just wars to be borne by each colony, in proportion to 
its number of male inhabitants, of whatever quality or condition, 
between the ages of sixteen and si,xty. In case any colony should 
be suddenly invaded, on motion and request of three magistrates of 
such colony, the other confederates were immediately to send aid to 
the colony invaded, in men, Massachusetts one hundred, and the 
other colonies forty-five each, or for a less number, in the same 
proportion. The commissioners, however, were very properly di- 
rected, afterwards, to take into consideration the cause of such 
war or invasion, and if it should appear that the fault was in the 
colony invaded, such colony was not only to make satisfaction to 
the invaders, but to bear all the expenses of the war. The com- 
missioners were also authorized lo frame and establish agreements 
and orders in general cases of a civil nature, wherein all the plan- 
tations were interested, for preserving peace among themselves, 
and preventing, as much as may be, all occasions of war, or dif- 
ference with others, as about the free and speedy passage of jus- 
tice, in every jurisdiction, to all the confederates equally as to their 
own, receivmg those that remove from one plantation to another, 
without due certificates. It was also very wisely provided in the 
articles, that runaway servants, and fugitives from justice, should 
be returned to the colonies where they belonged, or from which 
they had fled. If any of the confederates should violate any of 



of the legislature, that was dreaded as unconstitu- 
tional, or feared as oppressive. 

The increasing prosperity of the colony naturally 
tended to heighten the value of its political fran- 
chises ; and the increasing opulence of the dissen- 
tients, already alluded to, seemed to aggravate the 
hardship of their disfranchisement. Some of them 
having assumed privileges from which they were 
excluded by law, they were punished by Mr. Wm- 
throp, the deputy governor. They complained to 
the general court of this treatment by a petition, 
which contained a forcible remonstrance against the 
injustice of depriving them of their rights as free- 
men, and of their privileges as Christians, because 
they could not join as members with the congrega- 
tional churches, or because, when they solicited ad- 
mission into them, they were arbitrarily rejected by 
the ministers. " They prayed," says Hutchinson,* 
" that civil liberty and freedom might be forthwith 
granted to all truly English, and that all members of 
the church of England or Scotland, not scandalous, 
might be admitted to the privileges of the churches 
of New England ; or, if these civil and religious 
liberties were refused, that they might be freed from 
the heavy taxes imposed upon them, and from the 
impresses made of them, or their children, or ser- 
vants, into the war ; and if they failed of redress 
there, they should be under a necessity of making 
application to England to the honourable houses of 
parliament, who they hoped would talce their sad 
condition into consideration." The party in favour 
of the dissenters had sufficient interest to obtain a 



the articles, or in any way injure any one of the other colonies 
such breach of agreement, or injury, was to be considered and or 
dered by the commissioners of the other colonies."^Pitkin's Poli- 
tical History, vol. i. p. 51. 

♦ " The principles upon which this famous association was 
formed were altogether those of independency, and it cannot easily 
be supported upon any other. The colonies of Connecticitt and 
New Haven had at that time enjoyed no charter, and derived their 
title to their soil from mere occupancy, and their powers of govern- 
ment from voluntary agreement. New Plymouth had acquired a 
right to their lands from a grant of a company in England, which 
conferred, however, no jurisdiction. And no other authority, with 
regard to the making of peace, or war, or leagues, did the charier 
of Massachusetts convey, than that of defending itself, by force of 
arms, against all invaders. But, if no patent legalized the confe- 
deracy, neither was it confirmed by the approbation of the govern- 
ing powers in England. Their consent Was never applied for, and 
was never given. The various colonies, of which that celebrated 
league was composed, being perfectly independent of one another, 
and having no other connexion than as subjects of the same crown, 
and as territories of the same .state, might, with equal propriety 
and consistency, have entered into a similar compact with alien 
colonies, or a foreign nation. They did make treaties with the 
neighbouring plantations of the French and Dutch; and in this 
light was their conduct seen in England, and at a subsequent pe- 
riod did not fail to attract the attention of Charles II." — Chalmer's 
Political Annals, b. i. chap. viii. p. 178. 

+ Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, vol. i. p. 146. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



57 



vote to require Mr. Winthrop to answer in public to 
the complaints against him. On the day appointed 
for his trial he descended from the tribunal, and 
placing himself at the bar, in presence of a nume- 
rous assemblage of the inhabitants, he proceeded to 
vindicate his conduct to his judges and fellow-citi- 
zens. Having proved that his proceedings were war- 
ranted by law, and that it had no other end than to 
maintain the existing institutions, he was not only 
honourably acquitted by the sentence of the court, 
and the voice of the public, but recommended so 
powerfully to the esteem of his fellow-citizens by this 
and all the other indications of his character, that he 
was chosen governor of the province every year after, 
as long as he lived.* His accusers were visited with 
public displeasure ; their petition was dismissed, and 
a charge was drawn up against them ; but it was in- 
timated, that if they would acknowledge their offence 
they should be forgiven ; they, however, refused, and 
were fined in various sums, two or three of the ma- 
gistrates dissenting. The petitioners, animated by 
opposition, rather than overborne by oppression, re- 
solved to lay their condition before the supreme 
power ; and, with this design, two deputies were sent 
to England. The famous Cotton had asserted, in 
one of his sermons, " that, if any shall carry writings 
or complaints against the people of God in that coun- 
try to England, it would be as Jonas in the ship ;" 
and a storm unfortunately arising during the voyage, 
the mariners, often prone to superstition, recollected 
this prediction, and insisted that all obnoxious papers 
should be thrown overboard ; thus the deputies were 
constrained to consign their credentials to the waves. 
The parliament, probably influenced by the intrigues 
of the agents, or too much engaged in their own im- 
portant affairs, took no cognizance of this extraordi- 
nary transaction ; and the petitioners never received 
any redress. t 



* We cannot refrain from presenting our readers with an ex- 
tract of his admirable and powerful address : — " The questions," 
said Mr. Winthrop, " that have troubled the country, have been 
about the authority of the magistracy and the liberty of the people. 
It is you who have called us unto this office ; but being thus called, 
we have our authority from God. I entreat you to consider, that 
when you choose magistrates, you take them from among yourselves, 
men subject unto like passions with yourselves. If you see our in- 
firmities, reflect on your own, and you will not be so severe cen- 
surers of ours. The covenant between us and you is the oath you 
have exacted of us, which is to this purpose, ' That we shall govern 
you and judge your causes according to God's laws and the parti- 
cular statutes of the land, according to our best skill.' As for our 
skill, you must run the hazard of it; and if there be an error only 
therein, and not in the will, it becomes you to bear it. Nor would 
I have you to mistake in the point of your own liberty. There is 
a liberty of corrupt nature, which is affected both by men and 
beasts, to do what they list. This liberty is inconsistent with au- 
thority; impatient of all restraint, 'tis the grand enemy of truth 
md peace, and all the ordinances of God are bent against it. But 



How refreshing is it to turn from the mutual recri- 
minations of religious controversy, and the hateful 
sight of ecclesiastical persecution, to the contempla- 
tion of that expansive benevolence which is the true 
genius of Christianity ! History is essentially bio- 
graphical to a considerable extent ; but there are oc- 
casions when her pencil is called to trace, with pecu- 
liar vividness, the moral dignity and beauty of her 
heroes ; and what name shall arouse her boldest ef- 
forts, if that of Elliot does not call them forth ? 
When the wreaths of literary, scientific, and even 
the most glittering, though least enviable of all, of 
military faiue, whose leaves have never been tinged 
with the unction of eternity, shall fade amidst the 
brilliancy of holier and more resplendent honours, 
whose crown will shine more brightly than that 
of tlie Indians' father and friend ? His laboiirs 
form the redeeming trait of an age, that might justly 
be termed one of the most vigorous religious selfish- 
ness. Why were not the gigantic energies more than 
wasted in the pugnacious defence of men-made forms 
of Christianity, devoted to spread its essence among 
the heathen, by whom they were surrounded, or to 
whom they could have obtained access ? Hardships 
for the sake of religion the puritan colonists endured, 
indeed, abundantly ; but that it was for their own 
enjoyment rather than the benefit of others, is evident, 
from their treating those who differed from their opi- 
nions as though they robbed them of their property. 
But Elliot was of a nobler mould ; he banished not 
others for his fancied good, but himself, for the wel- 
fare of the ignorant and oppressed. 

Elliot was one of the ministers of Roxbury. 
Strongly penetrated with a sense of the duty of re- 
deeming to the dominion of religion and civilization 
the wastes of human character that lay in ignorance 
and idolatry around him, he had for some time been 
labouring to overcome the primary obstacle to its per- 

there is a civil, a moral, a federal liberty, which is the proper end 
and object of authority: it is a liberty for that only which is just 
and good. For this liberty you are to stand with the h.izard of 
your very lives ; and whatsoever crosses it is not authority, but a 
distemper thereof This liberty is maintained in a way of subjec- 
tion to authority ; and the authority set over you will, in all ad- 
ministrations for your good, be quietly submitted unto by all but 
such as have a disposition to shake off the yoke, and lose their true 
liberty by their murmuring at the honour and power of authority." 
We cordially agree with Mr. Grahamc, when he says, " The cir- 
cumstances in which this address was delivered, remind us of 
scenes in Greek and Roman hisioiy; while the wisdom, worth, 
and dignity that it breathes, resemble the magnanimous vindication 
of the judge of Israel ;" and we must add, that the whole history of 
the rise and progress of these stales is more calculated to instruct 
and elevate the mind, than the scenes of ancient history ; and that 
it is a great discredit to our schools, colleges, and universities, that 
the study of modern history in general, and this portion of it par- 
ticularly, does not form an essential part of a liberal education, 
t Chalmer's Annals, b. i. chap. viii. p, 180. 



58 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



formance ; at length he attained such acquaintance 
with the Indian lano-uage as enabled him to construct 
a system of grammar.* His kindness of manner soon 
gained him a favourable hearing from many of the 
natives ; and both parties being sensible of the ex- 
pediency of altering the civil and domestic habits that 
counteracted the impressions which he attempted to 
produce, he obtained from the general court an allot- 
ment of land in the neighbourhood of the settlement 
of Concord, in Massachusetts. A considerable body 
of Indians resorted to the land allotted them by the 
colonial government, and exchanged their wild and 
barbarous habits for the modes of civilized living and 
industry. Mr. Elliot was continually among them, 
instructing, animating, and directing them. 

In endeavouring to extend their missionary influ- 
ence among the surrounding tribes, Mr. Elliot and 
his associates encountered a variety of issues corres- 
ponding to the varieties of human character. Many, 
indeed, expressed the utmost abhorrence and con- 
tempt of Christianity ; but, in spite of every discou- 
ragement, the missionaries persisted, and at length 
their labours were rewarded with astonishing suc- 
cess. t 

That our readers may have authentic testimony 
on which to form a correct idea of its extent — 
the more as it affords a striking contradiction to the 
still lurking half-prevailing antinomianism, that the 
Eternal, whose very nature is benevolence, withholds 
his sanction and blessing from the labours of his 
faithful servants out of pure sovereignty — we insert 
the following document : — 



» Dr. Cotlnn Mather has, almost humorously, described the dif- 
ficulty of acquiring the Indian language, and giving it a graphic 
form : " Behold new difficulties to be surmounted by our indefati- 
gable Elliot i He hires a native to teach him this exotic language, 
and, with a laborious care and skill, reduces it into a grammar, 
which afterwards he published. There is a letter or two of our 
alphabet which the Indians never had in theirs; but if their alpha- 
bet be short, I am sure the words composed of it are long enough to 
lire the pal ience of any scholar in the world ; they are scsquipcdalia 
verba, of which their lingo is composed; one would think they had 
been growing ever since Babel, unto the dimensions to which they 
are now extended. For instance, if my reader will count how 
many letters there are in this one word, Nummalchekudlnnlamooon- 
gaimimoimsh, when he has done, for his reward I'll tell him, it 
signifies no more in English, than 'our lusts;' and if I were to 
translate 'our loves,' it must be nothing shorter than Nooirovian- 
lammuoonkaimnonnash. Or, to give my reader a longer word than 
tithcr of these, KtimmoghodonatlonltummoocliUaongannunnonafh, is, 
in English, ' our question ;' but I pray. Sir, count the letters I Nor 
do we find in all this language the least affinity to, or derivation 
from, any European speech that we are acquainted with." — We 
think the folly of good men as useful to posterity as their virtues; 
and we claim sacred story as our authority; and therefore we con- 
tinue the extract : — " 1 know not what thoughts it will produce in 
my reader when 1 inform him, that once finding that the daemons 
in a possessed young woman understood the Latin and Greek and 
Hebrew languages, my curiosity led me to make trial of this Indian 



" A Letter concerning the Success of the 
Gospel amongst the Indians in New Eng- 
land. 

" Written by Mr. Increase Mather, Miiiister of 
the Word of God, at Boston, cmd Rector of the 
College at Cambridge, in New England, to Dr. 
John Leusden, Hebreiu Professor in the Univer- 
sity of Utrecht. 

"translated out of latin into english. 

" Worthy and much Honoured Sir, 

" Your letters were very grateful to me, by 
which I understand that you and others in your fa- 
mous university of Utrecht desire to be informed 
concerning the converted Indians in America : take, 
therefore, a true account of them in a few words : — 
" It is above forty 5^ears since that truly godly 
man, Mr. John Elliot, pastor of the church at Rocks- 
borough, (about a mile from Boston, in New Eng- 
land,) being warmed with a holy zeal of converting 
the Americans, set himself to learn the Indian tongue, 
that he might more easily and successfully open to 
them the mysteries of the gospel, upon account of 
which he has been (and not undeservedly) called the 
Apostle of the American Indians. This reverend 
person, not without very great labour, translated the 
whole bible into the Indian tongue ; he translated 
also several English treatises of practical divinity 
and catechisms into their language. About twenty- 
six years ago he gathered a church of converted In- 
dians in a town called Natick ; these Indians con- 



language, and the daemons did seem as if they did not understand 
it !" — Mather's Magnalia, b. iii. p. 193. 

t " It is a remarkable feature in Elliot's long and arduous career, 
that the energy by which he was actuated never sustained the 
slightest abatement, but, on the contrary, evinced a steady and 
vigorous increase. As his bodily strength decayed, the energy of 
hjs being seemed to retreat into his soul, and at length all liis facul- 
ties (he said) seemed absorbed in holy love. Being asked, shortly 
before his departure, how he did, he 'replied, 'I have lost every 
thing, my understanding leaves me, my memory fails me, my ut- 
terance fails me ; but I thank God my charity holds out still, I find 
that rather grows than fails.' He died in tlie year 1690. While 
Mr. Elliot and an increasing body of associates were thus cmiiloyed 
in the province of Massachusetts, Thomas Mayhew, a man who 
combined, in a wonderful degree, an affectionate mildne.ss that no- 
thing could disturb with an ardour and activity that nothing could 
overcome, together with a few coadjutors, not less diligently ar.d 
successfully, prosecuted the same design in Martha's Vineyard, 
Nantucket, and Elizabeth Isles, and within the territory compre- 
hended in the Ph-mouth patent." — Grahame, vol. i. p. 326, 329. 

" On the publication of the accounts of the hopeful progress of 
the Indians in New England in the knowledge of the go.spel, the 
attention of the English nation was excited to the subject. By the 
solicitation of Edward Winslow, then in England as agent for the 
United Colonies, an act of parliament was passed, by which the 
Society for propagating the Gospel in New England 'vas incorpo- 
rated." — Holmes's American Annals, vol. i. p. 290. 



HISTORY OF THE fJNITED STATES. 



59 



fessed their sins with tears, and professed their faith 
in Christ, and afterwards they and their children 
were baptized, and tliey were solemnly joined toge- 
ther in a church covenant ; the said Mr. Elliot was 
the first that admniistered the Lord's supper to them. 
The pastor of that church now is an Indian, his 
name is Daniel. Besides this church at Natick, 
among our inhabitants in the Massachusetts colony, 
there are four Indian assemblies, where the name of 
the true God and Jesus Christ is solemnly called 
upon ; these assemblies have some American preach- 
ers : Mr. Elliot formerly used to preach to them once 
every fortnight, but now he is weakened with labours 
and old age, being in the eighty-fourth year of his 
age, and preacheth not to the Indians oftener than 
once in two months. There is another church, con- 
sisting only of converted Indians, about fifty miles 
from hence, in an Indian town, called Mashippaug. 
The first pastor of that church was an Englishman, 
v/ho, being skilful in the American language, preached 
the gospel to them in their own tongue. This En^f- 
lish pastor is dead, and instead of him that church 
has an Indian preacher. There are, besides that, 
five assemblies of Indians professing the naine of 
Christ, not far distant from Mashippaug, which have 
Indian preachers. John Cotton, pastor of the church 
at Plymouth, (son of my venerable father-in-law, 
John Cotton, formerly the famous teacher of the 
church at Boston,) both made very great progress in 
learning the Indian tongue, and is very skilful in it ; 
he preaches in their own language to the last five 
mentioned congregations every week. Moreover, of 
the inhabitants of Saconet, in Plymouth colony, there 
is a great congregation of those who, for distinction 
sake, are called praying Indians, because they pray 
to God in Christ. Not far from a promontory called 
Cape Cod, there are six assemblies of heathens who 
are to be reckoned as Catechumens, amongst whom 
there are six Indian preachers. Samuel Treat, pas- 
tor of a church at Eastham, preacheth to these con- 
gregations in their own language. There are like- 
wise among the islanders of Nantucket a church, 
with a pastor who was l3tely a heathen, and several 
meetings of Catechumens, who are instructed by the 
converted Indians. There is also another island 
about seven leagues long, called Martha's Vineyard, 
where are two American churches planted, which 
are more famous than the rest, over one of which 
'.here presides an ancient Indian as pastor, called 
Hiacooms. John Hiacooms, son of the Indian pas- 
tor, also preacheth the gospel to his countrymen. In 
another church in that place, John Tokinosh, a con- 
verted Indian, teaches. In these churches ruling 



elders of the Indians are joined to the pastors ; the 
pastors are chosen by the people, and when they had 
fasted and prayed, Mr. Elliot and Mr. Cotton laid 
their hands on them, so that they were solemnly or- 
dained. All the cong-rejrations of tlie converted In- 
dians (both the Catechumens and tliose in clnu'ch 
order) every Lord's-day meet together ; the pastor or 
preacher always begins with prayer, and without a 
form, because from the heart ; when the ruler of the 
assembly has ended prayer, the whole congregation 
of Indians praise God with singing ; some of them 
are excellent singers ; after the psalm, he that 
preaches reads a place nf scripture (one or more 
verses as he will) and expounds it, gathers doctrines 
from it, proves them by scriptures and reasons, and 
infers uses from them after the manner of the Eng- 
lish, of whom they have been taught ; then another 
prayer to God in the name of Christ concludes tlie 
whole service. Thus do they meet together twice 
every Lord's-day. They observe no holy-days but 
the Lord's-day, except upon some extraordinary oc- 
casion, and then they solemnly set apart whole days, 
either in giving thanks, or fasting and praying, with 
great fervour of mind. 

" Before the English came into these coasts, these 
barbarous nations were altogether ignorant of the 
true God ; hence it is that in their prayers and ser- 
mons they use English words and terms ; he that 
calls upon the most holy name of God, says, Jeho- 
vah, or God, or Lord, and also they have learned 
and borrowed many other theological phrases from 
us. In short, there are six churches of baptized In- 
dians in New England, and eighteen assemblies of 
Catechumens professing the name of Christ. Of the 
Indians there are four-and-twenty who are preachers 
of the Word of God ; and besides these there are 
four English ministers, who preach the gospel in the 
Indian tongue. I am now myself weary with writ- 
ing, and I "fear lest, should I add more, I should also 
be tedious to you ; yet one thing I must add, which 
I had almost forgot, that there are many of the In- 
dians' children who liave learned by heart the cate- 
chism, either of that famous divine, William Perkins, 
or that put forth by the assembly of divines at West- 
minster, and in their own mother tongue can answer 
to all the questions in it. But I must end ; I salute 
the famous professors in your university, to whom 1 
desire you to communicate this letter, as written to 
them also. Farewell, worthy Sir ; the Lord preserve 
your health for the benefit of your country, his 
church, and of learning. Yours ever, 

"Increase Mather. 
"Boston, in New England, My 12, 1687." 



60 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



To return to the secular affairs of the colony. In 
the year 1651, the long parliament having fully es- 
tablished its authority in England, determined to 
have its power expressly acknowledged through all 
the dependencies of the British empire. An order 
was therefore transmitted to Massachusetts to send 
the charter of the colony to London, and to take out 
a new patent. Alarmed at this requisition, and 
dreading the power of parliament, the general court 
resorted to its usual expedient of petitioning, which 
was, of course, productive of the desired delay ; and 
the colony being in high favour with Cromwell, it is 
probable his influence was exercised in its behalf, as 
the parliament do not appear to have followed up 
their requisition with any further proceedings. 

In the following year, the inhabitants of the pro- 
vince of Maine were, by their own request, taken 
under the protection of Massachusetts. Commis- 
sioners, appointed by the general court, repaired to 
Kittery and Agamcnticus, summoned the inhabitants 
to appear before them, and received their submission. 
Agamenticus was now named York ; the province 
made a county by the same name ; and the towns, 
from this time, sent deputies to the general court at 
Boston.* New Hampshire had been added to Massa- 
chusetts in the year 1641. 

The evil principle of the interference of the civil 
power again displayed itself Mr. Grahame has re- 
corded these transactions so impartially, and reasoned 
upon them so justly, that we shall at once give our 
readers an interesting portion of liistory, and an ex- 
cellent specimen of that valuable work, by quoting 
the passage. " Of all the instances of persecution 
that occur in the history of New England," says that 
author, " the most censurable in its principle, though 
iiappily also the least vehement in the severities 
which it produced, was the treatment inflicted on the 
anabaptists by the government of Massachusetts. 
The first appearance of these sectaries in this pro- 
vince was in the year 1651, when, to the great asto- 
nishment and concern of the community, seven or 
eiglit persons, of whom the leader was one Obadiah 
Holmes, all at once professed the baptist tenets, and 
separated from the congregation to which they had 
belonged, declaring that they could no longer take 
counsel, or partake divine ordinances, with unbaptized 
men, as they pronounced all the other inhabitants of 
the province to be. The erroneoust doctrine which 

• Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 177. Chalmers, b. i. p. 480, 499, 501. 

t We do not wish to be understood as accordins;with Mr. Gra- 
hame, in the application of this epithet, nor in that of the term ann- 
baptist. 

t " The baptists who were exiled from Massachusetts were al- 
lowed to settle in the colony of Plymouth, (Hutchinson, vol. ii. p. 



thus unexpectedly sprang up, was at this time regarded 
with peculiar dread and jealousy, on account of the 
horrible enormities of sentiment and practice with 
which some of the professors of it in Germany had 
associated its repute ; and no sooner did Holmes and 
his friends set up a baptist conventicle for themselves, 
than complaints of their proceedings, as an intolerable 
nuisance, came pouring into the general court from 
all quarters of the colony. The court at first pro- 
ceeded no farther than to adjudge Holmes and his 
friends to desist from their unchristian separation ; 
and they were permitted to retire, having first, how- 
ever, publicly declared that they would follow out 
the leadings of their consciences, and obey God rather 
than man. Some time after, they were apprehended 
on a Sunday, while attending the preacliing of one 
Clark, a baptist, from Rhode Island, who had come 
to propogate his tenets in Massachusetts. The consta- 
bles who took them into custody carried them to 
church, as a more proper place of christian \vorship, 
where Clark put on his hat the moment that the 
minister began to pray. Clark, Holmes, and another, 
were sentenced to pay small fines, or be flogged ; 
and thirty lashes were actually inflicted on Holmes, 
who resolutely persisted in choosing a punishment 
that would enable him to show with what constancy 
he could suffer for what he believed to be the truth. 
A law was at the same time passed, subjecting to 
banishment from the colony every person who should 
openly condemn or oppose the baptism of infants, 
who should attempt to seduce others from the use of 
approbation thereof, or purposely depart from the 
congregation when that rite was administered, " or 
deny the ordinance of the magistracy, or their lawful 
right or authority to make war."t The eatrerncss 
with which every collateral charge against the bap- 
tists was credited in the colony, and the vehement 
impatience with which their claim of toleration was 
rejected, forcibly indicate the illiberality and delusion 
by whi.ch their persecutors were governed ; and may 
suggest to the christian philosopher a train of reflec- 
tions, no less instructive than interesting, on the self- 
deceit by which men so commonly infer the honesty 
of their convictions, and the rectitude of their pro- 
ceedings, froin that resentful perturbation which far 
more truly indicates a secret consciousness of injus- 
tice and inconsistency. There is not a more com- 
mon nor more pernicious error in the world, than 



478,) whence it may be strongly inferred, that they did not in rea- 
lity profess (as they were supposed by the people of Massachusetts 
to do) principles adverse to the safety of society. The charge pro- 
bably originated in the extravagance of a few of their own num- 
ber, and the impatience and injustice of their adversaries."— Gra- 
hame, vol. i. p. 345, 346. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



fa 



that one virtue may be practised at the expense of 
another. Where sincerity without charity is profess- 
ed, there is always reason to suspect the professor of 
a dishonest disregard of the secret surmises of his own 
spirit. The severities that were employed proved in 
the end totally ineffectual to restrain the growth of 
the baptist tenets ; though, for tlie present, the pro- 
fessors of these doctrines appear to have either 
desisted from holding separate assemblies, or to have 
retired from Massachusetts."* 

These proceedings against the baptists were mild- 
ness itself when compared with subsequent coercive 
measures adopted towards the quakers. There ap- 
pears, indeed, to have been in the latter case a far 
greater degree of exciting, though by no means 
amounting to a justificatory cause. We are far 
from being inclined to give their persecutors full 
credit for their representation of the conduct of the 
quakers ;t but after making every abatement for the 
prejudice of such narrators as Mather and others, 
there still remains an almost incredible amount of 
folly on the part of these enthusiasts, as of cruelty 
in the ruling party. It was in the month of July, 
1566, that two females, Mary Fisher and Ann Austin, 
arrived in New England from Barbadoes; and not 
long after, nine more individuals, of the same tenets, 
came from England. They were very speedily 
brought before the court of assistants, where they 
gave what were deemed very contemptuous replies 
to the interrogatories which they were required to 
answer ; and the court did not hesitate to comiiJt 
them to prison. The court ultimately passed sen- 
tence of banishment against them all ; and required 
the captain who brouglit them from England to find 
sureties to a heavy amoiuit, that he would carry 
them out of the colony, detaining them in prison till 
the vessel was ready to sail. 

Up to this period there had been no special law 
for the punishment of quakers ; but they had been 
proceeded against under the general law respecting 
heretics. At the next sessions of the general court, an 



* Grahame, vol. i. p. 343 — 346. 

t It is the more difficult to realize the absurd errors and the in- 
sane vehemence which were manifested by the quakers of the 
seventeenth century, since those of the present day are surpassed 
by none in peaceable and decorous demeanour, in their attachment 
to civil order, devoted acts of benevolence, and deep interest in the 
distribution of the sacred volume. 

t "Great opposition was made to this law, the magistrates were 
the most zealous, and in general for it; but it was rejected at first 
by the deputies, afterwards, upon reconsideration, concurred by 
twelve against eleven, with an amendment, that the trial should be 
by a special jury Captain Edward Hutchinson, and Captain Tho- 
mas Clark, two of the court, desired leave lo enter their dissent 
against this law." — New England Judged. 

§ Mather has collected from the history of the quakers of that day 



act passed, laying a penalty of one hundred pounds 
upon the master of any vessel wlio should bring a 
known quaker into any part of the colony, and 
requiring him to give security to carry him back 
again; enacting also, that the quaker should be 
immediately sent to the house of correction, receive 
twenty stripes, and afterwards kept to hard labour 
until transportation. They also laid a penalty of 
five pounds for importing, and the like for dispersing 
quakers' books, and severe penalties for defending, 
tlieir heretical opinions. The next year an addi- 
tional law was made, by which all persons were 
subjected to the penalty of forty shillings for every 
hour's entertainment given to any known quaker ; 
and any quaker, after the first conviction, if a man, 
was to lose one ear, and a second time the otiier ; 
a woman, each time to be severely whipped ; and 
the third time, man or woman, to have their tongues 
bored through with a red-hot iron ; and every qua- 
ker who should become such in the colony to be 
subjected to the like punishments. In May, 1658, a 
jjenalty of ten shillings was laid on every person 
present at a quakers' meeting, and five pounds upon 
every one speaking at such meeting. Notwithstand- 
ing all this severity, the number of quakers, as might 
well have been expected, increasing rather than 
diminishing, in October a further law was made for 
punishing with death all quakers who should return 
into the jurisdiction after banishment.]: 

It would appear that the enactment of severe laws 
only heightened the enthusiasm of the advocates of 
quakerism, especially among its female adherents. 
Every species of abuse and reviling of magisterial 
authority was practised ;§ the divine worship of the 
colonists was interrupted by their violent conduct ; 
and even the public decency outraged by (an un- 
doubted fact, though almost incredible) the appea- 
rance of females entirely destitute of clothing in the 
streets and in their religious assemblies.il It is even 
said that a quaker, of the name of Faubord, of Grin- 
dleton, was detected in the act of sacrificing his son, 

the following epithets, which were applied, he says, to Dr. Owen, and 
other worthy men: " Thou fiery fighter and green-headed trumpeter; 
thou hedgehog and grinning dog ; thou bastard, that tumbled out 
of the mouth of the Babylonish bawd; thou mole; thou tinker; 
thou lizard ; thou bell of no metal, but the tone of a kettle ; thou 
wheelbarrow; thou whirlpool ; thou whirlegig ; O thou firebrand ; 
thou adder and scorpion ; thou louse ; thou cow-dung; thou moon- 
calf; Ihou ragged tatterdemalion ; thou Judas; thou livest in phi- 
losophy and logic, which are of the devil."— Mather's Magnalia, 
b. vii. p. 26. 

II " One of the sect apologizing for this behaviour said, ' If the 
Lord did stir up any of his daughters to be a sign of the naked- 
ness of others, he believed it to be a great cross to a modes 
woman's spirit, but the Lord must be obeyed.' " — Hutchiuson, 
p. 304. 



62 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



as an imitation of the example of Abraham.* Not- 
withstanding the recently enacted law, rendering 
every qiiak( r who returned after banishment liable 
to the punishment of death, there were several who 
braved the awful penalty. Robinson, Stephenson, 
and Dyer, were brought to trial, and for their rebel- 
lion, sedition, and presumptuous obtruding themselves 
after banishment upon pain of death, were sentenced 
to die ; the two first were executed the 27th of Octo- 
ber. t Dyer, upon the petition of William Dyer, her 
son, was reprieved, on condition that she departed 
the jurisdiction in forty-eight hours, and if she 
returned to suffer the sentence. She was carried to 
the gallows, and stood with a rope about her neck 
until the others were executed. She was so infatu- 
ated as afterwards to return, and was executed June 
1, 16G0. 

The court evidently appears to have felt some 
compunction after these deeds of blood. Honourable 
repentance is but rarely deemed consistent with the 
dignity of a public body ; it was resolved, therefore, 
to put forth a vindication ; and as it is an official 
document, wliich places the fact of the execution of 
persons for their religious tenets, or their propagation 
of them, at least, by the New England puritans, 
beyond doubt to the most skeptical, we have given 
ihe document at length.! These executions, how- 
ever, notwithstanding their vindication, excited con- 



* Hutchinson, p. 204. 

t " Mr. Winthrop, the governor of Connecticut, laboured to pre- 
vent their execution, and Colonel Temple went to the court and 
told tliem, ' that if, accordins; to their declaration, they desired their 
lives absent, rather than their deaths present, he would carry them 
away, and provide for them at his own charge ; and if any of them 
should return, he would fetch them away again.' This motion 
was well liked by all the magistrates, except two or three, and they 
proposed it to the deputies the next day, but those two or three ma- 
gistrates, with the deputies, prevailed to have execution done." — ■ 
Hutchinson, p. 200. 

t " A Declaration of the General Court of MassaJiuselts, holden 
at Boston, October IS, 1659, and printed by their Order. 
Edward Rawkow, Secretary. 

" Although the justice of our proceedings against William Ro- 
binson, Marinaduke Stevenson, and Mary Dyer, supported by the 
authority of this court, the laws of the country, and the law of 
God, may rather persuade us to expect encouragement and com- 
mendation from all prudent and pious men, than convince us of 
any necessity to apologize for the same ; yet, forasmuch as men 
of weaker parts, out of pity and cominiseration, (a commendable 
and christian virtue, yet easily abused, and susceptible of sinister 
and dangerous impressions,) for want of full informalion, may be 
less satisfied, and men of perverser principles may lake occasion 
hereby to caluiri,niate us and render us as bloody persecutors — to 
saiLsly the one and stop the mouths of the other, we thought it re- 
quisite to declare. That, about three years since, divers persons, 
professing themselves quakers, (of whose pernicious opinions and 
practices we had received intelligence from good hands, both from 
Barbados and England,) arrived at Boston, whose persons were 
only secured to be sent away by the first op|iortunity, without cen- 
sure or punishment, although their professed tenets, turbuleni and 
contemptuous behaviour to authority, would have justified a severer 
aniinad version, yet the prudenee of this court was exercised only 



siderable clamour against the government ; many 
persons were oifended by the exhibition of severities, 
against which the very existence of the colony seem- 
ed designed to be a perpetual testimony ; and many 
were touched with a compassion for the suflerinss of 
the quakers, that effaced all recollection of the dis- 
gust that their principles had heretofore inspired. 
The people began to flock in crowds to the prisons, 
and load the unfortunate quakers with demonstrations 
of kindness and pity. At length tlie rising senti- 
ments of humanity and justice attained such general 
and forcible prevalence, as to overpower all opposition. 
On the trial of Leddra, the last of the sufferers, 
another quaker named Wenlock Christison, who had 
been banished upon pain of death, came boldly into 
court with his hat on, and reproached the magis- 
trates for shedding innocent blood. He was taken 
into custody, and soon after put upon his trial. 
When sentence of death was pronounced upon him, 
he desired his judges to consider what they had 
gained by their cruel proceedings against the qua- 
kers. " For the last man that was put to death," 
said he, "here are five come in his room; and if 
you have power to take my life from me, God can 
raise up the same principle of life in ten of his 
servants, and send them among you in my room, 
that you may have torment upon torment." The 
law now plainly appeared to be unsupported by 



in making provision to secure the peace and order here established 
against their attempts, whose design (we were well assured of by 
our own experience, as well as by the example of their predeces- 
sors in Mnnster) was to tmdermine and ruin the same. And, ac- 
cordingly, a law was made and published, prohibiting all masters of 
ships to bring any quakers into this jurisdiction, and themselves 
from coming in, on penalty of the house of correction till they 
could be sent away. Notwithstanding which, by aback door, Ihey 
found entrance, and the penalty inflicted upon themselves proving 
insufficient to restrain their impudent and insolent obtrusions, was 
increased by the loss of the ears of those that offended the second 
time ; which also being too weak a defence against their impetuous 
fanatic fury, necessitated us to endeavour our security ; and upon 
serious consideration, after the former experiment, by their inces- 
sant assaults, a law was made, that such persons should be banished 
on pain of death, according to the example of England in theii 
provision against Jesuits, which sentence being regularly pro- 
nounced at the last court of assistants against the parties above 
named, and they either returning or continuing presumptuously in 
this jurisdiction, after the time limited, were apprehended, and 
owning themselves to be the persons banished, were sentenced by 
the court to death, according to the law aforesaid, which lialh l)ecn 
executed upon two of them. Mary Dyer, upon the petition of her 
son, and the mercy and clemency of this court, had liberty to de- 
part within two days, which she hath accepted of. The considera- 
tion of our gradual proceedings will vindicate us from the clamo- 
rous accusations of severity; our own just and necessary defence 
calling upon us (other means failing) to offer the point which these 
persons have violently and wilfully rushed upon, and thereby he- 
come felojies de se, which might have been prevented, and the sove- 
reign law, sahis poptili, been preserved. Our former proceedings, 
as well as the sparing of Mary Dyer upon an inconsiderable inter- 
cession, will manifestly evince we desire their lives, absent, rather 
than their death, present." — Hubbard, p. 572, 573. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



63 



public consent, and the magistrates hastened to 
interpose between the sentence and its execution. 
Christison, and all the other quakers who were in 
custody, were forthwith released, and sent beyond 
the precincts of the colony ; and in the first year 
after the restoration of Charles II., even this degree 
of persecution was suspended, by a letter from the 
king to Mr. Endicot, and the other governors of the 
New England settlements. 

We have already strongly expressed our opinion 
on the persecuting principles manifested by this 
colony ; we shall now only repeat our deep regret, 
that those who professed to abhor the principles of a 
Laud or a Bonner, should have so nearly copied their 
criminal example. It must be admitted, however, 
as Dr. Dwight observes, that there is no nation which 
can cast the first stone at New England. All sects 
have been persecutors in turn ; if, indeed, we may 
not except, to their honour, the quakers and the 
baptists.* 

In the year 1660, Generals Whalley and GofTe, 
two of the judges who tried king Charles I., arrived 
at Boston. Having left London before the king was 
proclaimed, they did not conceal their persons or 
characters. They immediately visited Governor En- 
dicot, who gave them a courteous reception ; but, 
choosing a situation less public than Boston, they 
went, on the day of their arrival, to Cambridge. By 
the act of indemnity, which was brought over in 
November, it appeared that Whalley and Goffe were 
excepted from those to whom pardon was oflered ; 
and they soon after went to New Haven, where they 
remained in concealment. 

The following year, the king appointed the great 
officers of state a committee, touching the settlement 
of New England. Complaints being made to the 
king against Massachusetts, he commanded the go- 
vernor and council to send persons to England to 
^ answer these various accusations. The governor, 
on receiving intelligence of the transactions that 
were taking place in England to the prejudice of the 
colony, judged it inexpedient longer to delay the 
solemnity of proclaiming Charles II. Calling the 
court together, a form of proclamation was agreed to, 
and Charles was acknowledged to be their sovereign 
lord and king, and proclaimed to be lawful king of 
Great Britain, France, and Ireland, and all other 
territories thereto belonging. On receiving intelli- 
gence of farther complaints against the colony of 
Massachusetts, the court appointed Simon Bradstreet, 
one of the magistrates, and John Norton, one of the 



• It has been said that these sects were never in power ; Rhode 
[stand and Pennsylvania, however, contradict this assertion. 

9 



ministers of Boston, as agents for the colony, and 
sent an address by them to the king, which met with 
a gracious reception. The colony received a lettei 
from Charles II., confirming and offering to renew its 
charter, tendering pardon to all his subjects, for all 
offences, excepting such as stood attainted, but requi- 
ring the following conditions :-^That all laws made 
in the late troubles, derogatory to the royal authority 
and government, should be repealed ; that the rules 
of the charter for administering- the oath of allesri- 
ance be observed ; that the administration of justice 
be in the king's name ; and charging the govern- 
ment, that freedom and liberty of conscience, in the 
use of the Book of Common Prayer, be allowed ; and 
that all persons of good and honest lives and conver- 
sations be admitted to the sacrament of the Lord's 
supper according to it, with an exception to any 
indulgence to quakers. The letter also enjoined, 
that there should be impartiality in the election of 
the governor and of magistrates, without any regard 
to any faction, with respect to their opinion or pro- 
fession ; that ail freeholders of competent estates, not 
vicious in their lives, and orthodox in religion, though 
of different persuasions concerning church govern- 
ment, should be admitted to vote. 

The colonists had, from their first settlement, 
entertained such an opinion of the nature and 
extent of their allegiance and obligations to the 
crown of England, as did not tend to insure a prompt 
compliance with all these conditions. Believing 
they were subject to the king, and dependent on his 
authority, only according to their charter, which 
some of the requisitions might be thought to infringe, 
their compliance was slow and occasional, as pru- 
dence would admit, or necessity impel them. The 
answer of the general court to his majesty's letter is 
characteristic of the colony. After a respectful intro- 
duction, they say, " For the repealing of all laws 
here established since the late changes, contrary and 
derogatory to his majesty's authority and govern- 
ment, we, having considered thereof, are not con- 
scious to any of that tendency ; concerning the oath 
of allegiance, we are ready to attend it as formerly, 
according to the charter ; concerning liberty to use 
the Common Prayer Book, none as yet among us 
have appeared to desire it ; touching administration 
of the sacraments, this matter hath been under consi- 
deration of a synod, orderly called, the result whereof 
our last general court commended to the several 
congregations, and we hope will have a tendency to 
general satisfaction."! 



t Danforth Papers, in 2 Col. Mass. Hist. Soc. vol. viii. p. 48, 
Holmes's American Annals, vol. i. 322. 



G4 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



The New England colonies had certainly evinced 
a republican tendency ; it was not to be expected, 
therefore, that they should be favoured in the com- 
mercial arrangements with the mother country ; 
indeed, the interests of the latter were generally made 
an object of preference by the British legislature. In 
1663 it was enacted, that no European commodity 
should be imported into the colonies, unless shipped 
directly from England, and in British vessels. By 
this regulation, in connexion with others that had 
been previously made, all the trade of the colonies 
was secured to Great Britain. They submitted 
reluctantly to these restrictions, and often made 
them the subject of complaint ; but the English 
government pertinaciously declined to repeal them. 

During the year 1664, the king despatched four 
commissioners to visit the several colonies of New 
England, to examine into their condition, to hear 
and decide complaints, and to make him a report of 
their proceedings and observations. This measure 
appeared dictated by no friendly feeling, and was 
considered by most of the colonists as a violation of 
their charters. The first session of the commission- 
ers was at Plymouth, where but little business was 
transacted : the next in Rhode Island, where they 
heard complaints from the Indians, and all who were 
discontented, and made divers determinations re- 
specting titles to land, which were but little regarded. 
In Massachusetts, the general court complied with 
such of their requisitions as they thought proper ; 
but, professing sincere loyalty to his majesty, declined 
acknowledging their authority, and protested against 
the exercise of it within their limits. In conse- 
quence of this assertion of their rights, an angry 
correspondence took place between them, at the 
close of which the commissioners informed the gene- 
ral court, that they would lose no more of their 
labours upon them, but would represent their con- 
duct to his majesty. From Boston, the commission- 
ers proceeded to New Hampshire, where they exer- 
cised several acts of government, and offered to 
release the inhabitants from the jurisdiction of Massa- 
chusetts. This offer was almost unanimously reject- 
ed. In Maine, they excited more disturbance. They 
encouraged the people to declare themselves inde- 
pendent, and found many disposed to listen to their 
suggestions ; but Massachusetts, by a prompt and 
vigorous exertion of power, constrained the disaffected 
to submit to her authority. 

At the termination of the first half century from 
the arrival of the emigrants at Plymouth, the New 
England colonies were calculated to contain one 
hundred and twenty towns, and as many thousand 



inhabitants, of whom sixteen thousand were capable 
of bearing arms. The habits of industry and econo- 
my, which had been formed in less happy times, 
continued to prevail, and gave a competency to those 
who had nothing, and wealth to those who had a 
competency. The wilderness receded before these 
hardy and persevering labourers, and its savage 
inhabitants found their game dispersed, and their 
favourite haunts invaded. This was the natural 
consequence of the sales of land, which they were at 
all times ready to make to the whites. But this 
result the Indians did not foresee ; and when they 
felt it in all its force, the strongest passions were 
awakened which could animate the savage breast. 
A leader only was wanting to concentrate and direct 
their exertions, and Philip, of Pokanoket, sachem of 
a tribe residing within the boundaries of Plymouth 
and Rhode Island, assumed that station. His father 
was the friend, but he had ever been the enemy of 
the whites ; and he exerted all the arts of intrigue, 
of which he was master, to induce the Indians, in all 
parts of New England, to unite their efforts for their 
destruction. He succeeded in forming a confede- 
racy, able to send into action more than three thou- 
sand warriors. 

The English were apprised of the plots of the 
Indians, and made preparations to meet their hostili- 
ties. They hoped, however, that the threatened 
storm would pass by, as others had, and that peace 
would be preserved. But the insolence of Philip, 
and the number of his adherents, increased daily ; 
and, in June, 1675, some of them entered the town of 
Swanzey, in Plymouth, where, after slaughtering the 
cattle, and plundering the houses, they fired upon 
the inhabitants, killing and wounding several. The 
troops of the colony marched immediately to Swan- 
zey, and were soon joined by a detachment from 
Massachusetts. The Indians fled, and marked the 
course of their flight by burning the buildings, and 
fixing on poles by the way side, the hands, scalps, 
and heads of the whites, whom they had killed. 
The troops pursued, but unable to overtake them, 
returned to Swanzey. The whole country was 
alarmed, and the number of troops augmented. By 
this array of force, Philip was induced to quit his 
residence at Mount Hope, and take post near a 
swamp at Pocasset. At that place the English 
attacked him, but were repulsed. Sixteen were 
killed, and the Indians by this success were made 
bolder. 

Most of the settlements were surrounded by thick 
forests, and as the Indians lived intermixed with the 
whites, the former were acquainted, of course, with 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



65 



the dwellings of the latter, and all the avenues to 
them ; could watch their motions, and fall upon them 
in their defenceless and unguarded moments. Many- 
were shot dead as tliey opened their doors in the 
morning ; many while at work in their fields, and 
others while travelling to visit their neighbours, or 
to places of worship ; their lives were in continual 
jeopardy ; and no one could tell but that, in the next 
moment, he should receive his death shot from his 
barn, the thiclcet, or the way side. Whenever the 
enemy assembled in force, detachments were sent 
against them ; if weaker than these, they would 
retreat ; if stronger, assault and harass, or destroy 
them. Defenceless villages were suddenly attacked, 
the houses burned, and the men, women and children 
killed or carried into captivity. Their ruin was the 
work of a moment ; and when accomplished, its 
authors vanished. The colonists found their num- 
bers sensibly diminished, and their strength impaired; 
and they began to apprehend even total e.Ktinction. 
Nothing but a vigorous effort could save them. The 
commissioners of the three United Colonies met on 
the 9th of September, and it was concluded, that the 
war was just and necessary ; that it ought to be 
jointly prosecuted by all the United Colonies ; and 
that there should be immediately raised 1000 soldiers 
out of the colonies, in such proportions as the articles 
of confederation established : Massachusets, 527 ; 
Plymouth, 158 ; Connecticut, 315. At an adjourned 
meeting, the commissioners declared the Narragan- 
sets to be deeply accessory in the present bloody 
outrages of the Indians that were at open war, and 
determined that 1000 more soldiers be raised, for the 
Narraganset expedition, to obtain satisfaction of those 
Indians, or to treat them as enemies. On the 8th 
of December, the Massachusetts forces marched from 
Boston, and were soon joined by those of Plymouth. 
The troops from Connecticut joined them on the 
18th, at Petaquamseot. At break of day the next 
morning they commenced their marcii, through a 
deep snow, toward the enemy, who were about 
fifteen miles distant in a swamp, at the edge of 
which they arrived at one in the afternoon. The 
Indians, apprized of an armament intended against 
them, had fortified themselves as strongly as possible 
within the swamp. The English, without waiting 
to draw up m order of battle, marched forward in 
quest of the enemy's camp. The Indian fortress 
stood on a rising ground in the midst of the swamp, 
and was composed of palisades, which were encom- 

• " The assurance of the equity of our ancestors," says the compi- 
er of the American Annals, " in giving the natives an equivalent for 
their lands, is highly consoling. The upright and respected Governor 



passed by a hedge, nearly a rod thick. It had but 
one practicable entrance, which was over a log, or 
tree, four or five feet from the ground ; and that 
aperture was guarded by a block-house. Falling 
providentially on this very part of the fort, the 
English captains entered it, at the head of their com- 
panies. The two first, with many of their men, 
were shot dead at the entrance : four other captains 
were also killed. When the troops had effected an 
entrance, they attacked the Indians, who fought 
desperately, and compelled the English to retire out 
of the fort ; but after a hard fought battle of three 
hours, they became masters of the place, and set fire 
to the wigwams, to the number of five or six hundred, 
and in the conflagration many Indian women and 
children perished. The surviving Indians fled into 
a cedar swamp, at a small distance ; and the English 
retired to their quarters. Of the English, there were 
killed and wounded about two hundred and thirty ; 
of the Indians, one thousand are supposed to have 
perished. 

From this blow, the confederated Indians never 
recovered ; but they still remained sufficiently strong 
to harass the settlements by continual inroads. In 
retaliation, the English sent several detachments 
into their territories, nearly all of which were suc- 
cessful. Captain Church, of Plymouth, and Captain 
Dennison, of Connecticut, were conspicuous for their 
bravery and success. In the midst of these reverses, 
Philip remained firm and unshaken. His warriors 
were cut off; his chief men, his wife and family, 
were Jcilled, or taken prisoners ; and at these suc- 
cessive misfortunes, he is represented to have wept 
with a bitterness which proves him not to have 
been destitute of the noblest affections ; but he dis- 
dained to listen to any offers of peace. He even 
shot one of his men, who proposed submission. At 
length, after being hunted from swamp to swamp, 
he was himself shot, by the brother of the Indian he 
had killed. The death of Philip, in retrospect, makes 
different impressions from those which were made 
at the time of the event. It was then considered as 
the extinction of a virulent and implacable enemy ; 
it is now viewed as the fall of a great warrior, a 
penetrating statesman, and a mighty prince : it then 
excited universal joy and congratulation, as a pre- 
lude to the close of a merciless war ; it now awa- 
kens sober reflections on the instability of empire, 
and the peculiar destiny of the aboriginal race." 
This event was certainly the signal of complete 



"Winslow, in a letter dated at Marshfield, May 1, 1676, observes, 
' I think I can clearly say, that before these present troubles broke 
out the English did not possess one foot of land in this colony, but 



dG 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



victory. The Indians in all the neighbouring coun- 
try now generally submitted to the English, or 
fled, and incorporated tliemselves with distant and 
strange nations. Never was peace more welcome. 
In this short, but tremendous war, about six hundred 
of the inhabitants of New England, composing its 
principal strength, were either killed in battle, or 
murdered by the enemy ; twelve or thirteen towns 
were entirely destroyed ; and about six hundred 
buildings, chiefly dwelling houses, were burnt. In 
addition to these calamities, the colonies contracted 
a very heavy debt ; while, by the loss of their sub- 
stance through the ravages of the enemy, their 
resources were greatly diminished. But, in their 
deepest distress, they forbore to apply to the nrother 
country for assistance ; and this omission excited 
surprise and jealousy. "You act," said a privy 
councillor, "as though you were independent of our 
master's crown ; and though poor, yet you are 
proud." 

The New England colonies, m their impoverished 
state, were destined to a new scene of trouble. Com- 
plaints were brought against them the preceding year, 
by the merchants and manufacturers of England, 
for their disregard to the acts of navigation.* The 
governors of these colonies were therefore com- 
manded to enforce a strict obedience to the commer- 
cial regulations. Commissions were transmitted, 
empowering proper persons to administer an oath, 
framed to secure a strict observance of those laws.t 

These laws being enacted by a parliament in which 
the colonies were not represented, they were regarded 
as violations of their rights, and continued to be 
evaded with impunity. Edward Randolph was 
therefore sent over, commissioned as inspector of the 
customs in New England. He was also the bearer 
of a letter from the king, requiring that agents should 
be sent to the court of London, fully empowered to 
act for the colonies. It was well understood to be 
the intention of the king to procure from the agents 
a surrender of the charters, or to annul them by a 
suit in his courts, that he might himself place ofiicers 
over the colonies, who would be subservient to his 

what was fairly obtained by honest purchase of the Indian proprie- 
tors. We first made a law, that none should purchase or receive 
of ^'ift any land of the Indians, without the knowledge and allow- 
ance of onr court. And lest they should be straitened, we ordered 
tliat Mount Hope, Pocasset, and several other necks of the best 
land in the colony, because most suitable and convenient for them, 
should never be bought out of their hands.' " See Hubbard's Nar- 
rative, (where this important letter is inserted entire,) and Hazard, 
Coll. ii. p. 531—534. 

• " Tlie complainants stated, that the inhabitants of New Eng- 
land not only traded to most parts of Europe, but encouraged fo- 
reigners to go and traffic with them ; that they supplied the other 
plantations with those foreign productions which ought only to be 



views. The inhabitants of Massachusetts felt that 
to be deprived of their charter, which secured to 
them the right of self-government, would be the great- 
est of calamities ; and their agents were instructed 
in no emergency to surrender it. This being known 
to the king, a prosecution was instituted against the 
corporation, and, in 1684, a subservient court of 
chancery decreed that the charter should be forfeited ; 
and their liberties were seized into the king's hands. 
Thus fell the old charter of this ancient colony 
under which the colonists, during fifty-five years, 
had enjoyed liberty and prosperity ; not without 
encountering frequent aggressions to preserve the 
one, and incessant difliculties to attain the other. 
But, though the charter was gone, the spirit which 
it had cherished, and the habits -which it had formed, 
were retained. Who would then have deemed it 
credible, that, within a century, its independence 
would be acknowledged by the parent state ? 

The impediments to the royal will being thus 
removed, James established a temporary government 
over the colony, first appointing Joseph Dudley 
governor, but he was soon superseded by Sir Edmund 
Andros. This latter appointment caused the most 
gloomy forebodings. Sir Edmund had been governor 
of New York, and it was known that his conduct 
there had been arbitrary and tyrannical. Having 
secured a majority in the council, he assumed con- 
trol over the press, appointing Randolph licenser. 
He established new and oppressive regulations con- 
cerning taxes, public worship, marriages, and the 
settlement of estates. His subordinate officers, as 
well as himself, extorted enormous fees for their servi- 
ces. He declared, that the charter being cancelled, 
the old titles to land were of no validity, and com- 
pelled the inhabitants, in order to avoid suits before 
judges dependent on his will, to take out new patents^ 
for which large sums were demanded. 

Happily, this despotic rule was not of long dura- 
tion. In the beginning of 1689, a rumour reached 
Boston, that William, prince of Orange, had invaded 
England, with the intention of dethroning the king. 
Animated by the hope of deliverance, the people 



sent to England; that, having thus made New England the great sta- 
ple of the colonies, the navigation of the kingdom was greatly pre- 
judiced, the national revenues were impaired, the people were ex- 
tremely impoverished ; that such abuses, at the same time that 
they will entirely destroy the trade of England, will leave no sort 
of dependence from that country to this." — Holmes's American An- 
nals, vol. i. p. 384, 385. 

t " To add weight to these measures, it was determined, that 
no Mediterranean passes should be granted to New England, to 
protect its vessels against the Turks, till it is seen what dependence 
it will acknowledge on his majesty, or whether his custom-house 
officers are received as in other colonies." — Holmes's American 
Annals, vol. i. p. 385. Chalmers, b. i. p. 400—402. 



1 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



67 



rushed spontaneously to arms, took possession of the 
fort, seized Andros, Randolph, and other obnoxious 
persons, and placed them in confinement. A council 
of safety, consisting; of their former magistrates, was 
then orsranized, to administer the cjovernment until 
authentic intelligence should be received from Eng- 
land. It was not many weeks before the tidings 
that William and Mary were firmly seated on the 
throne arrived. This news was most joyfully recei- 
ved. The people were now relieved from anxiety 
as to the consequences of their late conduct, which 
must be allowed to have been more signalized by 
enthusiastic zeal, than by a calculating ])rudence. 
The proclamation of the accession of William and 
Mary was celebrated at Boston with greater cere- 
mony than any previous event ; the governor and 
council, civil and military officers, the merchants 
and principal gentlemen of the town and country, 
mounted on horseback, formed a grand procession ; 
a splendid entertainment was provided in the town- 
hall ; and the soldiers were supplied with wine, in 
which to pledge their fidelity to their new sovereign. 

The people of Massachusetts now applied to the 
British government for the restoration of their old, 
or the grant of a new charter. A definitive answer 
was deferred, but the council was authorized to 
administer the government according to the pro- 
visions of the old charter, until fiirther directions 
should be given ; and Andros, Randolph, and others, 
were ordered home for trial. 

In this unsettled state of the country, the French 
in Canada and Nova Scotia instigated the northern 
and eastern Indians to commence hostilities against 
the English settlements. Dover and Salmon Falls, 
in New Hampshire, Casco, in Maine, and Schenectady, 
in New York, were attacked by different parties of 
French and Indians, and the most shocking barba- 
rities perpetrated on the inhabitants. The Indians 
having taken the fort at Pemaqnid, and the French 
privateers from Acadie still infesting the coast of 
New England, the general court of Massachusetts 
determined to make an attempt on Port Royal. A 
fleet, with seven or eight hundred men, under the 
command of Sir William Phipps, sailed on that expe- 
dition in the latter end of April. The fort at Port 
Royal, not being in a state to sustain a siege, surren- 
dered, with little or no resistance; and Sir William 
took possession of the whole sea coast, from Port 
Royal to the New England settlements. 

Regarding Canada as the principal source of their 
miseries. New England and New York formed the 
bold project of reducing it to subjection. By great 
exertion they raised an army, which, under the com- 



mand of General Winthrop, was sent against Mont- 
real, and equipped a fleet, which, commanded by 
Sir William Phipps, was destined to attack Quebec. 
The fleet, retarded by unavoidable accidents, did not 
arrive before Quebec until the fifth of October. 
Phipps, the next morning, sent a summons on shore, 
but received an insolent answer from Count Fronte- 
nac. The next day he attempted to land his troops, 
but was prevented by the violence of the wind. On 
the 8th, all the effective men, amounting to between 
twelve and thirteen hundred, landed at the Isle of 
Orleans, four miles below the town, and were fired 
on from the woods by French and Indians. Having 
remained on shore three days, they received informa- 
tion from a deserter of the strength of the place, and 
precipitately embarked. A tempest soon after dis- 
persed the fleet, which made the best of its way back 
to Boston. A successful result had been so confi- 
dently expected, that adequate provision was not 
made at home for the payment of the troops. In 
this extremity, the government of Massachusetts 
issued bills of credit, or paper money ; and these 
were the first that were ever issued in the American 
colonies ; but though it afforded relief at the moment, 
it produced in its consequences extensive and com- 
plicated mischief 

When the colonists resumed their charter in 1689, 
they earnestly solicited its re-establishment, with the 
addition of some necessary powers ; but the king 
could not be prevailed on to consent to that mea- 
sure, and a new charter was obtained. Sir William 
Phipps arrived at Boston in May, with this char- 
ter, and a commission, constituting him governor. 
The province comprehended in the new charter, 
contained the whole of the old Massachusetts colo- 
ny, to which were added the colony of Plymouth, 
the province of Maine, the province of Nova Sco- 
tia, and all the country between the province of 
Maine and Nova Scotia, as far northward as the 
river St. Lawrence, also Elizabeth islands, and the 
Islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. Under 
the old charter, all the magistrates and officers of 
state were chosen annually by the general assembly ; 
by the new charter, the appointment of the governor, 
lieutenant governor, secretary, and all the oflicers of 
the admiralty, was vested in the crown. Under the 
old charter, the governor had little more share in the 
administration than any one of the assistants ; he had 
the power of calling the general court, but he could 
not adjourn, prorogue, or dissolve it. Under the 
new charter, there was to be an annual meeting of 
the general court on the last Wednesday in May ; 
but the governor might discretionally call an assem- 



68 



HISTORY OF THE UMTi^U .STATES. 



bly at any other time, and adjourn, prorogue, and 
dissolve it at pleasure, while no act of government 
was to be valid without his consent. He had also 
the sole appointment of all military officers, and of 
all officers belonging to tire courts of justice ; and no 
money could issue out of the treasury but by his 
warrant, with the advice and consent of the council. 
The new charter contained nothing respecting an 
ecclesiastical constitution ; but, with the exception of 
papists, liberty of conscience, which was not mentioned 
in the first charter, was now expressly granted to all. 
The new government went into operation without 
any opposition from the inhabitants ; and almost the 
first act of Sir William Phipps and his council, was 
the institution of a court to try the unfortunate vic- 
tims of popular delusion, accused of witchcraft, at 
Salem. "A belief in the direct and sensible agency 
of supernatural beings has universally prevailed in 
ages of ignorance and superstition. It formed the 
life of the pagan mythology ; and it has not been 

• Murray, Vol. i. p. 294. 

t From the mountains of Scotland, or from an indigenous 
growth of superstition, witchcraft had, in England, gained such an 
alarming height, as it was called, that a statute was passed against 
the crime in the thirty-third year of the reign of Henry VIII., 
making it felony, without the benefit of clergy. Many miserable 
wretches suffered death under this law, but the evil was not dimi- 
nished by severity. In the reign of Elizabeth, a reverend prelate. 
Bishop Jewell, loudly descanted before her upon the prevalence of 
the crime, and attempted, by his harangue, to awalien the fears 
of the queen ; but she thought she knew as much as any oki wo- 
man in her realms. This sermon was preached in 1558. In 1584, 
Reginald Scot, a bold writer, in the strong spirit of common sense, 
in his treatise on the " Discoverie of Witchcraft," made a comjilelc 
detection of the virclchcd fallacy. This work, say the historians, 
had a good effect for a while, but King James, in 1597, wrote his 
work on " Demonologie," and the royal dupe to superstition had 
the most readers, and the good effects of Scot's w-ork were, in a 
great measure, lost. Persecutions still went on, and the old and 
ignorant perished by the infatuation in great numbers. Our an- 
cestors, though a quiet .and a religious people, brought with them 
all the prejudices of their kindred, as well as their own. Amongst 
these prejudices was that of a full belief in witchcraft, and as soon 
as they began to make laws of a permanent nature for offences, 
this crime was considered as capital, and enumerated the next after 
treason and murder in the records of the Old Colony, dated at New 
Plymouth, November 15, 1636. The language of the law, in 
defining the crime, is, "Solemne compaction, or conversing with the 
divell, by viay of witchcraft, conjuration, or the like." But on a care- 
ful examination of all llie Old Colony records, not a single indict- 
ment was found until the month of March, 1676, when Mary Ing- 
ham, wife of Thomas Ingham, of the town of Scituate, was indicted 
for bewitching Mehitable Woodworth, daughter of Walter Wood- 
worth, of the same place. The woman was not convicted, and no 
other case occurred unlil the union under the charter of William 
and Mary. In other parts of the present Commonwealth there 
were several trials, and some convictions. In Charlestown, in 
1648, Margaret Jones was tried for a witch and executed. She 
was the first executed in New England. 

In 1651, Mary Parsons, of Springfield, was tried for witchcraft 
and murder. She was acquitted of the former, but found guilty of 
the latter crime. The next May, her husband, Hugh Parsons, 
was tried for witchcraft, and acquitted ; but in three years afler- 
vfards, 1655, Mrs. Hibbons, wife of an assistant to the Governor, 
was tried, convicted, and executed as a witch. Her death was 



wholly effaced among the less enlightened professors 
of Christianity, especially amid those superstitious 
forms which defaced it during the dark ages. Even 
the first reformers, who displayed sucli vigour and 
independence of mind, and brought to light so many 
important truths, could not wholly shake ofl' the 
delusions of the age. Luther's enemies are able to 
produce from his writings some comments of this 
nature, which appear almost incredible. The New 
Englanders brought with them this belief, still in a 
very prevailing state ; and all the circumstances oi 
their situation tended to stamp on their minds solemn 
and supernatural impressions.''* Mather, after Hale, 
defines a witch to be " a person who, having the free 
use of reason, doth knowingly and willingly seek 
and obtain of the devil, or of any other besides the 
true God, an ability to do or know strange things, 
or things which he cannot by his own human abili- 
ties arrive unto. This person is a witch." 
The first trials for witchcraft in New Ensrland* occur- 



deeply felt, as most persons considered her a woman of fine intel- 
lect and good character. This execution checked the infatuation 
for several years in the Commonwealth. Connecticut was the 
next in which it was found. It broke out there in 1662-71-73-83, 
and made no small disturbance ; some were executed and some 
escaped. In 1679, it again appeared in Massachusetts, at New- 
bury ; but nothing serious followed. In 1687, and the next year, 
the cry of witchcraft was again heard in Boston. The four child- 
ren of John Goodwin were declared to be afflicted by an old Irish 
woman, who was tried and executed. This last case was four 
years before the delusion reached Salem, and it is impossible for 
us to tell why that good town should bear the whole obloquy of the 
New England witchcraft, when she only followed the example of 
Boston, after it had been before her for thirty years. 

In most histories of delusions, the lower classes become frantic, 
and overwhelm the still sma' voice of the wise ; but it was not so 
here. It began in respectable families, but the good sense of the 
commonalty would have soon put it down, if divines, magistrates, 
and statesmen, had not aided the delusion by arguments from scrip- 
ture, from the opinion of English judges, and from the learned 
nonsense of the doctors of universities. Phipps, Sloughton, Ma- 
ther, Hawthorn, and Norris, pursued witches as though they had 
been possessed by some evil spirits at war with the former ; and 
after all their efforts, jurymen often stood out and took the respon- 
sibility of an acquittal upon their own consciences, and when forced 
by authority to convict some poor wretch, repented of it, and threw 
the blame on the judges. One of the judges of that day had good 
sense enough to see the folly and wickedness of the course pursued, 
and after a struggle to stem the current, but in vain, relreated from 
the scene of iniquity. This man was Judge Saltonstall, of Haver- 
hill. He deservo: a monument more durable than brass, — it will 
hereafter be erected. 

The friends of common sense and humanity, at this time, found a 
powerful advocate in Mr. Robert Calef, a merchant of Boston. 
He, like Reginald Scot, breasted the current of popular opinion, 
and incurred the resentment of the Mathers. His book a perusal 
of which is now so refreshing, was burnt in the yard of Harvard 
College, by the hands of the president of that institution. Calef 
published his work in England, in 1700, and it has lately been repub- 
lished in Salem. 

It is a subject of philosophical inquiry, at the present time, to as- 
certain the course of this delusion ; perhaps it will nev»'r be fully set- 
tled. " Our fathers," says a writer of eminence, " looked upon na- 
ture with more reverence and horror before the world was enlight- 
ened by learning and philosophy ; and loved to astonish themselves 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



69 



red in the year 1645, when four persons charged with 
this crime wore put to death in Massachusetts. For 
more than twenty years after, we hear but little of 
any similar prosecutions. But, in the year 1688, a 
woman was executed for witchcraft at Boston, after 
an investigation conducted with a degree of solem- 
nity that made a deep impression on the minds of 
the people. The suspicions of the people thus pow- 
erfully awakened in this direction, the charges of 
witchcraft began gradually to multiply, till, at length, 
there commenced at Salem that dreadful tragedy 
which rendered New England for many months a 
scene of bloodshed, terror, and madness, and at one 
time seemed to threaten the subversion of civil so- 
ciety. In February, 1692, a daughter and a niece 
of Mr. Paris, the minister of Salem, were afflicted 
with disorders affecting their bodies in a maimer 
somewhat singular. The physicians, unable to ex- 
plain the nature of the disease, or to effect a cure, 
pronounced them bewitched ; and the children, hear- 
ing of this, declared that an Indian woman who 
lived in the house was the cause of their torments. 
Mr. Paris concurred with the physicians. Several 
private fasts were kept at his house, and the gloom 
was increased by a solemn fast throughout the co- 
lony. The Indian woman confessed herself guilty. 
The children were visited, noticed, and pitied. This 
encouraged them to persevere, and other children, 
either from sympathy, or the desire of similar atten- 
tions, exhibited similar contortions. From this mo- 
ment the evil spread daily wider and wider. Several 
females charged Mr. Burroughs, a clergyman, with 
using against them the arts of necromancy, and an 
indictment against him was speedily drawn up. Be- 
ing brought to trial, he argued, " that there neither 
are nor ever were witches, that, having made a com- 

with the apprehensions of witchcraft, prodigies, charms, and en- 
chantments. There was not a villaaje in England that had not a 
ghost in it; the church yards were all haimted ; every large com- 
mon had a circle of witches belonging to it ; and there was 
scarcely a shepherd to be met with that had not seen a spirit." 
This was not confined to England, but was in full credit in all the 
northern countries. • 

" The gloomy state of New England probably facilitated the de- 
lusion, for superstition flourishes in times of danger and dismay." 
Some portion of the people were mourning over the loss of the 
old charter; and others were grieving at the great expenses the 
colonies had incurred in their abortive attempt on the Canadas. 
Moral causes often produce physical evils. But after all, the folly 
of receiving what they called " spiritual evidence," can never be 
atoned for. Men had indeed lost their reason. It was an evil 
that in time produced abundance of good. Superstition has never 
reared its head there successfully since. — American Editor. 

* " The statement afterwards given in by Deliverance Dane, 
Abigail Baker, and four other females, affords an affecting descrip- 
tion of the impulses which induced them to adopt this criminal 
course. ' Joseph Ballard of Andover's wife being sick,' say they, 
'he either from limself, or the advice of others, fetched two of the 
persons called tne afflicted persons from Salem village to Andover, 



pact with the devil, can send a devil to torment other 
people at a distance." This was a flight far beyond 
the place or age ; his defence was declared altogether 
frivolous, and sentence of death was at once pro- 
nounced. The evil, however, instead of being 
checked, spread more and more. The accused were 
multiplied in proportion to the accusers. Children 
denounced their parents, and parents their children. 
A word from those who were supposed to he afflicted, 
occasioned tiie arrest of the devoted victim ; and so 
firinl y convinced were the magistrates that the prince 
of darkness was in the midst of them, using human 
instruments to accomplish his purposes, that the 
slightest testimony was deemed sufficient to justify a 
commitment for trial. The court specially instituted 
for this purpose held a session in June, and after- 
wards several others by adjournment. Many were 
tried, and received sentence of death, and twenty 
persons were executed, one of whom was pressed to 
death because he wotild not plead ! By a most un- 
accountable departure from the first principles of ju- 
risprudence, all that confessed the crime, if imputed 
to them, were reprieved ; and only those who main- 
tained their innocence had capital punishment in- 
flicted on them. What was still more horrible, the 
confessed criminals were admitted witnesses against 
the lives of their fellow-sufferers. By this absurd 
arrangement, those who were possessed of that high 
integrity, which will endure death rather than utter 
deliberate falsehood, fell tmder the hand of the exe- 
cutioner, while the ignoble and dishonest preserved 
their lives.* Even amidst those who had been over- 
come with the powerful temptation arising from the 
desire to escape the dreadful doom of those who per- 
sisted in their innocence, there were some, who, on 
mature reflection, did not hesitate to retract their 

which was the cause of that dreadful calamity which befel us at 
Andover. We were blindfolded, and our hands were laid on the 
afflicted persons, they being in their fits, and falling into these fits 
at our coming into their presence, and then they said that we 
were guilty of afflicting ihem, whereupon we were all seized as 
prisoners by a warrant from the justice of peace, and forthwith 
carried to Salcm; and by reason of that sudden surprisal, we 
knowing ourselves altogether innocent of that crime, we were all 
exceedingly astonished, and amazed, and consternated, and af- 
frighted out of our reason ; and our ilearcst relations seeing us in 
that dreadful condition, and knowing our great danger, they, out 
of tender love and pity, persuaded us to confess what we did con- 
fess ; and, indeed, that confession was no other than what was sug- 
gested to us by some gentlemen, they telling us that we were witches, 
and they knew it, and we k-new ii, and they knew that we knew it, 
which made us think that we were so, and our understanding, and 
our reason, and our faculties being almost gone, we were not ca- 
pable of judging of our condition ; as also the hard measures they 
used with us rendered us incapable of making any defence, but 
we said any thing and every thing they desired, and most of what 
we said was, in fact, but a consenting to what they said.' "— IN eale, 
vol. li. p. 160—162 



70 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



forced confessions, though death looked them full in 
the face. Samuel Wardmel was the first who ven- 
tured to act so noble a part ; and he was immediately 
put on his trial, condemned, and executed ! Others 
were not prevented, however, from following this 
most meritorious example ; and this conduct shook 
the faith of many, and threw discredit on the nume- 
rous confessions which had continually occurred.* 

The " defenders of the faith" in witchcraft, when 
summoned by their opponents to produce a confes- 
sion free from just grounds of suspicion, felt them- 
selves in a very difficult predicament, as all the con- 
fessions must lie under the imputation of being given 
to insure the important purpose of saving their necks 
from the lialter ; and how does posterity blush for 
tiiem, when they tender, as their best defence, such 
miserable trash as the following confession of W. B. : 
" God having called me to confess my sin and apos- 
tacy in that fall, in giving the devil advantage over 
me, appearing in the shape of a black man, in the 
evening, to set my name to his book, as I liave owned 
to my shame, he told me that I should not want, so 
doing. At Salem village there being, a little off the 
meeting-house, about a hundred fine blades, some 
with rapiers by their sides, which was called, and 
might be for aught I know, by B. and Bu, and 
the trumpet sounded, and bread and wine, which 
they called the sacrament ; but I had none, being 
carried over all on a stick, and never was present at 
any other meeting. I being at cart last [Saturday all 
the day of hay and English corn, the devil bronght 
my shape to Salem, and did afflict M. S. and R. F. 
by ditching my hand ; and on sabbath-day my shape 
afflicted A. M., (Sec. The design was to destroy Sa- 
lem village, and to begin at the minister's house, and 
to destroy the churches of (iod, and to set up Satan's 
kingdom, and then all will be well. And now I hope 
God hath made me in some measure sensible of my 
sin and apostacy, begging pardon of God, and of the 
honourable magistrates, and all God's people; hoping, 
and promising, by the help of God, to set to my heart 
and hand to do what lieth in me to destroy such 
wicked worship ; humbly begging the prayers of 
God's people foi me, I may walk humbly under all 
this great affliction, and that I may procure to myself 
the sure mercies of David. "t 



* One poor girl, of the name of Mary Jacobs, deserves to be 
immortalized, more than half the names that -shine so splendidly on 
the page of history. She gives the following iccount, in a letter to 
her mother : " I having, through the threats of the magistrates, and 
my own vile and wretched heart, confessed several things contrary 
to my own conscience and knowledge, though to the woimding of 
my own soul, the Lord pardon me for it ; but, oh ! the terrors of 
a wounded conscience who can bear ! But, blessed be the Lord, 



The nature of the evidence by which these charges 
of demoniacal possession were sustained, was quite 
consistent with the confession we have just quoted. 
A specimen from Mather will sufliciently attest the 
truth of this observation. " It is well known," says 
that historian, " that these wicked spectres did pro- 
ceed so far as to steal several quantities of money 
from divers people, part of which individual money 
was dropt sometimes out of the air, befoi-e suflicient 
spectators, into the hands of the afilicted, while the 
spectres were urging them to subscribe their cove- 
nant with death. Moreover, poisons to the stan- 
ders-by, wliolly invisibly, were sometimes forced 
upon the afflicted ; which, when they have, with 
much reluctancy, swallowed, they have swoln pre- 
sently, so that the common medicines for poisons 
have been found necessary to relieve them. Yea, 
sometimes the spectres in the struggles have so dropt 
the poisons, that the standers-by have smelt them, 
and viewed them, and beheld the pillows of the 
miserable stained with them. Yet more, the mise- 
rable have complained bitterly of burning rags run 
into their forcibly distended mouths ; and thouo-h 
nobody could see any such cloths, or indeed, any 
fires in the chambers, yet, presently, the scalds w^ere 
seen plainly by every body on the mouths of the 
complaiuers, and not only the smell, but the smoke 
of the burning, sensibly filled the chambers. Once 
more, the miserable exclaimed extremely of branding 
irons heating at the fire on the hearth to mark them ; 
now, though the standers-by could see no irons, yet 
they could see distinctly the print of them in the 
ashes, and smell them too as they were carried by 
the not-seen furies unto the poor creatures for whom 
they were intended ; and those poor creatures were 
thereupon so stigmatized with them, that they will 
bear the marks of them to their dying day. Nor are 
these the tenth part of the prodigies that fell out 
among the inhabitants of New England. — Flashy 
people may burlesque these things, but when hun- 
dreds of the most sober people in a country, where 
they have as much mother-wit certainly as the rest 
of mankmd, know them to be true, nothing but the 
absurd and froward spirit of Sadducism can question 
them. I have not yet mentioned so much as one 
thing that will not be justified, if it be required, by 



he would not let me go on in my sins, but in mercy, I hope, to my 
soul, would not suffer me to keep it in any longer ; tiut I was forced 
to confess the truth of all before the magistrates, who would not 
believe me, and God knows how soon I shall be put to death, 
Dear father, let me beg your prayers to the Lord in my behalf, and 
send us a joyful and happy meeting in heaven." — Neale, vol. ii. p- 
146, 147. 
t Mather, b. vi. p. 81. 



/ 



HISTORY OF THE UMTED STATES. 



71 



the oaths of more considerate persons than any that 
can ridicule these odd phenomena." 

To such an extent of idiocy did this folly proceed, 
that irrational animals did not escape suspicion, and 
a dog was actually hanged as being an accomplice 
with his master ! After this, we shall be excused, 
perhaps, taking our stand amongst the " flashy peo- 
ple" who " burlesque these thing's ;" or rather amongst 
those who grieve that so much ignorance and folly 
could possibly exist, combined with such excellent 
mental and moral qualities, as those with which we 
find it associated, both in the parent country and 
the colonies, during the seventeenth century. 

Emboldened by their success, and carried away by 
the enthusiasm of deception, the accusers took higher 
aim, and levelled their shafts of malice against many 
of the most respectable as well as virtuous inhabit- 
ants, including ministers, and even the governor 
himself The community were thrown into conster- 
nation. Each felt alarm for himself, his family, and 
his friends. The shock roused them to reliection. 
They considered more closely the character of the 
accusers ; the nature of the alleged crime ; the testi- 
mony, often contradictory, and never explicit ; and 
more than all these, the high standing of some who 
were implicated ;* and they began to doubt whether 
they had not been too credulous and precipitate. Of 
fifty-six bills which were presented at the next ses- 
sions, the grand jury threw out thirty, rejecting, in 
some instances, even the confession of the accused. 
Of the remaining twenty-six the petty jury condemn- 
ed only three ; but the governor had now determined 
to make a general sweep of the whole proceedings. 
He pardoned all those under sentence, threw open 
the prison doors, and turned a deaf ear to all the 
outcries and groans of the afflicted ; and, in order to 
prevent the dissensions that might arise from retri- 
butory proceedings against the accusers and their 
witnesses, he proclaimed a general pardon to all 
persons for any concern they might have had in the 
prosecutions for witchcraft. The believers in witch- 
craft anticipated the most gloomy consequences from 
the free scope thus given to the operations of the 
powers of darkness. Great then was their surprise 
to find that from this moment all the troubles of the 
afflicted ceased, and were never more heard of. Many 



• The reasons given by the historian, were not the only oper- 
ating causes in staying this wide spreading evil ; several actions 
for slander were brought by persons accused, against their fanati- 
cal slanderers; and the damages in these cases were laid to an 
amount so far above their means, that it was impossible for them 
to procure bail ; cf course, the defendants were imprisoned, and 
this frightened the whole tribe of those who had, with impunity, 
falsely accused whom they pleased, and thus were they completely 

10 



of the witnesses now came forward and published the 
most solemn recantations of the testimony they had 
formerly given, both against themselves and others ; 
apologizing for their perjury by a protestation, ot 
which all were constrained to admit the force, that 
no other means of saving their lives had been left to 
them. Many of the jurymen subscribed and published 
a declaration, lamenting and condemning the delu- 
sion to which they had yielded, and acknowledging 
that they had brought the reproach of innocent blood 
on their native land. The house of assembly 
appointed a general -fast, and prayer, "that God 
would pardon all the errors of his servants and peo- 
ple in a late tragedy raised among ns by Satan and 
his instruments." Mr. Paris, the clergj^man who 
had instituted the first prosecutions, and promoted 
all the rest, sensible, at length, how dreadfully erro- 
neous his conduct had been, hastened to make a 
public profession of repentance, and solemnly begged 
forgiveness of God and man. But the people decla- 
ring that they would never more attend the ministry 
of one who had been the instrument of misery and 
ruin to so many of their countrymen, he was obliged 
to resign his charge, and depart from Salem. 

This scene of delusion and crueller, which has 
justly excited the astonishment and reprehension of 
all civilized nations,t indicates most powerfully the 
truth, that the doctrines of Christianity were not 
designed by their Divine Promulgator to supersede 
the possession of general knowledge ; but that there 
is no department of knowledge, the acquisition of 
which does not tend to exhibit the beauties of Christi- 
anity more fully, and give to its purifying efficacy a 
more expansive surface on which to operate. This 
is especially the case with mental and moral philoso- 
phy. Had these excellent men been acquainted 
with the structure of the human mind, they woTild 
have at once devised far other methods to counteract 
the delusions of afflicted childhood and half civilized 
Indians, than the halter and the executioner ; and 
never would have disgraced the name of Christi- 
anity, which they pre-eminently bear, with a degree 
of superstition and folly equal to that of the darkest 
ages of popery or of heathenism. Let some of those 
who now stand foremost in the ranks of Christian 
profession ask themselves faithfully, whether, in their 



silenced. This species of action has often been prosecuted since, 
with great benefit to society. — Am.. Ed. 

t It is but justice to the inhabitants of New England to observe, 
that though the present age may censure the past for its supersti^ 
tion, neither England nor any other nation is entitled to cast the 
first'stone at them. More persons were put to death in England 
in a single county in a few months, than suffered in all the coloniea 
during the whole period of their existence. 



72 



HISTORY OF TIIC UPs'ITED ST2VTES. 



deficiency of general knowledge, and their rigid 
attachment to party, they do not imitate the repre- 
hensible features of the puritan character, while they 
leave far behind their devoted zeal, manifested in the 
heroic sacrifices they made for the all-important truths 
10 which they were so ardently attached. 

It is matter of satisfaction to the historian, that his 
attention is not again to be diverted, in the annals of 
I his state, from his peculiar province, to record events 
which, had the intention of religion been rightly 
apprehended, would not have intermixed with civil 
udairs in fact, and therefore .not in history. — The 
1 'gislature, at its first session under the new charter, 
)!assed a law which indicates the same independ- 
ent spirit that afterwards resisted the usurpations of 
tiic British parliament. It provided that no tax should 
be imposed upon any of his majesty's subjects, or 
tlieir estates, in the province, but by the act and con- 
sent of the governor, council, and representatives of 
tlie people, in general court assembled. It is almost 
needless to add, that this law was disallowed by the 
king. 

The war with the French and Indians, which 
began in 16"0, was not yet terminated. For several 
years were the frontier settlements harassed by the 
savages, and the English were employed in expedi- 
tions against them. This continuance of the war 
on the part of the Indians, instigated and aided by the 
French, induced repeated applications for a force 
from the British government, to act in conjunction 
with land forces to be raised in New England and 
New York, for the reduction of Canada ; and it was 
at length determined,' that an expedition should be 
undertaken for that purpose. A fleet was to be 
employed in the winter in the reduction of Marti- 
nico ; and, after the performance of that service, was 
to sail to Boston, take on board a body of land forces 
under Sir William Phipps, and proceed to Quebec. 
By attempting too much, the whole of this extensive 
project entirely failed. The attacks of the natives 
on the English continued with little intermission till 
the peace of 1697. They were carried on with 
Indian cunning, treachery, and cruelty. " To these 
causes of suffering were superadded the power of all 
such motives as the ingenuity of the French could 
invent, their wealth furnish, or their bigotry adopt. 
Here all the implements of war and the means of 
sustenance were supplied ; the expedition was plan- 
ned ; the price was bidden for scalps ; the aid of 
European officers and soldiers was conjoined ; the 
devastation and slaughter were sanctioned by the 
ministers of religion ; and the blood-hounds, while 
tl.eir fangs were yet dropping blood, were caressed 



and cherished by men regarded by them as superior 
beings. The intervals between formal attacks were 
usually seasons of desultory mischief, plunder, and 
butchery ; and always of suspense and dread. The 
solitary family was carried into captivity ; the lonely 
house burnt to the ground ; and the traveller way- 
laid and shot in the forest. It ought, however, to le 
observed, to the immortal honour of these people, 
distinguished as they are by so many traits of brutMl 
ferocity, that history records no instance in wiiich 
the purity of a female captive was violated by then , 
or even threatened."* 

The peace of Ryswick, which had been signed en 
the 20th of September, was proclaimed at Boston on 
the iOth of December, and the English colonies hud 
a brief repose. By the seventh article it was agreed, 
that mutual restitution should be made of all the 
countries, forts, and colonists, taken by each parly 
during the war. 

In the year 1702, Joseph Dudley arrived at JTns- 
sachusetts, with a commission from Queen Anne, who 
had succeeded William and Mary on the Briti.'h 
throne, to be captain -general and governor-in-chici 
over that province. In his first speech to the conn- 
ed and assembly, he informed the house of represent- 
atives, that he was commanded by her majesty to 
observe to them, "that there is no other province rr 
government belonging to the crown of England, ex- 
cept this, where there is not provided a fit and con- 
venient house for the reception of the governor, 
and a settled stated salary for the governor, lieutenant- 
governor, secretary, judges, and all other officers ; 
which, therefore, is recommended to you. And since 
this province is so particularly favoured by the crown, 
in more instances than one, their more ready obedience 
is justly expected in this and all other occasions." 
The house, in their answer the next day, observed, 
"As for those points which, in obedience to her ma- 
jesty's connnand, your excellency has laid before this 
house, we shall proceed with all convenient speed to 
the consideration of them." Having resolved that 
the sum of 500/. be at this time presented out of the 
public treasury to the governor, the house, in their 
answer to some parts of his speech, observed, "As 
to settling a salary for the governor, it is altogether 
new to us ; nor can we think it agreeable to our pre- 
sent constitution, but we shall be ready to do accord- 
ing to our ability, what may be proper on our part 
for the support of the government." Shortly after, 
the governor directed that the speaker and represen- 
tatives should be sent for up to the council chamber ; 



♦ Dwight's Travels, vol. i. p. 118, 119. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



73 



and, after expressing his regret and disappointment 
at their procedure, and observing that tiiere was a 
necessity of his seeing the other province and the 
frontiers, dismissed them. Tims commenced the dis- 
pute between the governor and the general assembly 
of Massachusetts, upon the claims of the one, and 
the rights of the other, which lasted more than seventy 
years. It was a Gordian knot, which could not be 
untied, but which was severed at the revolution. 

In a few years war again broke out in Europe, and 
hostilities speedily recommenced in America. The 
first blow fell upon Deerfield. In February, 1704, it 
was surprised in the night, about forty persons were 
killed, and more than one hundred were made prison- 
ers, among whom were Mr. Williams, the minister, 
and his family. The killed were scalped, and the 
prisoners connnanded to prepare for a long march 
to Canada. On the second day, Mrs. Williams was 
so exhausted with fatigue that she could go no farther. 
Her husband solicited permission to remain with her ; 
but the retreatinj; savages, according to their custom 
in such cases, killed her, and compelled him to proceed. 
Before the termination of their journey, twenty more 
became unable to walk, and were in like manner sac- 
rificed. Those who survived the journey to Canada 
were treated by the French with humanity ; and after 
a captivity of many years, most of them were redeem- 
ed, and returned to their friends. 

New York having agreed with the French and the 
Western Indians to remain neutral, the enemy were 
enabled to pour their whole force upon Massachu- 
setts and New Hampshire, the inhabitants of which, 
for ten years, endured miseries peculiar to an Indian 
war, of which the description we have given falls be- 
low the truth. The enemy were at all times prowl- 
ing about the frontier settlements, watching in con- 
cealment for an opportunity to strike a sudden blow, 
and to fly with safety. The women and children 
retired into the garrisons ; the men left their fields 
uncultivated, or laboured with arms at their sides, and. 
with sentinels at every point whence an attack could 
be apprehended. Yet, notwithstanding these precau- 
tions, the Indians were often successful, killing some- 
times an individual, sometimes a whole familj^, 
sometimes a band of labourers, ten or twelve in num- 
ber ; and so swift were they in their movements, that 
but few fell into the hands of the whites. It was 
computed, that the sum of one thousand pounds was 
expended for every Indian killed or made captive. 

In 1707, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and 
Rhode Island, despatched an armament against Port 
Royal, in Nova Scotia, then in possession of the 
French, which returned, however, without effecting 



its object ; but in 1710, the troops of New England, 
assisted by a British fleet, succeeded in reducing the 
place ; and in compliment to Q-ueen Anne, changed 
its name to Annapolis. 

Encouraged by the success of this enterprise, .Gen- 
eral Nicholson visited England to concert an expe- 
dition against Canada. His proposition was adopted, 
and in June, 1711, Admiral Walker, with a fleet of 
fifteen ships of war, and forty transports, bringing an 
army of veteran troops, arrived at Boston. Taking 
on board two additioiial regiments, he sailed from 
that port about the last of July. At the same time 
General Nicholson lepaired to Albany, to take the 
command of the troops that were to proceed by land. 
When the fleet had advanced ten leagues up the river 
St. Lawrence, the weather became tempestuous and 
foggy. A difljerence of opinion arose concerning the 
course to be pursued ; the English pilots recommend- 
ing one course, and the colonial another. The ad- 
miral, like most English officers, preferred the advice 
of his own pilots to the colonial. Pursuing the course 
they recommended during the night, nine transports 
were driven upon the rocks and dashed to pieces. 
From every quarter cries of distress arose, conveying, 
through the darkness, to those who were yet afloat, 
intelligence of the fate of their comrades, and of their 
own danger. The shrieks of the drowning pleaded 
powerfully for assistance, but none coidd be afforded 
until the morning dawned, when six or seven hun- 
dred, found floating on the scattered wrecks, were 
rescued from death, more than a thousand having 
sunk to rise no more. Weakened by this terrible 
disaster, the admiral determined to return to England, 
where he arrived in the month of October. The 
New England troops returned to their homes, and 
Nicholson, having learned the fate of the fleet, led 
back his troops to Albany. In the year 1713, France 
and England made peace at Utrecht, and the Indian 
wars terminated at the same time. 

Colonel Shute, who had served under the celebra- 
ted duke of Marlborougli, was appointed to succeed 
Governor Dudley, in the year 1716. On his arrival 
in the province, he found the people divided into two 
parties, one in favour of a public bank, which had 
just been establislied, the other of the incorporation 
of a private bank. Having attached himself to the 
interests of the former, the latter became hostile ; and, 
led by a Mr. Cooke, virulently opposed all his mea- 
sures. At the election of speaker to the general 
court, in 1720, this party were successful. The 
choice was communicated to the governor, v ho 
interposed his negative. The house persisting in 
their choice, and denying his right to interfere, the 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



governor dissolved the assembly, and ordered a new 
election. The charter not giving to the governor a 
vote on the choice of a speaker, the people resolved 
to support their representatives, and nearly all of 
tlieiH were again elected. Wlien met, to avoid a 
second dissolution, they chose a Mr. Lindall speaker ; 
but in a remonstrance to the governor, reasserted 
their right to choose their presiding officer. The 
session was short, and displayed no abatement in the 
angry feelings of the house. Instead of 600Z., the 
usual grant to the governor for half a year's salary, 
they appropriated but 500, and, in evident displea- 
sure, deferred that act until n'ear the close of the 
session. At their next meeting, the same feelings 
prevailed, and the same diminished sum' was voted. 
The ofovernor then informed them, that he had been 
instructed by the king to recommend to the assembly 
to establish for him a permanent and honourable 
salary. The house, aware of the importance of re- 
taining the power of granting such sums as the go- 
vernor might merit by his conduct, replied, that the 
subject was new, and expressed a wish that the court 
might rise ; with which request the governor com- 
plied. 

This disagreement continued, the breach still 
widening, through several subsequent sessions. The 
representatives, confident of the support of the people, 
refused to establish a permanent salary for the governor, 
and often withheld the pittance they gave, until he 
had sanctioned the measures they had adopted. His 
residence in the province being thus rendered unplea- 
sant, he suddenly and privately quitted it, in Decem- 
ber, 1722. Upon his arrival in England, he exhi- 
bited charges against the house, of having made 
various encroachments upon the king's prerogative, 
which the agents of the province were instructed to 
answer and repel. 

Shute remained in England until 1728, when he 
resigned his office, and William Burnet, then governor 
of New York, was appointed his succosser. In his 
first speech, the new governor informed the house 
that he had received positive instructions from the 
king to insist on a permanent salary. The repre- 
sentatives, generous of their money, but tenacious of 
their rights, appropriated 300/. for the expenses of 
his journey, and 1400Z. towards his support, not spe- 
cifying for what time. The first sum he accepted, 
but absolutely declined receiving any compensation 
for his services, except in the mode of a fixed salary. 
The delegates were equally decided ; and having 
transacted all their necessary business, requested the 
governor, by message, to adjourn them. He replied, 
that he could not comply with their request, as, if he 



did, he should put it out of their power to pay imme- 
diate regard to the king's instructions. The court 
still persisted in its refusal to comply with the reite- 
rated and earnest requests of his majesty's repre- 
sentative. On this account the governor adjourned 
the assembly, to meet at Salem, intimating that they 
were too much under the influence of the inhabitants 
of Boston. The governor seemed determined to 
continue the assembly in session until the members 
complied with the royal mandate. In this situation, 
the house of representatives presented, a memorial to 
the king, setting forth the reasons of their conduct 
in relation to the salary. They informed his majesty, 
that " it is, and has been very well known in this, 
as well as other nations and ages, that governors, at 
a distance from the prince, or seat of government, 
have great opportunities, and sometimes too prevailing 
inclinations, to oppre'ss the people ; and it is almost 
impossible for the prince, who is the most careful 
father of his subjects, to have such matters set in a 
true light." This address was referred to the board 
of trade, before whom there was a hearing in behalf 
of the crown, as well as on the part of the house. 
The board condemned the conduct of the latter, in 
refusing to comply with the royal instructions ; and 
in the conclusion of the report to the king and coun- 
cil, discovered an extreme jealousy of the growing 
power and wealth of that province, and of the sup- 
posed determination of its inhabitants to become 
independent of the crown. " The inhabitants," say 
the board, " far from making suitable returns to his 
majesty, for the extraordinary privileges they enjoy, 
are daily endeavouring to wrest the small remains of 
power out of the hands of the crown, and to become 
independent of the mother kingdom. The nature of 
the soil and products are much the same with those 
of Great Britain, the inhabitants upwards of ninety- 
four thousand, and their militia, consisting of sixteen 
regiments of foot and fifteen troops of horse, in the 
year 171S, fifteen thousand men ; and by a medium, 
taken from the naval officers' accotints for three years, 
from the 24th of June, 1714, to the 24th of June 
1717, for the ports of Boston and Salem only, it 
appears that the trade of this country employs con- 
tinually no less than tliree thousand four hundred 
and ninety-three sailors, and four hundred and ninety- 
two ships, making twenty-five thousand four hundred 
and six tons. Hence your excellencies will be appri- 
sed of what importance it is to liis majesty's service, 
that so powerful a colony should be restrained 
within due bounds of obedience to the crown ; 
which, we conceive, cannot eflectually be done 
without the interposition of the British legislature, 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



75 



wherein, in oar humble opinion, no time should he 
lost."* 

The controversy was suspended for a time by the 
death of the governor, which was supposed to have 
been hastened by his unsuccessful contest with the 
house of representatives. His successor was Mr. 
Belcher, then agent in England. As he belonged to 
the popiriar party, his appointment gave rise to the 
expectation, that the instruction to obtain a permanent 
salary was withdrawn. But not only was it left un- 
rescinded, but enforced by a threat of punishment. 
The assembly were told, that, in case of further re- 
fusal, his majesty would find himself under a neces- 
sity of laying the undutiful behaviour of the province 
before the legislature of Great Britain, not only in 
this single instance, but in many others of the same 
nature and tendency; " whereby it manifestly appears," 
his majesty observes, " that this assembly, for some 
years last past, have attempted, by unwarrantable 
practices, to, weaken, if not cast oft", the obedience 
they owe to the crown, and the dependence which 
all colonies ought to have on their mother country." 
But neither the popularity of the new governor, nor 
the threats of the king, could induce a change of 
conduct on the part of the people of Massachusetts. 
Attempts were made to eflect a compromise, but in 
vain. The assembly made a temporary grant of 
lOOOZ., but the governor was instructed to assent to 
no other than a fixed and permanent salary. Satis- 
fied that the house would never yield on this subject, 
the governor solicited a relaxation of his instruc- 
tions, and the crown finally permitted him to assent 
to temporary grants. Thus, after a constant struggle 
of more than thirty years, the crown was at last com- 
pelled to yield to the bold and persevering opposition 
of the people of that province. This controversy 
was not renewed in Massachusetts until 1773, when 
an attempt on the part of the crown, to provide sala- 
ries for the governors and judo-es of that province, 
independent of the assembly, was resisted with the 
ssime firmness ; and, as will hereafter appear, was 
one of the causes which induced the people of that 
province to declare themselves independent of the 
parent country.t For the present, however, these 
turbulent times were succeeded by a calm ; during 
which the enemies of Governor Belcher, by incessant 
misiepresentation, deprived hiin of the favour of the 
ministry in England ; and, in 1740, he was replaced 
by Mr. William Shirley. 

In 1744, war again broke out between England 
and France, and the colonies were involved in its ca- 

• Hutchinson, vol. ii. p. 230. 



lamities. To guard against the incursions of the 
French and Indians, five hundred men were impress- 
ed, three hundred of whom were destined for the 
eastern frontier, and two hundred for the western. 
The ordinary garrisons were re-#nforced, and gun- 
powder was sent to the several townships to be sold 
to tlie inhal)itants at the prime cost. In the spring 
of this year opportunely arrived in Boston the king's 
gift to Castle William of twenty pieces of heavy ar- 
tillery, and two mortars ; and about the same time 
the legislature of Massachusetts voted a range of forts 
to be built between Connecticut river and New York 
boundary line. 

Commerce in general, and especially the fisheries, 
sufl'ered great injury from privateers fitted out at 
Louisbourg, a French port on Cape Breton. Its situ- 
ation gave it such importance, that nearly six millions 
of dollars had been expended on its fortifications. 
The place was deemed so strong as to deserve the 
appellation of the Dunkirk of America. In peace, it 
was a safe retreat for the ships of France, bound 
homeward from the East and West Indies. In war, 
it gave the French the greatest advantage for ruining 
the fishery of the northern English colonies, and en- 
dangered the loss of Nova Scotia. The reduction of 
this place was, for these reasons, an object of the 
highest importance to New England ; and Mr. Vaug- 
han, of New Hampshire, who had often visited that 
place as a trader, conceived the project of an expedi- 
tion against it. He communicated it to Governor 
Shirley, and being ardent and enthusiastic, convinced 
him that the enterprise was practicable, and inspired 
him with his own enthusiasm. Early in January, 
before he received any answer to the commimications 
he had sent to England on the subject, he requested 
of the members of the general court, that they would 
lay themselves under an oath of secrecy, to receive 
from him a proposal of very great importance. They 
readily took the oath, and he communicated to them 
the plan which he had formed of attacking Louis- 
bourg. The proposal was at first rejected ; but it 
was finally carried by a majority of one. Letters were 
immediately despatched to all the colonies, as far as 
Pennsylvania, requesting their assistance, and an em- 
bargo on their ports. Forces were promptly raised, 
and William Pepperell, Esq. of Kittery, was appoint- 
ed commander of the expedition. This oflrcer, with 
several transports, under the convoy of the Shirley 
snow, sailed from Nantucket on the 24th of March, 
and arrived at Canso on the 4th of April. Here the 
troops, joined by those of New Hampshire and Con- 



t Pitkin, vol. i. p. 131. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



uecticut, amounting collectively to upwards of four 
thousand, were detained three weeks, waiting for the 
ice, which environed the island of Cape Breton, to be 
dissolved. At length Commodore Warren, agreeably 
to orders from England, arrived at Canso in the Su- 
perbe, of sixty guns, with three other ships of forty 
guns each ; and, after a consultation with the gene- 
ral, proceeded to cruise before Louisbourg. The ge- 
neral soon after sailed with the whole fleet ; and on 
the 30th of April, coming to anchor at Chapeaurouge 
Bay, landed his troops. Lieutenant Colonel Yaughan 
conducted the first column through the woods within 
sight of Louisbourg, and saluted the city with three 
cheers. At tiie head of a detachment, chiefly of the 
New Hampshire troops, he marched in the night to 
the north-east part of the harbour, where they burn- 
ed the warehouses containing the naval stores, and 
staved a large quantity of wine and brandy. The 
smoke of this fire, driven by the wind into the grand 
battery, so terrified the French, that they abandoned 
it; and, spiking the guns, retired to the city. The 
next morning Vaughan took possession of the de- 
serted battery; but the most difficult labours of the 
siege remained to be performed. The cannon were 
to be drawn nearly two miles over a deep morass 
within gun-shot of the enemy's principal fortifications ; 
and for fourteen nights the troops, with straps over 
their shoulders, sinking to their knees in mud, were 
employed in this arduous service.* The approaches 
were then begun in the mode which seemed most 
proper to the shrewd understandings of untaught mi- 
litia. Those officers who were skilled in the art of 
war talked of zig-zags and epaulements ; but the 
troops made themselves merry with the terms, and 
proceeded in their own way. By the 20th of May, 
they had erected five batteries, one of which mount- 
ed five forty-two pounders, and did great execution. 
Meanwhile, the fleet cruising in the harbour had been 
equally successful ; it captured a French ship of 

• This error has been kept alive by one historian after another, 
to the astonishment of every one who has ever viewed the ground. 
It was impossible then, as now, to drag cannon over this morass 
in the ordinary way. A boy of the weight of seventy ponnds was 
sent on to the morass. He could only proceed a few feet. A pole 
was driven down thirty feet in the mud. That the cannon was 
then conveyed across the morass, there could be no doubt ; how, 
was the question. While deliberating on this subject, I heard that 
a gentleman was living, then past ninety years of age, in Newbu- 
ryport, in the commonwealth of Massachusetts, who had been an 
artificer at the siege of Louisbourg. I paid him a visit, and stated 
my difficulties on this passage of histo'ry. Captain Noyes at once 
explained the whole matter. " We had (said he) several hundred 
pairs of snow-shoes in camp, expecting a winter campaign. I had 
found that I could walk, with a pair of them, over this morass, and 
Slated the fact to General Pepperell. Secretly, I had drags built, 
twenty feet by sixteen, smooth and flat at the t)ottom. Putting the 
cannon on these vehicles, and taking fifty men accustomed to travel 



sixty-four guns, loaded with stores for the garrison, 
to whoiu the loss was as distressinor as to the besies:- 
ers the capture was fortunate. English ships of war 
were, besides, continually arriving, and added such 
strength to the fleet, that a combined attack upon the 
town was resolved upon. 

Discouraged by these adverse events and menacing 
appearances, Duchambon, the French coHimander, 
determined to surrender ; and, on the 16th of June, 
articles of capitulation were signed. After the sur- 
render of the city, the French flag was'kept flying 
on the ramparts ; and several rich prizes were thus 
decoyed. Two East Indiamen, and one South Sea 
ship, estimated at 600,000/. sterling, were taken by 
the squadron at the mouth of the harbour. This ex- 
pedition -was one of the most remarkable events in 
the history of North America. It was not less haz- 
ardous in the attempt, than successful in the execu- 
tion. "It displayed the enterprising spirit of New 
England; and though it enabled Britain to purchase 
a peace, yet it excited her envy and jealous)'- against 
the colonies, by whose exertions it was acquired."! 
The intelligence of this event spread rapidly through 
the colonies, and diffused universal joy. Well might 
the citizens of New England be somewhat elated ; 
without even a sugsfestion from the mother country, 
they had projected, and with but comparatively little 
assistance achieved, an enterprise of vast importance 
to her and to them. Their commerce and fisheries 
were now secure, and their maritime cities relieved 
from all fear of attack from a quarter recently so great 
a source of dread and discomfort. 

Fired with resentment at their loss, the French 
made extraordinary exertions to retrieve it, and to in- 
flict chastisement on New England. The next sum- 
mer they despatched to the American coast a powerful 
fleet, carrying a large number of soldiers. The news 
of its approach spread terror throughout New Eng- 
land : but an uncommon succession of disasters de- 



with snow-shoes, and fixing a long rope to the drag, we walked the 
morass without difficulty, and placed the cannon where Colonel 
Vaughan wished them to be ; covering them with sea-weed until 
all our business was done, without any risk or extraordinary fatigue. 
All the materials for the battery were transported in the same 
manner ; and where there appeared only a mass of sea-weed at 
night, a formidable battery rose in the morning. This finished the 
siege." The veteran spoke of the determined bravery of the troops 
as surpassing every thing the most experienced officers had wit- 
nessed. Pepperell was knighted for the exploit ; but Vaughan, 
Wooleot, Gorham, and Dwight, were the heroes of that campaign ; 
Vaughan commanded the New Hampshire troops; Wooleot the 
Connecticut ; Gorham, Dwight, and others, those of Massachusetts. 
— American Editor. 

t Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc. vol. i. p. 4—60, where there is an au- 
thentic account of this expedition, from original papers. Holmes's 
American Annals, vol. ii. p. 27. Hutchinson, vol. li. c. 4. Eel- 
knap. New Hampshire, vol. ii. p. 193 — 224. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



77 



privpd it of all power to inflict injury. After remain- 
ing a short time on the coast, it returned to France, 
having lost two admirals, both of whom it was sup- 
posed put an end to their lives through chagrin ; 
having also, by tempests, been reduced to one half its 
force, without effecting any of the objects anticipated. 

In the month of November, 1747, a great tumult 
occurred in the town of Boston, arising from the fol- 
lowing circumstance : Commodore Knowles, while 
lying at Nantasket with a number of men of war, 
losing some of his sailors by desertion, thought it 
reasonable that Boston should supply him with as 
many men as he had lost. He therefore sent his 
boats early in the morning, and surprised not only as 
many seamen as could be found on board any of the 
ships, but pressed some ship carpenters' apprentices, 
and other labouring landsmen. This conduct was 
universally resented as outrageous ; and as soon as it 
was dusk, several thousand people assembled in King's- 
street, where the general court was sitting. Stones 
and brickbats were thrown into the council chamber 
tlirouijh the windows. A judicious speech of the 
governor from the balcony, disapproving of the im- 
press, promising his utmost endeavours to obtain the 
discharge of the persons impressed, but reprehending 
I'le irregular proceedings of the people, had no effect. 
The seizure and restraint of the commanders and 
ot'icr ofiicers who were in town were insisted on, as 
t'lo only effectual method to procure the release of the 
inhabitants aboard the ships. The militia of Boston 
was summoned the next day to the aid of government, 
but refused to appear. The governor, judging it in- 
expedient to remain in town another night, withdrew 
to Castle William ; but kept up a communication 
with the commodore, urging the liberation of the 
townsmen. Meanwhile, the council and house of 
representatives passed some vigorous resolutions, and 
the tumultuous spirit began to subside. The inhabit- 
ants, assembled in town meeting, while they express- 
ed their sense of the great insult and injury by the 
impress, condemned the riotous transactions. The 
militia of the town the next day promptly made their 
appearance, and conducted the governor with great 
pomp to his house ; and the commodore dismissed 
most, if not all, of the inhabitants who had been im- 
pressed ; and the squadron sailed, to the joy and re- 
pose of the town. 

In October, 1748, a treaty of peace between England 
and France was signed at Aix la Chapelle. By the 
articles of this treaty. Cape Breton was given up to 
the French, in a compromise for restoring the French 
conquests in the low countries ro the empress queen 
of Hungary and the States General, and for a general 



restitution of places captured by the other belligerant 
powers. It was naturally a mortification to the in- 
habitants of New England, that what they termed, 
not unjustly, " their own acquisition," should be res- 
tored to France ; but so long as peace continued, they 
sustained no disadvantage. In most respects, Mas- 
sachusetts Bay was never in a more easy and happy 
situation, than at the close of this war. By the re- 
imbursement of the whole charge incurred by the 
expedition against Cape Breton, the province was set 
free from a heavy debt, and was enabled to exchange 
a depreciated paper mediimi, which had long been 
the sole instrument of trade, for the more substantial 
one of silver and gold, a commercial advantage which 
almost excited the envy of the other colonies, in whicli 
paper was the principal currency. The Indians up- 
on the frontiers were so reduced, that new settlements 
were made without danger, which not only caused 
the territory settled to increase in value, but afforded 
materials for enlarging the commerce of the province. 

There was but little subject for controversy in the 
general assembly. Governor Shirley's administration 
had been satisfactory to the major part of the people. 
Indeed, the prosperous state of the province was very 
much owing to the success of his vigoroiis measures, 
of which he wished to give an account in person, and 
for that purpose, as well as to promote some arrange- 
ments for the defence of the colony against the en- 
croachments of the French, had obtained leave to go 
to England. 

Hostilities from the Indians had ceased when peace 
was concluded with France ; but it was thought ne- 
cessary on this, as on previous occasions, to have the 
peace formally recognized. Scarcely, however, was 
this effected in due form, before a circumstance oc 
curred which had nearly occasioned a new war. In 
the end of November, actuated by feelings of revenge 
for past injuries, some English inhabitants of a place 
in the comity of York, called Wiscasset, killed an 
Indian, and dangerously wounded two others. Two 
persons were apprehended and brought to trial for the 
murder ; but they were, it appears, unjustly acquitted. 
" Many good people at this time," says Hutchinson. 
" lamented the disposition, which they thought was 
discovered, to distinguish between the guilt of killing 
an Indian, and that of killing an Englishman, as if 
God had not made of one blood all the nations of 
men upon the face of the earth."" The Indians 
made an attempt to avenge themselves by the capture 
of Fort Richmond, on the Kennebeck, but were not 
successful ; they succeeded, however, in taking' pri- 



• History of Massachusetts' Bay, from 1749 to 1774. London, 1828. 



rs 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



soners several of the inhabitants who resided near 
the fort : but after a short time the injury was for- 
gotten. 

In the following year, tlie colonies of Massachu- 
setts and Connecticut were deeply engaged in a con- 
troversy respecting their boundary line ; but the 
limits of our work will not permit a detail of the af- 
fair, nor would it be interesting to the general reader. 
During this year also, the question of " paper against 
gold," which has occupied so much of the attention 
of the British legislature, and of the community at 
large, occasioned several tumults in Boston. Our 
readers will, however, be surprised to learn, that the 
dissatisfaction was occasioned, not by the introduc- 
tion of paper, but by the substitution of gold and 
silver for what has been elegantly termed the " old 
rag system." " The paper," they said, " was not 
worth hoardinar, but silver and gold would all fall to 
the share of men of wealth, and would either be ex- 
ported or hoarded up, and no part of it would go to 
the labourer, <<r the lower class of people, who must 
take their pay ni goods, or go without. In a short 
time, however, experience taught them, that it was as 
easy for a frugal industrious person to obtain silver, 
as it had been to obtain paper ; and the prejudice in 
the town of Boston was so much abated, that, when 
a large number of people from Abingdon, and other 
towns near to it, came to Boston, expecting to be join- 
ed by the like people there, they were hooted at, and 
insulted by the boys and servants, and obliged to re- 
turn home disappointed."* 

It has already been observed, that the restoration 
of peace, and the almost entire extinction of the In- 
dians on the frontiers, added much to the security and 
to the value of the land ; these circumstances also 
afforded a prospect for a more extended settlement of 
the colony. A Mr. Waldo, proprietor of a large 
tract of land in the eastern frontier, induced many 
emigrants from Germany, and other foreign protes- 
tant states, to accept conditional grants of land ; but 
Governor Hutchinson seems to be of opinion, that the 
expectations, both of the emigrants and of the pro- 
prietor, were disappointed. 

The administration of Mr. Phipps, who had acted as 
lieutenant-governor during Mr. Shirley's absence, was 
but short ; and, as was usually the case, the govern- 
ment of lieutenants was little disturbed by any con- 
troversy with the general court. Mr. Shirley return- 
ed to Boston in August, 1753. During his abode in 
France, he took a step, which, according to Mr. 
Hutchinson's idea of it at least, "he had reason to 

• Hutchinson, p. 8, 9. 



repent of as long as he lived. At the age of three- 
score he was captivated with the charms of a young 
girl, his landlord's daughter in Paris, and married her 
privately. This imprudence lessened him in Lord 
Halifax's esteem ; and, though he had shown himself 
to be very capable of his trust of commissary in 
France, as well as very faithful in the discharge of • 
it, yet, as he failed of success, which, more fre- 
quently than real merit, entitles to reward, his private 
fortune was much hurt by his employment. The 
rumour of his marriage came to New England before 
his arrival, and some who were not well affected to 
him, were ready enough to insinuate that his French 
connexions mi?ht induce him to favour the Frencti 
cause, but his conduct evinced the contrary. He 
pronounced an accommodation desperate, that the 
sword must settle the controversy, and that it ought 
to be done without delay, otlierwise the French would 
make themselves too strong for all the force the Eng- 
lish could bring against them."t 

The period of the French war of 1756 — 1763, the 
confines of which we now approach, will require a 
separate notice, after the history of the remaining 
colonies has been brought down to the same date. 
As it implicated the whole of the British settlements 
in North America, and promoted those ideas of fede- 
rative union, which were subsequently attended with 
such important results, a combined view of the ope- 
rations of the war will be preferable to allotting a 
share of its history to each of the colonies. 

It may be imagined by some of our readers, that 
we have been imduly severe on the errors of the 
noble-minded founders of the greatest republican 
empire the world has yet witnessed ; but we cannot 
plead guilty to such a charge. These errors, it is 
true, have been fully exposed ; but, great as they are, 
the characters of which they form but the exceptions 
can well stand the shock their development excites. 
The faults of great and good men should, after the 
highest model of historical writing, be faithfully 
narrated. Their record is essential to prevent the 
mind, while it gives due weight to the example and 
opinions of past ages, from receiving its chief impulse 
from a source still impregnated with impure infu- 
sions ; and to open a channel for the mighty tide of 
reason and of truth, whose waters purify as they 
carry forward the mass of example. Wore the 
defects of the heroes of New England, however, far 
greater, and their virtues far less, they would yet throw 
into the shade of merited oblivion the characters of 
their defamers, either of the past or of the present age. 

i t Hutchinson p. 15, 16. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



79 



CHAPTER IV. 

NEW HAMPSHIRE AND MAINE.* 

The history of the colony of Massachusetts is, to 
a considerable extent, that of all the New England 
colonies ; bnt still it is requisite to give each of the 
states a distinct, though a more brief, notice. The 
first attempts at colonizing that part of North America, 
now designated as the states of New Hampshire and 
Maine, are to be traced to tlie zeal of Sir Ferdinando 
Gorges, one of the earliest and roost persevering of 
Shose wlio undertook to people with civilized inhabit- 
ants the transatlantic wilds. Having obtained a 
erant from the chartered company of Plymouth, 
already so frequently referred to, in conjunction with 
some other principal members of the company, among 
whom was Sir John Popham, lord chief justice of the 
court of King's Bench, with other persons of influ- 
ence, he despatched two vessels to explore their newly 
acquired territory. One of these was seized by the 
Spaniards ; but the safe return and favourable report 
of the other encouraged the adventurers to prosecute 
their undertaking. A colony was therefore orga- 
nized, consisting of George Popham, as president, 
Raleigh Gilbert, as admiral, and six inferior officers, 
with about one hundred private individuals ; the 
imagination of the projectors having sketched the 
outlines of a large and flourishing state. They 
selected a small island at the mouth of the river 
Kennebeck for their place of residence, induced by 
the commodiousness of its situation as a port for 
fishermen. Arriving towards the close of the year, 
they were barely enabled to build and fortify a store- 
house before the cold became intense; and they 
were afterwards distressed by a rapid succession of 
UTiforeseen hardships. Having emigrated in the 
expectation of enjoying a perpetual spring, their 
disappointment, when exposed to the premature and 
unusual severity of a northern winter, may be readily 
conceived. The loss of their store-house by fire, and 
the death of their president, had already depressed 
their courage, when tidings arrived of the death of 
Sir .John Popham, who was the very soul of the 
expedition. Gilbert also returned to England in 
the spring, having succeeded to a rich inheritance 
by the death of his brother. Sir John Gilbert. The 
resolution of the adventurers seems to have sunk 
under these accumulated misfortunes, for the settle- 

* Although the Maine vas not eonsliluted a state till subsequently 
toihe declaration of independence, its early history is so connected 
with that of New Hampshire, that it is deemed desirable to unite 
them in this chapter. 

t " John Mason procured from the council of Plymouth a grant 
of all the land from the river of iS'aumkeag round Cape Ann to the 
11 



mcnt was soon afterwards abandoned in despair. 
The disappointed colonists seemed anxious to hide 
their disgrace by invectives against the cold and 
sterile regions which they had forsaken ; and they 
were so far successful, that the company of Plymouth 
never made another effort of equal magnitude with 
the expedition to Sagadehoc. Many attempts were 
made by Sir Ferdinando Gorges, individually, to 
establish colonies in North Virginia, with a perse- 
verance worthy of better fortune than it obtained ; 
for, after spending a large portion of his life and 
estate in these attempts, and involving himself in 
several vexatious suits, the whole issue of his exer- 
tions was the establishment of an inconsiderable 
settlement in Maine. 

It was in the year 1623, that Sir Ferdinando Gor- 
ges, John Mason,t and others, having obtained of the 
Plymouth or New England company grants ol seve- 
ral tracts of land, lying north of Massachusetts, sent 
from England, a few persons to begin a settlement. 
Part landed, and for a short time remained at Little 
Harbour, on the west side of Piscataqua river, and 
near its mouth, where they erected the first house, 
calling it Mason Hall ; the remainder, proceeding 
higher up the river, settled at Cocheco, afterwards 
called Dover. Fishing and trade being the principal 
objects of these emigrants, their settlements increased 
slowly. 

In 1635, a fresh distribution of territory was made 
by the Plymouth Company, when they obtained a 
grant of land, lying along the coast from Naumkeag 
river, near the northern boundary of Massachusetts, 
to the river Piscataqua, extending sixty miles into 
the country from their sources ; and the region, thus 
conveyed, was for the first time called New Hamp- 
shire. As no more ancient patents stood in the way 
of the present, and as length of occupancy formed no 
bar, Mason acquired that kind of right to the soil 
which the law of England considered as valid ; but 
it gave him none of the powers of government. He 
sent agents to dispose of his lands, and to take gene- 
ral care of his interests ; but he soon after died, leav- 
ing it to others to enjoy his rights, and to exercise 
his powers. At the same period, the company made 
a grant of a still larger territory, extending from the 
northern limits of New Hampshire, north-eastward, 
to the river Kennebeck, and from them sixty miles 
into the country, to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, in abso- 

river Merrimack; and up each of those rivers to the farthest head 
of them, then to cross over from the head of the one to the head of 
the other, with all the islands lying within three miles of the coast. 
This district was called Mariana."— Belknap's New Hampshire, 
vol. i. c. 1. 



80 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



lute property with such powers of jurisdiction as the 
grantors possessed. The same year he despatched 
William Gorges, his nephew, to govern that territory, 
then called Somersetshire, who ruled, for some years, 
a few traders and fishers with a good sense equal to 
the importance of the trust. But, whether Gorges 
distrusted his own powers, or was actuated by the 
prudent caution which experience inspires, he obtain- 
ed from the favour of his prince a patent of confirm- 
ation, in April, 1639. His limits were now extended 
to one hundred miles from the rivers south-westward 
i:ifo the desert. This immense region was denomi- 
mted Maine ; and he was invested with all the royal 
rights of a count-palatine, with a reference to the 
powers formerly exercised by the bishop of Durham. 
y\!iirnated by these attentions, and invested with these 
])0\vers, he established a civil government within his 
jirovince in the subsequent year. This constitution 
was, however, merely executive, without any of the 
]io\vers of legislation ; nor was an assembly in which 
the people were represented, either mentioned or al- 
luded to. He did not even offer liberal terms on 
which men might purchase and enjoy his lands, 
tliough this had been at all times proposed as the best 
means to promote settlement and augment population. 
'Phe province consequently languished for years in 
hopeless feebleness. 

The persecuting policy of the Massachusetts colo- 
ny peopled this country, when money and persuasion 
had been tried in vain. It has already been stated, 
that among those who were expelled from the juris- 
diction of Massachusetts, at the time of the dissensions 
occasioned by opposition to the spread of antinomian 
•sentiments at Boston, was the Rev. John Wheelwright. 
Previously to the date of Mason's patent, he had pur- 
chased the land of the Indians, and laid the founda- 
tion of Exeter. In the year 1630, thirty-five persons 
residing in that town combined and established civil 
government ; and within a year or two afterwards, 
the inhabitants of Dover and Portsmouth followed 
(heir example, each town remaining distinct and in- 
dependent. 

These towns did not long remain in this dissocia- 
ted state. There appears, indeed, to have been some 
difference of opinion, but the majority were for an 
incorporation with the colony of Massachusetts ; and, 
accordingly, the general court, in October, 1641, 
passed an ordinance, declaring that the people inha- 
biting on the river Piscataqua shall henceforth be re- 
puted under its power, as are already the other 
inhabitants ; that they shall have the same order for 
the administration of justice ; that they shall be ex- 
empted from all public charges, except such as shall 



arise among themselves, or shall be for their own 
benefit ; that they shall be allowed the same liberties 
of fishing, of planting, and of felling timber, as for- 
merly ; and that they shall be allowed to send two 
deputies to the court at Boston. Thus New Hamp- 
shire, at the end of six years only, ceased to be a 
separate province. The general court, having in. this 
manner conferred on its neighbours the greatest of 
blessings, general protection, and a regular adminis- 
tration of justice, turned its next cares to their future 
welfare. It sent them several ministers. Moody, Cot- 
ton, Reyner, and others, by whose care and diligence, 
as we are assured, the people were very much civil- 
ized and reformed ; but Wheelwright and his follow- 
ers, who had formerly sought an as^duni in the desert 
from the persecutions of their enemies, fled across the 
Piscataqua into the province of Maine, because, in 
the present change, they feared future injuries. This 
union proved perplexing to the proprietary, and ulti- 
mately embarrassing to the councils of the parent 
state. It was in vain for Mason, who now acted as 
agent for his kinsmen, to protest against the daily 
encroachments on their lands ; and it was to no pur- 
pose he petitioned the general court. It had been 
stipulated as the groundwork on which was estab- 
lished the subjection of New Hampshire, that the 
views of their opponents should be countenanced, and 
the assumed rights of the proprietors consequently 
depressed. Being now freed from the weighty cares 
of government ; being protected from the attacks of 
their Indian enemies, and from their internal dissen- 
sions, the people of New Hampshire, during the space 
of forty years, enjoyed the advantages and blessings 
of a regular administration, and engaged successfully 
in all the pursuits that naturally tend to promote the 
prosperity, wealth, and greatness of nations. In the 
year 1652, the inhabitants of Gorges' territories of the 
Maine also were induced to submit themselves to the 
government of Massachusetts. 

Having contended with the general court upwards 
of fourteen years to no purpose. Gorges and Mason 
made a tender of their claims to Charles II., who fa- 
vourably received proposals which promised future 
advantages to his family, for he had entertained the 
design of forming New Hampshire and Maine into, 
an establishment for the duke of Monmouth, the 
most beloved of all his sons. The general court, re- 
lying on its own construction of its patent, though it 
explained by its agents its conduct and pretensions, 
declined long either to give up possession, or to ap- 
point deputies to defend its proceedings. The mo- 
narch was wearied with continued solicitation ; and 
the committee of plantations at length determined to 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



SI 



propose to the Massachusetts government, either to 
receive commissioners authorized to decide amicably 
the claims of all, or to send agents to answer before 
the king in council : adding, what was probably de- 
cisive, " that, should it still prove refractory, notwith- 
standing the equity of this overture, every means 
would be used to interrupt the trade of the colony, 
which, by the acts of trade, may be given it." After 
sixteen years, in which the whole energy of govern- 
ment had been exerted, the general court sent agents 
to England, who were empowered to consent to the 
final settlement of claims which had at last become 
serious. When the disputants appeared before Rains- 
ford and North, the two chief justices to whom this 
controversy was referred, the agents at once disclaim- 
ed pretensions which had been so long defended with 
the greatest ability as sacred, because their counsel 
informed them that they could not possibly be de- 
fended before such judges.* The limits of Massa- 
chusetts were restrained to the literal expression of 
its charter, and its jurisdiction within the boundaries 
of the soil ; and the province of Maine was adjudged 
to Gorges, with such right of government as had 
been granted by the patent under which he claimed. 

Long had Charles H. been in treaty with the pro- 
prietors of New Hampshire and Maine ; but his po- 
verty, which was well known in New England, the 
wars that happened in the mean time, the intrigues 
of his adversaries, and the high expectations of the 
owners, all prevented the completion of a business 
which might have proved so advantageous both to 
prince and people. For years had the friends of 
Massachusetts warned her of the danger of suffering 
such claims to exist ; and ultimately, the agents pru- 
dently purchased what had been so long disputed. 
The general court applied now, with an ability equal 
to the prudence with which it had made the acquisi- 
tion, to derive some advantage from what had cost so 
much money and vexation. As proprietary, it ap- 
pointed the deputy governor president of Maine, it 
named officers, it established various judicatories, 
and justice was administered in the mode prescribed 
by the patent of Gorges. No assembly, of which the 
representatives of the people composed a constituent 
part, was allowed, because none had been mentioned 
in the original grant ; a measure by no means satis- 
faclory to the inhabitants, who were thereby deprived 
of their rights as citizens. 

When the decision respecting Maine was confirm- 
ed by Charles H., the province of New Hampshire 
was left without a regular government. It was de- 

• Chalmers, p. 485. 



termined, therefore, that New Hampshire should be 
constituted a separate province, to be ruled by a pre- 
sident and council to be appointed by the king, and 
a house of representatives to be chosen by the peo- 
ple. The first assembly, consisting of eleven mem- 
bers, met in 1680, at Portsmouth. At tliis session, a 
code of laws was adopted, of which the first, in a 
style worthy of freemen, declared " that no act, im- 
position, law, or ordinance, should be imposed upon 
the inhabitants of the province, but such as should 
be made by the assembly, and approved by the pre- 
sident and council." 

Mason, who had been appointed a member of the 
council, arrived during the year in the colony. He 
assumed the title of lord proprietor, claimed the soil 
as his property, and threatened to'prosecute all who 
would not take from him leases of the land they oc- 
cupied. His pretensions were resisted by most of 
the inhabitants, who claimed the fee-simple of the soil 
by what they deemed a more righteous, if not a more 
legal title. The peace of the colony was long dis- 
turbed by these conflicting claims. At the head of 
those who contended with Mason, stood Major Wald- 
ron, of Dover. Against him and many others suits 
were instituted. No defence being made, judgments 
were obtained ; but so general was the hostility to 
Mason, that he never dared attempt to enforce tliem. 
After Sir Edward Andros was deposed, the inhabit- 
ants of New Hampshire desired to be re-incorporated 
with Massachusetts ; their request being opposed by 
Samuel Allen, who had purchased Mason's title, it 
was refused, and Allen himself made governor of the 
colony. Under his administration, the disputes oc- 
casioned by adverse claims to land continued to rage 
with increased violence. Other suits were instituted, 
and judgments obtained ; but the sheriff was forcibly 
resisted by a powerful combination, whenever he at- 
tempted to put the plaintiff in possession. 

From Indian hostilities, this colony suffered more 
severely than her neighbours. The surprise of Dover, 
in 1689, was effected with the most shocking barba- 
rity ; though the natives having been ill-treated by 
one of the principal inhabitants may account for, if 
not palliate, their ferocious revenge. Having deter- 
mined upon their plan of attack, the Indians employ- 
ed their usual art to lull the suspicions of the inha- 
bitants. So civil and respectful was their behaviour, 
that they occasionally obtained permission to sleep 
in the fortified houses in the town. On the evening 
of the fatal night, they assembled in the neighbour- 
hood, and sent their women to apply for lodgings at 
the houses devoted to destruction. When all was 
quiet, the doors were opened, and the signal given. 



62 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Tlie Indians rushed into Waldron's house, and 
luistened to his apartment. Awakened by the noise, 
he seized liis sword, and drove them back, but when 
returning for liis other arms was stunned with a 
hatchet, and fell. They then dragged him into his 
hall, seated him in an elbow chair upon a long table, 
and insultingly asked him, " Who shall judge Indi- 
ans now ?" After feasting upon provisions, which 
they compelled the rest of the family to procure, 
each one with his Icnife cut gashes across his breast, 
saying, " I cross out my account." When weakened 
with the loss of blood, he was about to fall from the 
table, his own sword was held under him, which 
put an end to his tortures. At other houses, similar 
acts of cruelty were perpetrated ; in the whole, 
twenty-three persons were killed, and twenty-nine 
carried prisoners to Canada, who were mostly sold 
to the French. Many houses were burned, and 
much property was plundered ; but so expeditious 
were the Indians, that they had fled beyond reach 
before the neighbouring people could be collected. 
The war thus commenced, was not easily terminated. 
The French, by giving- premiums for scalps, and by 
purchasing the English prisoners, animated the Indi- 
ans to exert all their activity and address, and the 
frontier inhabitants endured the most aggravated 
sufferings. The peace of Ryswick, in 1697, closed 
the distressing scene till 1703, when another war 
began, which continued ten years. 

During the year 1719, above one hundred families, 
mostly presbyterians, emigrated from the north of 
Ireland, and settled in the town of Londonderry.* 
They introduced the foot spinning wheel, the manu- 



» " The settlement was at first called Nulfield ; hut it was incor- 
porated, in 1722, hy the name of Londonderry. Mr. James Mac- 
gregore was their first minister. He continued with them until 
his death; and his memory is still precious among them. He was 
a wise, affectionate, and faithful guide to them, both in cii^il and 
religious concerns." — Belknap's New Hampshire, vol. ii. p. 36 — 39. 

t " John Love well, a captain in the militia of Massachusetts, the 
hero of Pigwawkett, was the son of Zaccheus L., who was an 
ensign in the array of O. Cromwell, and who settled at Dunstable, 
and died there, aged 120, being the oldest person who eVQr died in 
New Hampshire. Zaccheus had three sons, Zaccheus, d colonel 
in the French war of 17 59; Jonathan, a preacher, representative, 
and judge ; and the subject of this article. In the Indian wars a 
large bounty being offered for scalps, Capt, Lovewell, at the head 
of a volunteer company of thirty men, marched to the north of 
Winipiseogee lake, and killed an Indian, and took a boy prisoner, 
Dec. 19, 1724. Having obtained his reward at Boston, he aug- 
mented his company to seventy, and marched to the same place. 
There dismissing thirty men for the want of provisions, he pro- 
ceeded with forty men to a pond in Wakefield, now called Love- 
well's pond, where he discovered ten Indians asleep by a fire ; 
they were on their march from Canada to the frontiers. He killed 
ihem all, Feb. 20, 1725, and with savage triumph entered Dover 
with their scalps hooped and elevated on poles, for each of which 
™e hundred pounds was paid out of the public treasury at Boston. 
He marched a third time with forty-si.x men. Leaving a few men 



facture of linen, and the culture of potatoes. They 
were industrious, hardy, and useful citizens. 

A few years only transpired before the inhabitants 
again sufl'ered the afflictions of an Indian war. Fol- 
lowing the example of the French, the government 
offered premiums for scalps, which induced several 
volunteer companies to undertake expeditions against 
the enemy. One of these, commanded by Captain 
Lovewell, was greatly distinguished. In May, 1725, 
with thirty-four men, he fought a famous Indian chief, 
named Paugus, at the head of about eighty savages, 
near the shores of a pond in Pequackett. Lovewell's 
men were determined either to conquer or die, although 
outnumbered by the Indians more than twice. They 
fought till Lovewell and Paugus were killed, and all 
Lovewell's men but nine were either killed or dan- 
gerously wounded. The savages having lost, as 
was supposed, sixty of their number out of eighty, 
and being convinced of the fierce and determined 
resolution of their foes, at length retreated, and left 
them masters of the ground. The scene of this 
desperate and bloody action, which took place in the 
town that is now called Fryeburgh, is often visited 
with interest to this day, and the names both of 
those who fell, and those who survived, are yet 
repeated with exultation.! 

After the lapse of a considerable period from the 
transfer from Mason to Alleli, it was discovered that 
the conveyance was so defective as to be void. In 
1746, John Tufton Mason, a descendant of the ori- 
ginal grantee, claiming the lands possessed by his 
ancestors, conveyed them, for fifteen hundred pounds, 
to twelve persons, subsequently called the Masonian 



at a fort, which he built at Ossapy pond, he proceeded with thirty- 
four men to the north end of a pond in Pigwawkett, now Fryeburg, 
in Maine, and there a seVere action was fought with a parlj' of 
forty-two Indians, commanded by Paugus and 'Wah^^a, May 8, 
1725. At the first fire, Lovewell and eight of his men x'ere killed; 
the remainder retreated a short distance to a favouralle position, 
and defended themselves. With the pond in their rear, the mouth 
of an unfordable brook on their right, a rocky point en their left, 
and having also the shellcr of some large pine trees, they foughl 
bravely from len o'clock till evening, when the Indians, — who had 
lost their leader, Paugus, killed by Mr. Chamberlain, — retired, and 
fled from Pigwawkett. Ensign Robbins and two others were mor- 
tally wounded ; these were necessarily left behind to die. Eleven, 
wounded but .able to march, and nine, unhurt, at the rising of the 
moon, quitted the fatal spot. Jonathan Frye, the chaplain, Lieut. 
Farwell, and another man, died in the woods, in consequence of 
their wounds. The others, with the widows and children of the 
slain, received a grant of Lovewell's town, or Suncook, now Pem- 
broke, N. H., in 1728, in recompense of their sufferings. The 
bodies of twelve were afterwards found by Col. Tyng, and buried. 
Capt. Lovewell had two sons ; John died in Dtmslable, and Colonel 
Nehemiah in Corinth, Vermont. His daughter ir-arried Captain 
Joseph Baker, of Pembroke. The last of his company, Thomas 
Ainsworth, died at Brookfield, January, 1794, aged 85." — Allen's 
Biography. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



83 



proprietors ; who, to silence opposition, relinquished 
all title to the lands already occupied, and also 
granted townships on the most liberal terms. Re- 
serving certain portions of the land for themselves, 
for ministers, and for schools, they required merely 
that the grantees should, within a limited time, erect 
mills and meeting-houses, clear and construct roads, 
and settle ministers. In the course of time, nearly 
all the Masonian lands, being about one fourth of the 
whole, were in this manner granted ; and conten- 
tions ceased to disturb the repose, or impede the 
prosperity of the colony. 



CHAPTER V. 



CONNECTICUT. 



It appears incontrovertibly established, that the 
Dutch eifected the first settlements on the river Con- 
necticut ; and it seems impossible to account, on any 
just principles, for their being regarded as intruders 
by the English settlers. They had made the first 
discovery of Hudson's river, and had established them- 
selves upon its banks. They had obtained a patent 
from their o-overnment, who had as g-ood a right to 
grant lands discovered by their subjects, as any other 
state. This patent included the lands on Connecti- 
cut river, which was discovered by them before it 
was known by the English to exist, and before the 
grant of the New England patent. After trading 
with the Indians for several years, they purchased of 
them a tract of land, and built upon it a fort and tra- 
ding house, before the country had been taken pos- 
session of by the English ; and the people from the 
Plymouth and Massachusetts polonies, when they 
attempted to drive them from it, came without a sha- 
dow of title from the Plymouth company, under 
whom they professed to claim.* 

The Connecticut colony consisted of people who 
first emigrated from England to Massachusetts, and, 

♦ Governor Bradford gives the following account of this trans- 
action, which confirms the Dutch claim of previous purchase and 
possession. " But the Dutch begin now to repent," viz. of their in- 
vitation to the English — " and hearing of our purpose and prepara- 
tion, endeavour to prevent us, get in a little before us, make a slight 
fort, and plant two pieces of ordnance, threatening to stop our pas- 
sage. But we having a great new bark and a frame of a house, 
with boards, naiL's, &c., ready, that we might have defence against 
the Ind'ans, who are much olTended that we bring home and restore 
the right sachems of the place called Watawanute, so as we are to 
encounter a double danger in this attempt, both the Dutch and In- 
dians. When we come up the river, the Dtitch demand what we 
intend, and whither we would go I We answer, Up the river to 
trade. Now our order was to go and seat above them. They bid 
us strike and stay, or they would shoot us ; and stood by their ord- 
nance ready fitted. We answer, We have a commission from the 



in the years 1630 and 1632, settled and formed them- 
selves into churches at Dorchester, Watertown, and 
Cambridge, where they resided several years. But 
either because the number of emigrants to Massa- 
chusetts did not allow them all such a choice as they 
wished of good lands, or because some jealousies had 
arisen between their pastors and leaders, and the 
leading men of the colony, they took the resolution 
of seating themselves again in the wilderness ; and 
in the years 1635 and 1636 they removed their fami- 
lies to Windsor, Weathersfield, and Hartford, on the 
Connecticut river. 

Having made some preparation in the course of 
the summer for their winter's accommodation, to the 
number of about sixty, men, women, and children, set 
out on foot, about the middle of October, from Bos- 
ton to Connecticut, through the pathless wilderness, 
accompanied by their cattle, swine, and other proper- 
ty. After a long and tedious journey through a con- 
.tinued forest, and over rivers and mountains, they 
reached their place of destination very late in the 
season. "The winter ^set in this year much sooner 
than usual, and the weather was stormy and severe. 
By the 15th of November, Connecticut river was fro- 
zen over, and the snow was so deep, and the season 
so tempestuous, that a considerable number of the 
cattle, which had been driven on from Massachusetts, 
could not be brought across the river. The people 
had so little time to prepare their huts and houses, 
and to erect sheds and shelters for their cattle, that 
the sufferings of man and beast were extreme. In- 
deed, the hardships and distresses of the first planters 
of Connecticut scarcely admit of a description. To 
carry much provision or furniture through a pathless 
wilderness was impracticable. Their principal pro- 
visions and household furniture were therefore put 
on hoard several small vessels, which, by reason of 
delays and the tempestuousness of the season, were 
either cast away, or did not arrive. Several vessels 
were wrecked on the coasts of New England by the 
violence of the storms. Two shallops, laden with 



governor of Plymouth to go up the river to such a place; and if 
they shoot us, we must obey our order and proceed ; we would not 
molest them, but go on. So we pass along, and the Dutch threaten 
us hard, yet they shoot not. Coming to our place, about a mile 
above the DiUcli, we quickly clap up our house, land our pro- 
visions, leave the companv appointed, send the bark home, and af- 
terwards palisade our hou'se about, and fortify belter. The Dutch 
send word home lo the Monhalos what was done ; and, in process 
of time, they send a band of about seventy men, in wavlike manner, 
with colours displayed, lo assault us; but seeing lis sirenglliened, 
and it would cost blood, they come lo a parley, and return in peace. 
And this was our entrance there. We did the Dutch no wrong, for 
we took not a foot of any land they bought, but went to the place 
above them, and bought that tract of land which belonged to ihe 
Indians we carried with us, and our friends, with whom the Dutch 
had nothing to do." -North American Review, vol. viii. p 84, 85. 



84 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



^oods from Boston to Coi.necticiit, in October, were 
cast away on Brown's Island, near the Gurnet's nose ; 
and the men, with every thing on board, were lost. 
A vessel, with six of the Connecticut people on board, 
which sailed from the river for Boston, early in No- 
vember, \\^s, about tlie middle of the month, cast 
away in Manamet Bay. The men got on shore, and 
after wandering ten days in deep snow and a severe 
season, without meeting with any human being, ar- 
rived, nearly spent with cold and fatigue, at New 
Plymouth. By the last of November, or beginning 
of December, provision generally failed in the settle- 
ments on the river, and famine and death looked the 
inhabitants sternly in the face. Some of them, driven 
by hunger, attempted their way, in this severe season, 
through the wilderness, from Connecticut to Massa- 
chusetts. Of thirteen in one company who made this 
attempt, one, in passing the river, fell through the 
ice, and was drowned. The other twelve were ten 
days on their journey, and would all have perished, 
had it not been for the assistance of the Indians. In- 
deed, such was the distress in general, that, by the 
3d and 4th of December, a considerable part of the 
new settlers were obliged to abandon their habita- 
tions. Sixty persons, men, women, and children, 
were necessitated, in the extremity of winter, to go 
down to the mouth of the river to meet their provi- 
sions, as the only expedient to preserve their lives. 
Not meeting with the vessels wliich they expected, 
they all went on board the Rebecca, a vessel of about 
sixty tons. This, two days before, was frozen in 
twenty miles up the river ; but, by the falling of a 
small rain, and the influence of the tide, the ice be- 
came so broken, and was so far removed, that she 
made a shift to get out. She ran, however, upon the 
bar, and the people were forced to unlade her to get 
her off. She was ]-eladen, and in five days reached 
Boston. Had it not been for these providential cir- 
cumstances, the people must have perished with fa- 
mine. The people who kept their stations on the 
river, suffered in an extreme degree. After all the 
help they were able to obtain by hunting, and from 
the Indians, they were obliged to subsist on acorns, 
malt, and grains."* 

In the following spring, those who had made their 
escape from Connecticut returned, and they were 
joined by the rest of those who had determined to 
make a part of the new colony. About the beginning 
of .Tune, Mr. Hooker, Mr. Stone, and about a hundred 
men, women, and children, took their departure from 
Cambridge, and travelled more than a hundred miles 



• Trumbull's History of Connecticut, p. 62. 



through a hideous and trackless wilderness to Hart- 
ford. They had no guide but their compass, and 
made their way over mountains, through swamps, 
thickets, and rivers, which were not passable but 
with great difficulty. They had no cover but the 
heavens, nor any lodgings but those which simple 
nature afforded them. They drove with them one 
hundred and sixty head of cattle, and by the way 
subsisted on the milk of their cows. Mrs. Hooker 
was borne through the wilderness upon a litter. 
The people generally carried their packs, arms, and 
some utensils. They were nearly a fortnight on 
their journey. This adventure was the more re- 
markable, as many of this company were persons 
of rank, who had lived in England in honour, afflu- 
ence, and delicacy, and were ' entire strangers to 
fatigue and danger. t 

From the commencement of the Connecticut colo- 
ny, the natives discovered a hostile disposition. Their 
principal enemy was the Pecjuods, the most nirnie- 
rous and warlike nation within the limits of the 
state, and perhaps in New England. They inha- 
bited the country which environs the towns of New 
London, Groton, and Stonington. Sassacus, the 
great prince of the Pequods, had under him six and 
twenty sachems, and could bring into the field seven 
hundred or a thousand warriors, who had been long 
accustomed to victory. The royal residence was at 
a large fort situated on a beautiful eminence in 
the town of Groton, which commans an extensive 
prospect of the sea and of the surroimding country. 
There was also another fortress, called Mystic fort, 
situated in the town of Stonington. After suffering 
repeated injuries, and the murder of about thirty of 
their people, principally by the Pequods, the general 
court, which had b%en convened for the purpose, 
resolved on active hostilities, and immediately raised 
an army of ninety men, half the effective force of the 
colony. These were to be joined by two hundred 
men from Massachusetts, and forty from Plymouth. 
The court which declared war was holden on the. 
1st of May ; the men were raised and embarked on 
the river, under the command of Captain Mason, 
on the 10th ; and, after being wind-bound several 
days, sailed from the mouth of the river for Narra- 
ganset bay on the 19th. They were accompanied 
by sixty Moheagan and River Indians, under Uncas, 
a Moheagan sachem. On reaching Narraganset bay, 
they landed to the number of seventy-seven English 
men, marched into the country of the Narragansets, 
and communicated tlieir design to Mi.antonimoh, the 

♦ Trumbull's History of Conneclicnt, p. 64. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



85 



sarhem of the country, who offered to join them. 
Information was here received tliat Captain Patrick 
had reached Providence, with a company of Massa- 
chusetts troops, but it was resolved not to wait for 
this reinforcement. On the next day, they marched 
twenty miles through the west part of Rhode Island, 
and reached Nihantick, which bordered on the Pe- 



• " In the morning, a considerable number of Miantonimoh's 
men came out and joined the English. This encouraged many of 
the Nihanticlcs also to join them. They soon formed a circle, and 
made protestations how gallantly they would fight, and what num- 
bers they would kill. When the army marched the ne.xt morning, 
the captain had with him nearly five hundred Indians. He march- 
ed twelve miles, to the ford in Pawcatuck river. The day was 
very hot, and the men, through the great heat, and a scarcity of 
provision, began to faint. The army, therefore, made a considera- 
ble halt, and refreshed themselves. Here the Narragansel Indians 
began to manifest their dread of the Pequods, and to inquire of 
Captain Mason, with great anxiety, what were his real intentions. 
He assured them, that it was his design to attack the Pequods in 
their Ibrls. At this they appeared to be panic struck, and filled 
with amazement. Many of them drew off, and returned to Narra- 
ganset. The army marched on about three miles, and came to 
Indian cornfields; and the captain, imagining that he drew near 
the enemy, made a halt ; he called his guides and council, and de- 
manded of the Indians how far it was to the forts. They r^pre- 
senled that it was twelve miles to Sassacus's fort, and that both 
forts were in a manner impregnable. Wequash, aPequod captain, 
or petty sachem, who had revolted from Sassacus to the Narragan- 
sets, was (he principal guide, and he proved faithful. He gave 
such information respecting the distance of the forts from each 
other, and the distance which they were then at from the chief sa- 
chems, as determined him and his officers to alter the resolution 
which they had before adopted, of attacking them both at once, and 
to make a united attack upon that al Mj'stic. He found his men 
so fatigued in marching through a pathless wilderness wilh their 
provisions, arms, and ammuniliorr, and so affected with the heal, 
that this resolution appeared to be absolutel)' necessary. One of 
Captain Underbill's men became lame at the same time, and began 
to fail. The army, therefore, proceeded directly to Mystic, and 
continuing their march, came to a small swamp between two hills, 
just at the disappearing of the day-light. The officers supposing 
that they were now near the fort, pitched their little camp between 
or near two large rocks, in Groton, since called Porter's rocks. 
The men were faint and weary, and though the rocks were their 
pillows, their rest was sweet. The guards and sentinels were con- 
siderably advanced in front of the army, and heard the enemy 
singing at the fort, who continued their rejoicings even until mid- 
night. They had seen the vessels pass the harbour some days be- 
fore, and had concluded that the English were afraid, and had no 
courage to attack them. They were therefore rejoicing, singing, 
dancing, insulting them, and wearying themselves, on this account. 
The night was serene, and, towards morning, the moon shone 
clear. The important crisis was now come, when the very exist- 
ence of Connecticut, under Providence, was to be determined by 
the sword in a single action, and to be decided by the good con- 
duct of less than eighty brave men. The Indians who remained 
were now sorely dismayed, and though at first they had led the 
van, and boasted of great feats, yet were now all fallen back in 
the rear. About two hours before day, the men were roused with 
nil e-xpedition, and, briefly commending themselves and their cause 
1.0 God, advanced immediately towards the fort. After a march of 
ibout two miles, they came to the foot of a large hill, where a fine 
«:;ountry opened before them. The captain, supposing that the fort 
could not be far distant, sent for the Indians in the rear to come 
ip. Uncas and Wequash at length appeared. He demanded of 
;hem where the fort was. They answered, on the top of the hill. 
He demanded of them where were the other Indians. They an- 
swered, that they were much afraid. The captain sent to them not 
to fly, but to mrround the fort at any distance they pleased, and see 



quods' country.* The army wheeled directly to 
My.stic fort, which was immediately attacked ; the 
contest, though tremendously severe, terminated in 
favour of the English, and in the destruction of the 
Indians. Althougli this victory was complete, the 
situation of the army was extremely dangerous and 
distressing. Several were killed, and one fourth of 



whether Englishmen would fight. The day was nearly dawning, 
and no time was now to be lost. The men pressed on in two di- 
visions. Captain Mason to the north-eastern, and Captain Under- 
hill to the western entrance. As the object which they had been 
so long .seeking came into view, and while they reilected they were 
to fight not only for themselves, but their parents, wives, children, 
and the whole colony, the martial spirit kindled in their bosoms, 
and they were wonderfully animated and assisted. As Captain 
Mason advanced within a rod or two of the fort, a dog barked, and 
an Indian roared out, ' Owanu.x! Owanux !' That is. Englishmen! 
Englishmen ! The troops pressed on, and, as the Indians were 
rallying, poured in upon them, through the palisadoes, a general 
discharge of their muskets, and then wheeling oft' to the principal 
entrance, entered the fort sword in hand. Notwithstanding the 
suddenness of the attack, and the blaze and thunder of the arms, 
the enemy made a manly and desperate resistance. Caplain Ma- 
son and his party drove the Indians in the main street towards the 
west part of the fort, where some bold men, who had forced their 
way, met them, and made such slaugliler among them, that the 
street was soon clear of the enemy. They secreted themselves iu 
and behind their wigwams, and taking advantage of every covert, 
maintained an obstinate defence. The captain and his men enter- 
ed the wigwams, where they were beset with many Indians, who 
took every advantage to shoot them, and lay hands upon them, so 
that it was with great difiiculty that they could defend themselves 
with their swords. After a severe conflict, in which many of the 
Indians were slain, some of the English killed, and others sorely 
wounded, the victory still hung in suspense. The captain, finding 
himself much exhausted, and out of brealh, as well as his men, by 
the extraordinary e-xertions which they had made in lliis critical 
stale of action, had recourse to a successful expedient. He cries 
out to his men, ' We must burn them.' He immediately, entering 
a wigwam, took fire and put it into the mats with which the wig- 
wams were covered. The fire inslanily kindling, spread with such 
violence, that all the Indian houses were soon wrapped in one ge- 
neral flame. As the fire increased, the English retired without the 
fort, and compassed it on every side. Uncas and his Indians, with 
such of the Narragansets as yet remained, took courage, from the 
example of the English, and formed anolher circle in the rear of 
them. The enemy were now seized with astonishment ; and, 
forced by the flames from their lurking places inio open light, be- 
came a fair mark for the English soldiers. Some climbed ihe pali- 
sadoes, and were instantly brought down by the fire of the English 
muskets. Others, desperately sallying forth from their burning 
cells, were shot, or cut in pieces -ivilh the sword. Such terror fell 
upon them, that they would run back from the English into the 
very flames. Great numbers perished in Ihe conflagration. The 
greatness and violence of the fire, the reflection of the light, the* 
flashing and roar of the arms, the shrieks and 3'cllings of the men, 
women, and children, in the fort, and the shoutings of the Indians 
without, just at the dawning of the morning, exhibited a grand and 
awful .scene. In little more than an hour, this whole work of de- 
struction was finished. Seventy wigwams were burnt, and five or 
six hundred Indians perished, either by the sword, or in the flames. 
A hundred and fifty warriors had been sent on the evening before, 
who, that very morning, were to have gone forth against Ihe Eng- 
lish. Of these, and all who belonged to ihe fort, seven only es- 
caped, and seven were made prisoners. It had been previously 
concluded not to burn the fort, but lo destroy the enemy, and take 
the plunder; but the captain afterwards found it the only expedient 
to obtain the victory, and save his men. Thus parents and children, 
the sannup and squaw, the old man and the babe, perished in promis- 
cuous ruin."— Trumbull's History of Connecticut, vol. i. p 83—86 



86 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



their number were wounded ; the remainder were 
exhausted with fatigue, and destitute of provisions ; 
they were in the midst of an enemy's country, many 
miles from their vessels, and their ammunition was 
nearly exhausted ; they were but a few miles distant 
from the principal fortress of their foe, where there 
was a fresh army, which they knew would be exaspe- 
rated in the highest degree on learning the fate of 
their brethren. In the midst of their perplexity, 
while they were consulting on the course to be pur- 
sued, their vessels appeared in sight, steering with a 
fair wind directly into the harbour. The army was 
received on board with great mutual joy and con- 
gratulation. 

The troops employed on this successful expedition 
reached their homes before the expiration of a month 
from the day that the war was resolved upon. The 
Pequods, on the departure of Captain Mason, burnt 
their wigwams, destroyed their principal fort, and 
scattered themselves throughout the country. Sassa- 
cus, with a party of his chief warriors, abandoned 
his country, and moved by slow marches towards the 
Hudson river. They were followed by a party of 
Massachusetts and Connecticut troops ; and, in a 
great swamp in Fairfield, near the western part of 
Connecticut, they were overtaken, and a battle en- 
sued. Sassacus, and about twenty of his most hardy 
men, escaped, and fled to the Mohawk country ; but 
there he found no safety ; he was surprised by 
the Mohawks, and killed, with all his party, except 
Mononotto,* who, after being wounded, made his 
escape. The Pequods who remained were divided 
between the Moheagans and Narragansets, and the 
nation became cxtinct.t The vigour and boldness 
with which this war was prosecuted on both sides, 
give it the air of romance. Its decisive termination, 
which was so fatal to one party, was productive of 
the most happy consequences to the other. It struck 
the Indians throughout New England with such a 
salutary terror, that they were contented, in general, 
to remain at peace for nearly forty years. 

The summer of the year 1637 witnessed the ar- 
rival of Mr. John Davenport, a celebrated London 



* " Among the Peqnod captives were the wife and children of 
Mononotto. She was particularly noticed by the English for her 
great modesty, humanity, and good sense. She made it as her 
only request, that she might not be injured, either as to her off- 
spring, or personal honour. As a requital of her kindness to the 
captivated maids, her life and the lives of her children, were not 
only spared, btit they were particularly recommended to the care 
of Governor Winthrop. He gave charge for their protection and 
kind treatment." — Trumbull's History of Connecticut, vol. i. p. 92. 

t " The prisoners who were taken in tliis war were treated by 
the English with great cruelty. Many of them were put to death. 
Several sachems were beheaded at Menunkaluch, and the spot 
has, from the cruel deed, been called Sachem's Head to this day. 



minister, accompanied by several eminent merchants, 
and other persons of respectability. The unmolested 
enjoyment of civil and religious liberty was the ob- 
ject of their emigration. Not finding in Massachu- 
setts sufficient room for themselves, and the numerous 
friends whom they expected to follow them, and be- 
ing informed of a large bay to the south-west of 
Connecticut river, commodious for trade, they applied 
to their friends in Connecticut to piirchase for them, 
of the native proprietors, all the lands lying between 
the rivers Connecticut and Hudson ; and this pur 
chase they in part effected. In the autumn, some of 
the company made a journey to Connecticut to ex- 
plore the lands and harbours on the coast, and pitch- 
ed upon Quinnipiack for the place of their settle- 
ment. Here they erected a hut, in Avhich a few men 
remained through the winter. The way being thus 
prepared, the rest of their company sailed from Boston 
for Quinnipiack in the following March ; and, in 
about a fortnight, arrived at the desired port. On 
the 18th of April, they kept their first sabbath under 
a large spreading oak, where Mr. Davenport preach- 
ed to them. They speedily entered into what they 
termed a plantation covenant. Determined to make 
an extensive settlement, these enterprising colonists 
paid early attention to the making of such purchases 
and treaties, as would give it stability. In Novem- 
ber, they entered into an agreement with Momauguin, 
sachem of that part of the country, and his counsel- 
lors, for the lands of Quinnipiack. Momauguin, in 
consideration of being protected by the English from 
the hostile Indians, yielded up his right and title to 
all the land, of Quinnipiack, of which he was the 
sole sachem, to John Davenport, and others, their 
heirs and assigns, for ever ; and they, in return, cove- 
nanted that they would protect him and his Indians ; 
that they should always have a sufficient quantity of 
land to plant on the east side of the harbour.t In 
December, they made another purchase of a large 
tract, lying principally north of the other, extending 
eight miles east of the river Quinnipiack, and five 
miles west of it towards Hudson's river. Near the 
bay of Q,uinnipiack they laid out their town in 

The women and children were divided among the troops, and it is 
stated that 'the people of Massachusetts sent a number of the women 
and boys to the West Indies, and sold them for slaves.' How op- 
posed is this treatment to the benevolent spirit that breathes in the 
letter of the amiable Robinson to the people of Plymouth, on learn- 
ing that some of the natives had been killed, when he says, ' O, how 
happy a thing had it been that you had converted some before you 
had killed any !' " — North American Review, vol. viii. p. 93. 

t " By the way of free and grateful retribution, they gave him, 
his council, and company, twelve coats of English cloth, twelve 
alchyray spoons, twelve hatchets, twelve hoes, two dozen of knives, 
twelve porringers, jind four cases of French knives and scissors." — 
Holmes's American Annals, vol. i. p. 245. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



fe7 



squares, on the plan of a spacious city, and called it 
New Haven. This town was the foundation of a 
flourishing colony of the same name, of which it be- 
came also the capital.* 

It appears that these emigrants at first acknow- 
ledged the authority of Massachusetts ; and that the 
general court of that colony was very reluctant to 
admit a separate jurisdiction. t Bat it being evident 
that the new colonists were wholly without the limits 
sf the Massachusetts patent, they convened an as- 
jembly at Hartford, and formed a constitution of go- 
vernment, which was of the most popular kind, the 
leading objects of which were to maintain the liberty 
and purity of the gospel, the discipline of the chiu'ches, 
and the administration of the government according 
to the laws.t The people of New Haven, also, the 
same year, formed a constitution sinrilar to that of 
the neighbouring colony, except that it was a little 
more strict in not admitting any but church mem- 
bers to the privileges of freemen. These continued 
to be the constitutions of the two colonies, until they 
were united under the new charter in 1661. 

The union of the several colonies of New England 
has already been described, both as to its causes, its 
nature, and its effects on the colony of Massachusetts. 
It may, however, be observed, in addition to what has 

• Hubbard, c. 42. Mather, Magnal. b. i. p. 25. Tnunbull, vol. 
I.e. 6. p. 95 — 100. Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 83. Chalmers, b. i. p. 
290. " The last mentioned tract, bought in December, was pur- 
chased of Montowese, son of the great sachem at Mattabeseck, and 
was ten miles in length, north and south, and thirteen miles in 
breadth. It included all the lands within the ancient limits of the 
old towns of New Haven, Branford, and Wallingford, and almost 
the whole within the limits of those towns, and of the more modern 
towns of East Haven, Woodbridge, Cheshire, Hamden, and North 
Haven. For this tract the English gave thirteen coats, and allow- 
ed the natives ground to plant, and liberty to hunt within the lands. 
P. Stiles' MSS. and Dr. Trumbull, from New Haven Records."— 
Holmes's American Annals, vol. i. p. 245. 

t " The annals of colonization, ancient or modern, can scarcely 
show the commencement of a settlement so extremely faulty as 
that of Connecticut. The territory, of which they thus took pos 
session, was not only already occupied by the Dutch, but had been 
granted sixteen years before to the Plymouth company. The 
whole coast of New England was, not long after, divided into 
twelve differei»t parts ; and, in the presence ol James I., allotted to 
so many distinct members of that body. And in April, 1635, that 
portion of it was assuredly granted to .Tames, marcjuis of Hamil- 
ton, as his share, which stretches from the river Connecticut, east- 
ward, to the Narraganset bay; and, from its source, one hundred 
miles into the continent. That part of it which extends from 
Connecticut to Hudson's river was probably conveyed to the earl 
of Stirlirg as his proportion; and since the patent was now sur- 
rendered, as we have seen, into the royal hands, the powers of go- 
vernment, which had been formerly given in trust to that famous 
corporation, again reverted to the crown. The emigrants before- 
mentioned can be considered in no other light, therefore, than as 
mere intruders on the rights of others. The jurisdiction supposed 
to be invested in English nobles was imdoubtedly groundless ; and 
it is unnecessary to mention those governmental acts of Massa- 
chusetts which proceeded from acknowledged usurpation." — Chal- 
mers, b. i. chap. xii. p. 288, 289. 

t " The preamble states, that they, the inhabitants and residents 

12 



already been stated, that, on the completion of the 
confederacy, several Indian sachems came in, and 
submitted to the English government, among whom 
were Miantonomoh, the Narraganset, and Uncas, the 
Moheagan chief The union rendered the colonies 
formidable to the Dutch as well as the Indians, and 
respectable in the view of the Frencli ; it also main- 
tained general harmony among themselves, and secu- 
red the peace and rights of the country. 

The Connecticut and New Haven people had been 
engaged in the most vexatious and irritating quarrels 
with the Dutch, from the first settlement of their co- 
lonies, the effect of which had been to excite them to 
a state of the most bitter hostility. In the mean 
time, the English parliament declared war against 
the United Provinces, and several obstinate naval 
battles were fought in the British channel ; thus 
opening the way 'for hostilities between the infant 
colonies of tbe two countries on this continent, if they 
were so disposed. On the 19th of May, 1653, a spe- 
cial meeting of the commissioners of the United Colo- 
nies was holden at Boston, in consequence of a 
rumour, that a plot had been formed between the 
Dutch at New Netherlands, and the Indians in all 
quarters of tbe country, to cut off, by a general mas- 
sacre, the whole English population of New England. 

oC those towns, well knowing, that, where a people are gathered 
together, the AVord of God requireth, that, to maintain the peace 
and union of such a people, there should be an orderly and decent 
government established, according to God, to order and dispose of 
the affairs of the people at all seasons, as occasion should require, 
do therefore associate and conjoin themselves to be as one public 
state or commonwealth. The constitution provided, that there 
should be annually two general courts or assemblies, one on the 
second Thursday of April, and the other, on the second Thursday 
of September ; that at the first, called the court of election, there 
should be annually chosen a governor and six magistrates, who, 
being sworn according to an oath recorded for that purpose, should 
have power to administer justice according to the laws here esta- 
blished, and, in defect of a law, according to the rule of the word 
of God ; and that as many other officers and magistrates might be 
chosen, as should be found requisite ; that all should have the right 
of election who were admitted freemen, had taken the oath of 
fidelity, and lived within this jurisdiction, having been admitted 
inhabitants by the town where they live ; and that no person might 
be chosen governor more than once in two years. 'The towns of 
Hartford, Windsor, and Wethersfield were severally authorized to 
send four of their freemen, as their deputies, to every general court ; 
and it was provided, that such other towns, as should afterwards 
be formed and admitted into the body politic, should send as many 
as the court, upon the principle of apportioning the number of de- 
puties to the number of freemen, should judge meet. In this body 
was vested the supreme power of the commonwealth, executive, 
legislative, and judicial. This constitution has been thought to 
be one of the most free and happy constitutions of civil govern- 
ment ever formed. Its formation, at a period when the light of 
liberty was extinguished in most parts of the earth, and the rights 
of men were, in others, so little understood, does great honour to 
the colonists by whom it was framed. It continued, with little al- 
teration, to our own day ; and the libeity, peace, and prosperity, 
which it secured to the people of Connecticut for nearly two centu- 
ries, are seldom, if ever, found in the history of nations."— 
Holmes's American Annals, vol. i. p. 251. 



8b 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Tlie rumour of this plot was derived from the In- 
dians, and it was supposed to be corroborated by va- 
iious circumstances. It was also reported, that the 
northern and eastern Indians had become insolent in 
their conduct towards the English ; and several In- 
dians on Long Island, and in the neighbourhood of 
the Manhadoes, averred that they had been solicited, 
with the promise of liberal presents, to join the Dutch 
in a conspiracy to cut off the English. About the 
same time, the Dutch governor wrote to the govern- 
ors of the New England colonies, proposing to enter 
into an engagement to remain neutral, unless contrary 
orders should be given by their superiors, notwith- 
standing the war subsisting between the two coun- 
tries, and offering to send an agent to treat on the 
subject with the commissioners. This proposition 
was considered as altogether insidious, and tending 
to corroborate the rumours of hostile designs. 

Connecticut and New Haven became alarmed : a 
meeting of the Commissioners of the United Colonies 
was called, and evidence of the plot laid before them. 
A majority was in favour of war ; but the colony of 
Massachusetts, being remote from the danger, was 
averse to it. As she was much stronger than either 
of the others, it was, at the suggestion of her depu- 
ties, resolved, that agents should first be sent to de- 
mand of the Dutch governor an explanation of his 
conduct. The agents did not obtain what they con- 
ceived to be a satisfactory explanation. On their 
return, another meeting of the commissioners was 
held at Boston, additional testimony was laid before 
them, and several ministers of Massachusetts were in- 
vited to assist at their deliberations, a practice not 
unusual at that period. The opinion of these minis- 
ters being requested, they concluded, that it would be 
safest for the colonies to forbear the use of the sword. 
But all the commissioners, except one, were of opinion, 
that recent aggressions justified, and self-preservation 
dictated, an appeal to the sword. They were about 
to declare war, when the general court of Massachu- 
setts, in what the other colonies conceived to be a 
direct violation of one of the articles of the confedera- 
tion, resolved, " that no determination of the com- 
missioners, though all should agree, should bind the 
colony to engage in hostilities." At this declaration, 
Connecticut and New Haven felt alarmed and indig- 
nant. They conwdered the other colonies too weak, 
without the assistance of Massachusetts, to contend 
with the Dutch and their Indian allies. They argued, 

♦ Those of our readers who may be desirous to understand the 
merits of this controversy between the colonies, we refer to a very 
able aud impartial extract in the North American Review, vol. iv. 
p. no, et secj. We take this early opportunity to express our ac- 



entreated, and remonstrated, but without success.* 
They then represented their danger to Cromwell, and 
implored his assistance. He, with his usual prompt- 
itude, sent a fleet for their protection, and for the 
conquest of their enemies ; tiit peace in Europe, in- 
telligence of which reached New England soon after 
the arrival of the fleet, saved the Dutch from subju- 
gation, and relieved the colonies from the dread ol 
massacre. 

Soon after the restoration, the Connecticut colony 
sent Mr. Winthrop, son of Governor Winthrop, of 
Massachusetts, to England, with an humble petition to 
the king, in which they solicited a charter under the 
royal signature. Mr. Winthrop was a gentleman of 
fine talents and address, and he succeeded in enga- 
ging in his interest several gentlemen of influence at 
court. He was also possessed of a valuable ring, 
which had been given by Charles I. to his grandfa- 
ther ; this, on his audience with the king, he present- 
ed to his majesty, which is supposed to have materi- 
ally influenced the king in his favour. On the 20th 
of April, 1662, he obtained a patent under the great 
seal, granting the most ample privileges, and confirm- 
ing to the freemen of the Connecticut colony, and 
such as should be admitted freemen, all the lands 
which had been formerly granted to the earl of War- 
wick, and by him transferred to Lord Saye and Sele, 
and his associates. This charter established over 
the colony a form of government of the most popular 
kind, and continued the fundamental law of Connec- 
ticut for the space of one hundred and fifty-eight 
years. " It is remarkable," says a writer in the North 
American Review, " that, although it was granted at 
a period of the world when the rights of the people 
were little understood and little regarded, and by a 
sovereign who governed England with a more arbi- 
trary sway than any of his successors, the form of 
government established by this charter was of a more 
popular description, and placed all power within the 
more immediate reach of the people, than the consti- 
tution for which it has been deliberately* exchanged, 
in these modern days of popular jealousy and repub- 
lican freedom." The colony of New Haven was 
included in the new charter of Connecticut ; but the 
inhabitants for several years refused to consent to 
the union, till the apprehension of the appointment 
of a general governor, and of their being united with 
some other colony, with a charter less favourable to 
liberty, induced them to yield a reluctant assent. 



knowledgment to the editors of that very ably conducted periodical, 
for the assistance it has rendered us in this, as in other portions of 
the history ; and to express the satisfaction we feel at the extensive 
circulation it is now acquirinff in the British dominions. 



i 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



89 



Tlie circumstance which chiefly occasioned tlie 
apprehensions alhided to, was the grant of Charles II. 
to his brother, the duke of York and Albany, of a 
patent of a large territory in America, comprising 
lands from the west side of the river Connecticut, to 
the east side of Delaware bay. A fleet was immedi- 
' atel^ despatched for the reduction of the Dutch in 
New Netherlands, and commissioners were appointed 
for taking possession of the newly granted territories, 
in which were embraced the whole of New Haven, 
and a large portion of Connecticut. They were not 
only intrusted with the government of this territory, 
but were also invested with extraordinary powers for 
visiting the New England colonies, and hearing all 
matters of complaint and controversy which might 
arise in them. The people of New Haven, on hear- 
ing of the arbitrary disposition of these commission- 
ers, thought it expedient, as the least of two evils, to 
shelter themselves under the Connecticut charter, and 
to unite with that colony in endeavouring to secure 
the privileges granted by it. Mr. Winthrop and 
others (a committee appointed for the purpose) suc- 
ceeded in obtaining from the commissioners the esta- 
blishment of the eastern line of New York, nearly 
where it runs at the present day, and thus preserved 
the colony from being dismembered of the richest 
and most populous section of its territory. 

Connecticut was destined to suffer, with the rest of 
the colonies, from the violent acts committed in the 
last years of the reign of the Stuarts. Massachu- 
setts had been deprived of her charter, and Rhode 
Island had been induced to surrender hers, when, in 
July, 1685, a writ of quo warranto\vz.s issued against 
the governor and company of Connecticut. The co- 
lonial government was strongly advised by Vane to 
comply with the requisition, and surrender the charter ; 
but it was determined neither to appear to defend the 
charter nor voluntarily to surrender it. Sir Ed- 
mund Andros, whose appointment to the ofiice of go- 
vernor of the New England colonies has been related 
in the preceding chapter, made repeated applications 
for the surrender of the charter, but without success. 
The sing"ilar mode of its escape from his demand in 
person, is thus recorded by Trumbull : " The assem- 
bly met as usual, in October, 1687, and the govern- 
ment continued, according to charter, until the last of 
the month. About this time, Sir Edmund, with his 
suite, and more than sixty regular troops, came to 
Hartford, where the assembly were sitting, demanded 



» Trumbull's History of Connecticut, p. 371,372. 

t The records of the colony announce the fad in the following 
terras: — "At a general court at Hartford, October 3lst, 1687, his 
e.iicellency. Sir Edmund Andros, knight, and captain-general and 
governor of his majesty's territories and dominions in New Eng- 



the charter, and declared the government under it to 
be dissolved. The assembly were extremely reluc- 
tant and slow with respect to any resolve to surrender 
the charter, or with respect to any motion to bring it 
forth. The tradition is, that Governor Treat strongly 
represented the great expense and hardships of the 
colonists in planting the countiy ; the blood and'trea- 
sure which they had expended in defending it, both 
against the savages and foreigners ; to what hard- 
ships and dangers he himself had been exposed for 
that purpose ; and that Jt was like giving up his lifi;, 
now to surrender the patent and privileges so dearly 
bought, and so long enjoyed. The important aflaii 
was debated and kept in suspense until the evening, 
when the charter was brought and laid upon the table 
where the assembly were sitting. By this time, great 
numbers of people were assembled, and men sufii- 
ciently bold to enterprise whatever might be necessary 
or expedient. The lights were instantly extinguish- 
ed, and one Captain Wadsworth, of Hartford, in the 
most silent and secret manner, carried off the charter, 
and secreted it in a large hollow tree, fronting the 
house of the Honourable Samuel Wyllys, then one 
of the magistrates of the colony. The people ap- 
peared all peaceable and orderly. The candles were 
officiously re-lighted, but the patent was gone, and no 
discovery could be made of it, or of the person who 
had conveyed it away."* Though Sir Edmund was 
thus foiled in his attempt to obtain possession of the 
charter, he did not hesitate to assume the reins of go- 
vernment, t which he administered in a manner as 
oppressive in this as in the other colonies. When 
on the arrival of the declaration of the prince oi 
Orange at Boston, Andros was deposed and im- 
prisoned, the people of Connecticut resumed their pre- 
vious form of government, having been interrupted 
little more than a year and a half 

In the Indian war, in which PhiUp acted so con- 
spicuous a part, Connecticut had her share of suffer- 
ing, though it was not so great as that of some of her 
sister colonies. Hostilities were commenced by the 
aborieines, on the Connecticut river, in the summer 
of 1675 ; and. on the 1st of September, the inhabit- 
ants of Hadley were alarmed by the Indians duriiijj 
the time of public worship, and the people thrown 
into the utmost confusion ; but the enemy were re 
pulsed by the valour and good conduct of an aged, 
venerable man, who, suddenly appearing in the midst 
of the aff"righted inhabitants, put himself at their 

land, by order from his majesty, James II., king of England, Scot- 
land, France, and Ireland, the 3lst of October, 1687, took into hia 
hands the government of the colony of Coiftiecticut, it being, by his 
majesty, annexed to Massachusetts, and other colonies under \\u 
excellency's government. Finis "- -Ibid. 



•JO 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



head, led them to the onset, and, after the dispersion 
of the enemy, instantly disappeared. This deliverer 
of Hadley, then imagined to be an angel, was Ge- 
neral Goffe, (one of the judges of Charles I.,) who 
was at that time concealed in the town.* 

But a short time elapsed, before the colonists 
were again called on to defend their privileges from 
what they deemed an unjust encroachment. Colo- 
nel Fletcher, governor of New York, had been vested 
with plenary powers to command the militia of Con- 
necticut, and insisted on the exercise of that com- 
mand. The legislature of Connecticut, deeming that 
authority to be expressly given to the colony by 
charter, would not submit to his requisitions ; but, 
desirous of maintaining a good understanding with 
Governor Fletcher, endeavoured to make terms with 
him, until his Majesty's pleasure should be further 
known. All their negotiations were, however, un- 
successful ; and, on the 26th of October, he came to 
Hartford, while the assembly was sitting, and, in his 
majesty's name, demanded submission ; but the refu- 
sal was resolutely persisted in. After the requisition 
had been repeatedly made, with plausible explana- 
tions and serious menaces, Fletcher ordered his com- 
mission and instructions to be read in audience of 
the train bands of Hartford, which had assembled 
upon his order. Captain Wadsworth, the senior 
officer, who was exercising his soldiers, instantly 
called out, " Beat the drums !" which, in a moment, 
overwhelmed every voice. Fletcher connnandcd 
silence. No sooner was a second attempt made to 
read, than Wadsworth vociferated, " Drum, drum ! I 
say." The drummers instantly beat up again, with 
the greatest possible spirit. " Sileiace, silence," ex- 
claimed the governor. At the first moment of a 
pause, Wadsworth called out earnestly, " Drum, 
drum, I say;" and, turning to his excellency, said, 
" If I am interrupted again, I will make the sun 
shine through you in a moment." Colonel Fletcher 
declined putting Wadsworth to the test, and aban- 
doning the contest, returned with his suite to New 
York. — It has been already observed, that tHe history 
of the American colonies has been decidedly vmder- 
valued and neglected ; this must have been the case 
even with the best educated classes of society, or 
surely, after such specimens of determined indepen- 
dence of spirit as the history of this colony, and of 
Massachusetts, exhibits, the measures which ulti- 

• " Suddenly, and in the midst of the people, there appeared a 
man of a very venerahle aspect, who look the command, arranged 
and ordered them in the best military manner, and under his di- 
rection they repelled and routed the Indians, and the town was 
saved. He immediately vanished, and the inhabitants could not 
ii';couiit f( r the phenomenon, but by considering that person as an 



mately led to an entire separation would never have 
received the sanction of the British senate. 

In the year 1700, Yale college was founded. The 
project had been the subject of conversation for the 
space of two years, and at length eleven gentlemen, 
who had been agreed on as trustees, assembled at 
Branford, and laid the foundation of tlie college. 
In the year following, the trustees obtained from the 
general assembly an act of incorporation, and a grant 
of 120/. annually. It was originally established at 
Saybrook ; and, in 1702, the first degrees were there 
conferred. Elihu Yale made several donations to 
the institution, and from him it derives the name it 
bears. A succession of able instructers has raised 
it to a high rank among the literary institutions oi 
the country. The history of this college, as well as 
a description of its extensive buildings, will appear 
in the topographical department of this work. 

The trustees of Yale College, assembled at Guil- 
ford, March 17th, 1703, addressed a circular letter to 
the ministers, proposing to hold a general synod of 
all the churches in the colony, to give their joint 
consent to a confession of faith, after the example of 
the synod in Boston, 1680. This proposal was uni- 
versally acceptable ; and the ministers and churches 
of the several counties met in voluntary " consocia- 
tion," and gave their consent to the Westminster and 
Savoy confessions of faith, and agreed upon certain 
rules of union in discipline, which were designed to 
be preparatory to a general synod. Still there was 
no visible and acknowledged bond of union among 
them ; and the disadvantages attendant upon a want 
of system were felt to a considerable extent. Under 
the influence of these considerations, the legislature 
passed an act , in May, 1708, requiring the ministers 
a-nd churches to meet by delegation at Saybrook, 
at the next commencement to be held there, and 
form an ecclesiastical constitution, which they were 
directed to present to the legislature at their session 
at New Haven, the following October, to be consi- 
dered of, and confirmed by them. In the same act 
they directed the ministers, and churches of the 
colony, to meet (the churches by delegation) in the 
county towns of their respective counties ; there to 
consider and agree upon those rules for the manage- 
ment of ecclesiastical discipline, which they should 
judge conformable to the word of God, and to 
appoint two or more of their number as members of 



angel, sent of God for their deliverance." — Stiles, Hiat. Judges, p. 
109. " From New Haven, Whalley and Goffe went to West 
Rock, a mountain about three hundred feet high, and about two 
miles and a half from the town, and were for some time concealed 
in a cave ' on the very top of the rock, about half or three qnarteiB 
of a mile from the southern extremity.' " — Stiles, p. 72, 76. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



91 



the synod at Saybrook. They also directed the ' 
synod to compare the results of these ecclesiastical 
meetinsjs of the several counties, and out of them to 
draw a form of ecclesiastical discipline. The ex- 
penses of all these meetiasfs were to be defrayed out 
of the public treasury. The system agreed upon by 
the synod was presented to the legislature at the 
time specified ; upon which they passed the follow- 
ing act : 

• The " Heads of Agreement" afford an autheiuic slateraeiit of 
tliP doctrine and discipline of the New England churches ; and, as 
tlipy will most eflectually vindicate these societies from misrepre- 
sentation, and enable our readers to avoid misconception, we have 
quoted them at length. The " Platform," and the whole pro- 
ceedings respecting it, may be found in the fifth book of Mather's 
Magnalia. 

" HEADS OP ACREEIMENT ASSENTED TO BY THE UNITED MINISTERS, FORMER- 
LY CALLED PRESBYTERIAN AND CONGREGATIONAL. 

■■' I. Of Ckurches and Church Members. — I. We acknowledge our 
Lord Jesus Christ to have one catholic church, or kingdom, com- 
prehending all that are united to him, whether in heaven or earth ; 
and do conceive the whole multitude of visible believers, and their 
infant see-i, (commonly called the catholic visible church,) to be- 
long to Christ's spiritual kingdom in this world; but for the notion 
of a catholic visible church here, as it signifies its having been col- 
lected into any formed society, imder a visible human head on 
earth, whether one person singly, or many collectively, we, with the 
rest of protestants, unanimously disclaim it. 2. We agree, that 
particular societies of visible saints, who, under Christ their head, 
are statedly joined together, for ordinary communion with one 
another in all the ordinances of Christ, are particular churches, 
and are to be owned by each other as instituted churches of Christ, 
though differing in apprehensions and practice in some lesser 
things. 3. That none shall be admitted as members, in order to 
communion in all the special ordinances of the gospel, but such 
persons as are knowing and sound in the fundamental doctrines of 
the christian reliffion. .without scandal in their lives; and to a 
judgment regulated by the word of God, are persons of visible ho- 
liness and honesty, credibly professing cordial subjection to Jesus 
Christ. 4. A competent number of such visible saints, as before 
described, do become the capable subjects of stated communion in 
all the special ordinances of Christ, upon their mutual declared 
consent and agreement to walk together therein according to gospel 
rule. In which declaration, different degrees of explicitness shall 
DO ways hinder such churches from owning each other as instituted 
churches. 5. Though parochial bounds be not of divine right, yet, 
for common edification, the members of a particular church ought 
(as much as conveniently may be) to live near one another. 6. That 
each particular church hath right to use their own officers ; and 
being furnished with such as are duly qualified and ordained ac- 
cording to the gospel rule, hath authority from Christ for exer- 
cising government, and of enjoying all the ordinances of worship 
Within itself. 7. In the administration of church power, it belongs 
to the pastors and other elders of every particular church, if such 
there be, to rule and govern, and to the brotherhood to consent, ac- 
cording to the rule of the gospel. 8. That all professors, as before 
described, are bound in duty, as they have opportunity, to join 
themselves as fixed members of some particular church ; their thus 
joining being part of their professed subjection to the gospel of 
Christ, and an instituted means of their establishment and edifica- 
tion, whereby they are under the pastoral care, and, in case of 
scandalous or offensive walking, may be authoritatively admonish- 
ed or censured for their recovery, and for vindication of the truth 
and the church professing it. 9. That a visible professor thus 
joined to a particular church ought to continue steadfast with the 
said church, and not forsake the ministry and ordinances there dis- 
piinsed, without an orderly seeking a recommendation unto- another 
church, which ought to be given, when the case of the person ap- 
parently requiies it. 



" At a general court, hold in at New Haven, Octo- 
ber, 1708 : 

" The reverend ministers, delegates from the elders 
and messengers of this government, met at Saybrook, 
September 9th, 1708, having presented to this assem- 
bly a Confession of Faith, and Heads of Agreement,* 
and regulations in the administration of church 
disciphne, as unanimously agreed and consented to 
by the elders and churches in this government ; this 

" II. of the Ministry. — 1. AVe agree that the minis'erial office is 
instituted by Jesus Christ for the gathering, guiding, edifying, and 
governing of his church, and fo continue to the end of the world. 
2. They who are called to this office ought to be endued with com- 
petent learning and ministerial gifts, as also with the grace of God, 
sound in judgment, not novices in the faith and knowledge of the 
gospel, without scandal, of holy conversation, and such as devote 
themselves to the work and service thereof. 3. That, ordinarily, 
none shall be ordained to the work of this ministry, but such as are 
called and chosen thereunto by a particular church. 4. That in 
so great and weighty a matter as llie calling and choosing a pastor, 
we judge it ordinarily requisite, that every such church consult and 
advise with the pastors of neighbouring congregations. 5. That 
after such advice, the person consulted about being chosen by the 
brotherhood of that particular church over which he is to be set, 
and he accepting, be duly ordained and set apart to his office over 
them ; wherein it is ordinarily requisite, that the pastors of neigh- 
bouring congregations concur with the preaching elder or elders, 
if .such there be. 6. That, whereas such ordination is only intend- 
ed for such as never before had been ordained to the ministerial 
office ; if any judge, that in the case also of the removal of one 
formerly ordained to a new station, or pastoral charge, there ought 
to be a like solemn recommending him and his labours to the grace 
and blessing of God ; no different sentiments, or practice herein, 
shall be any occasion of contention or breach of communion among 
us. 7. It is expedient, that they who enter on the woik of preach- 
ing the ffospel, be not only qualified for communion of saints, but 
also, that, except in cases extraordinary, they give proof of their 
gifts and fitness for the said work unto the pastors of churches of 
known abilities to discern and judge of their qualiScations,that 
they may be sent forth with solemn approbation and prayer, which 
we judge needful, that no doubt may remain concerning their being 
called unto the work, and for preventing, as much as in us lieih, 
ignorant and rash intruders. 

" III. Of Censures. — 1. As it cannot be avoided, but that in the 
purest churches on earth, there will sometimes offences and scan- 
dals arise, by reason of hypocrisy and prevailing corruption ; so 
Christ hath made it the duty of every church to reform itself by 
spiritual remedies appointed by him to be applied in all such cs.sei, 
viz. admonition and excommunication. 2. Admonition being the 
rebuking of an ofiending member in order to conviction, is, in case 
of private offences, to be performed according to the rule in Matt, 
xviii. 15, 16, 17, and in case of public offences, openly before the 
church, as the honour of the gospel, and the nature of the scandal, 
shall require ; and if either of the admonitions take place for the 
recovery of the fallen person, all further proceedings in a way of 
censure are thereon to cease, and satisfaction to be declared ac- 
cordingly. 3. When all due means are used, according to the 
order of the gospel, for the restoring an offending and scandalous 
brother, and he, notwithstanding, remains impenitent, the censure 
of excommunication is to be proceeded unto ; wherein the pastor, 
and other elders, (if there be such,) are to lead and go before the 
church; and the brotherhood to give their consent in a way of 
obedience unto Christ, and to the elders, as ovei them .n the Lord. 
4. It may sometimes come to pass, that a church member, not 
otherwise scandalous, may sinfully withdraw, and divide liimself 
from the communion of the church fo which he belongpth ; in 
which case, when all due means for the reducing him prove inef- 
fectual, he having thereby cut himself off from that church's com- 
munion, the church may justly esteem and declart itself discharged 
of any further inspection over him. 



92 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



assembly doth declare their great approbation of such 
a happy agreement ; and do ordain, that all the 
churches within this government, that are or shall be 
thus united in doctrine, worship, and discipline, be, 
and for the future shall be, owned and acknow- 
ledged, and established by law ; provided always, 
that nothing herein shall be intended or construed 
to hinder or prevent any society or church that is, 
or shall be, allowed by the laws of this government, 
who soberly differ or dissent from the united churches 
hereby established, from exercising worship and dis- 
cipline in their own way, according to their con- 
sciences." 

Dr. Dwight gives the following concise and clear 
view of what he terms " the two ecclesiastical judi- 
catories established in the state of Connecticut, — a 
particular church, and a consociation. A particular 
church, with its pastor at its head, has the power of 
exercising the discipline of the gospel with respect to 
all scandals which take place among its members. 
With respect to this subject, it is declared to be the 
province of the pastor, together with the ruling elders, 
wherever they exist, to govern ; and that of the bro- 
therhood to consent, and, of course, if they see occa- 
sion, to dissent. This constitutes two distinct powers ; 

" IV. of Communion of Churches. — 1. We agree that particular 
churches ought not to walk so distinct and separate from each 
other, as not to have care and tenderness towards one another. But 
their pastors ought to have frequent meetings together, that, hy mu- 
tual advice, support, encouragement, .and brotherly intercourse, 
they may strengthen the hearts and hands of each other in the ways 
of the Lord. 2. That none of our particular churches shall be 
subordinate to one another, each being endued with equality of 
power from Jesus Christ ; and that none of the said particular 
churches, their otfieer or officers, shall exercise any power, or have 
any superiority, over any other church or their officers. 3. That 
known members of particular churches, constituted as aforesaid, 
may have occasional communion with one another in the ordinances 
of the gospel, viz. ihe word, prayer, sacraments, singing of psalms, 
dispensed according to the mind of Christ, unless that church, with 
which they desire communion, hath any just exception against 
them. 4. That we ouglu not to admit any one to be a member of 
our respective congregations that hath joined himself to another, 
without endeavours of mutual satisfaction of the congregations 
concerned. 5. That one church ought not to blame the proceed- 
ings of another, until it hath heard what that church charged, its 
elders or messengers, can say in vindication of themselves from 
any charge of irregular or injurious proceedings. 6. That we are 
most willing and ready to give an account of our church proceed- 
ings to each other, when desired, for preventing or removing any 
offences that maj arise among us. Likewise, we shall he ready to 
give the right hand of fellowship, and walk together according to 
the gospej rules of communion of churches. 

" V. Of Deacons and Ruling Elders. — We agree, the office of a 
deacon is of divine appointment, and that it belongs to their office 
to receive, lay out, and distribute the church's slock to its proper 
uses, by the direction of the pastor and brethren, if need be. And, 
whereas divers are of opinion, that there is also the office of ruling 
orders, who labour not in word and doctrine; and others think 
otherwise ; we agree that this diffi2rence make no breach among us. 

" VI. Of occasional Meeting of Ministers, &c. — 1. We agree that, 
in order to concord, and in other weighty and difficult cases, it is 
needful, and according to the mind of Christ, that the ministers of 



one of which (the elder or elders) is to original t de- 
cisions ; and the .other has the right of a veto with 
respect to every decision. This certainly is a judi- 
catory, attended with circumstances of extreme deli- 
cacy ; for, should the brotherhood refuse their consent, 
the measures originated must regularly fall. It might 
not unnaturally be expected, that, in such a division 
of authority, most measures actually proposed would 
fail. The very same is, however, the constitution of 
every representative government, so far as a veto is 
concerned ; each branch of the legislature having, ot 
course, a negative upon the other. Here, also, each 
branch has additionally the power of originating 
measures." " The general association of Connecticut 
is a body merely advisory, yet its recommendations 
have no small part of the efficacy derived from au- 
thority. The business transacted by it consists in a 
general superintendence of the prudential affairs Oi 
the churches ;* in receiving applications from the 
several ministers, individur.lly and associated ; and 
from the several churches, particular or consociated, 
concerning their respective interests, or the general 
ecclesiastical interests of the state ; and giving theil- 
advice, recommending such measures originally as 
they judge to be beneficial." It is undeniably true, 



several churches be consulted and advised with about such mat- 
ters. 2. That such meetings may consist of smaller or greater 
numbers, as the matter shall require. 3. That particular ehui ;hes, 
their respective elders and members, ought to have a reven niiai 
regard to their judgment so given, and not dissent therefrom with- 
out apparent grounds from the word of God. 

"VII. Of our Demeanour towards the Civil Magistrate. — I. We 
do reckon ourselves obliged continually to pray for God's protec- 
tion, guidance, and blessing, upon the rulers set over us. 2. That 
we ought to yield unto them not only subjection in the Lord, but 
support, according to our station and abilities. 3. That, if at any 
time it shall be their pleasure to call together any number of us to 
require an account of our atfairs, and* the stale of our congrega- 
tions, we shall most readily express all dutiful regard to them 
herein. 

" VIII. Of a Confession of Faith. — As to what appertains to 
soundness of judgment in matters of faith, we esteem it sufficient 
that a church acknowledge the Scriptures to be the word of God, 
the perfect and only rule of faith and practice, and own either the 
doctrinal part of those commonly called the Articles of the church 
of England, or the Confession or Catechisms, shorter or larger, 
compiled by Ihe assembly at Westminster, or the confession agreed 
on at the Savoy, to be agreeable to the said rule. 

" IX. Of our Duty and Deportment towards them that are not in 
Communion with us. — 1. We judge it our duty to bear a christian 
respect to all Christians, according to their several ranks and sta- 
tions, that are not of our persuasion or communion. :i. As for such 
as luay be ignorant of the principles of the christian religion, or of 
vicious conversation, we shall, in our respective places, as they 
give opportunity, endeavour to explain to them the doctrine of life 
and salvation, and to our utmost persuade them to be reconciled to 
God. 3. That such who appear to have the essential requisites to 
church communion, we shall willingly receive them in the Lord, 
not iroubling' them with disputes about lesser matters." — Mather's 
Magnalia, b. v. p. 59—61. 

• The general association is also now the incorporated Mission- 
ary Society of the state, both " foreign" and " domestic." 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



93 



that some evils have ever been attendant on the pure- 
ly congregational or independent system of church 
government ; but they have arisen rather from the 
absence of a proper spirit among the members of the 
churches, than from the form of government itself. 
The history of the proceedings of the " consociations" 
of Connecticut, affords but a poor recommendation 
for their general adoption, as a remedy for the disad- 
vantages of independency ; although it must be ad- 
mitted that the injurious tendencies of such associa- 
tions was much aggravated by the intimate connexion 
which existed between the civil and ecclesiastical 
powers in this colony ; and, most assuredly, the acts 
of the hierarchy of Connecticut fully evince, that the 
sword of the magistrate should never be entrusted to 
the hands, or to the influence, of any priesthood, how- 
ever pure or exemplary. Tlie tyrannical character 
of their proceedings was decidedly exhibited, in their 
treatment of many of the most devoted labourers, in 
that great moral renovation which pervaded almost 
every part of the colony in 1738, and the following 
years. 

It might be supposed by some of our readers, that 
a revival of religion is not a subject that should oc- 
cupy a place in the general history of a state. It is 
true, that the advance or decay of any particular re- 
ligious sect belongs to the ecclesiastical, rather than 
to the civil record ; but it is far otherwise with a 
great moral change aflectina: all classes of society : 
such a circumstance is of more importance to the 
civil interests of society, than even the political insti- 
tutions which are deemed essential to its prosperity. 
Originated by whatever circumstances, private virttie 
is the only basis on which the security of states can 
ever rest ; and with the extraordinary rise of the 
American republic as the peculiar subject of our con- 
sideration, it would be unpardonable not to feel this 
sentiment in its fullest force. We are the more de- 
sirous of giving faithfully the general outline of the 
proceedings which have been designated revivals, 
both because they have recently attracted a consider- 
able portion of public attention, and because we con- 
ceive they have not been regarded in a perfectly cor- 
rect point of view, either by their opponents, or by 
their approvers. 

It was in the year 1735, that the first very decided 
indication of a revival spirit manifested itself at North- 
ampton, Massachusetts, under the ministry of the 
Rev. Jonathan Edwards, afterwards president of the 
college in New Jersey. It appears to have commenced 
among the young people of his congregation. " Pre- 
sently," says Dr. Edwards, " a great and earnest con- 
cern about the things of religion and the eternal 



world became universal in all parts of the town, and 
among persons of all degrees and ages. All the 
conversation in all companies, and upon all occasions, 
was upon these things only, unless so much as was 
necessary for people to carry on their ordinary secular 
business. Other discourse than of the things of reli- 
gion would scarcely be tolerated in any company. 
They seemed to follow their worldly business more 
as a part of their duly, than from any disposition 
they had to it. The temptation now seemed to lie 
on this hand, to neglect worldly affairs too much, and 
to spend too much time in the immediate exercises of 
religion. But although people did not ordinarily 
neglect their worldly business, yet there then was the 
reverse of what commonly is ; religion was with all 
the great concern." This state of feeling spread 
rapidly during the following seven years through 
many of the towns of the New England states, and 
in some of those of New York and New Jersey. " This 
work," says Dr. Trumbull,* " was very extraordinary 
on many accounts. It was much beyond what had 
been the common course of Providence. It was more 
universal than had before been known. It extended 
to all sorts and characters of people, sober and vicious, 
high and low, rich and poor, wise and unwise. To 
all appearance, it was no less powerful in families 
and persons of distinction, in the places which it 
visited, than others. In former works of this nature, 
young people had generally been wrought upon, while 
elderly people and children had been little affected, 
if moved at all. But at this time old men were af- 
fected as well as others." " People, in a wonderful 
manner, flocked together to places of public worship, 
not only on the Lord's-day, but on lecture days, so 
that the places of worship could not -contain them. 
They would not only fill the houses, but crowd round 
the doors and windows without, and press together 
wherever they could hear the preacher. They would 
not only thus assemble in their own towns and pa- 
rishes when the word was preached, but if they had 
the knowledge of lectures in the neighbouring towns 
and parishes, they would attend them. Sometimes 
they would follow the preacher from town to town, 
and from one place to another, for several days to- 
gether. In some instances, in places but thinly set- 
tled, there would be such a concourse, that no house 
could hold them. There was, in the minds of people, 
a general fear of sin, and of the wrath of God de- 
nounced against it. There seemed to be a general 
conviction, that all the ways of man were before the 
eyes of the Lord. It was the opinion of men of dis- 



• History of Connecticut, vol. ii. p, 141. 



94 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



cernment and sound judgment, who had the best op- 
portunities of knowing the feelings and general state 
of the pet'ple at that period, that bags of gold and 
silver, and other precious things, might, with safety, 
have been laid in the streets, and that no man would 
have converted them to his own use. Theft, wanton- 
ness, intemperance, profaneness, sabbath-breaking, 
and other gross sins, appeared to be put away. The 
intermissions on the Lord's-day, instead of being spent 
in worldly conversation and vanity, as had been too 
usual before, were now spent in religious conversa- 
tion, in reading and singing the praises of God. At 
lectures there was not only great attention and serious- 
ness in the house of God, but the conversation out of 
it was generally on the great concerns of the soul." 
There is a circumstance which considerably con- 
tributed to accelerate the diffusion of a revival spirit, 
which must not be overlooked — the visits of-the cele- 
brated contemporaries, Wesley and Whitefield, to the 
American continent, just at this period.* The ex- 
traordinary exertions of the latter especially excited 
and emboldened many faithful ministers of Connecti- 
cut, whose labours and pecuniary sacrifices now be- 
came greater than they had ever before experienced 
or imagined they conld endure. They not only 
abounded in active exertions among their own and 
neighbouring congregations, but preached in all parts 
of the colony, where their brethren would admit them, 
and in many places in Massachusetts, and the other 
colonies. They were very popular, and their labours 
were generally acceptable to their brethren, and use- 
ful to the people. They were not noisy preachers, 
but grave, sentimental, searching, and pungent. Con- 



• Mr. WhilefieW landed at Philadelphia the beginning of No- 
vember, 1739. On his arrival, he was invited to preach in all the 
churches, and people of all denominations flocked in crowds to hear 
him. After preaching a few days in Philadelphia, he made a visit 
to New York, and preached eight times in that )ilace with great 
applause and effect. Thence he returned to Philadelphia, preach- 
ing on the way, both going and returning. Prom thence he went 
to Georgia by land, preaching on the way as he proceeded. Num- 
bers followed, some twenty, and some even si.xty miles. He preach- 
ed at Chester, Wilmington, Newcastle, and Whitley-creek. At 
the last of these places, it was computed that his congregation con- 
sisted of not less than ten thousand hearers; and the people seemed 
almost universally impressed. These reports reaching New Eng- 
land, there was a great desire, both in ministers and people, to see 
and hear him; and Dr. Coleman and Mr. Cooper, of Boston, sent 
pressing invitations that he would pay them a visit. Mr. White- 
field, touched with a curiosity to see the descendants of the good 
old puritans, and their seats of learning, and hoping that he might 
make some further collections for his favourite object, the orphan- 
house in Georgia, accepted their invitation. He arrived at Rhode 
Island on September 14th, 1740. Here a number of principal gen- 
tlemen soon waited oi: him. He preached there three days, twice 
a day, to deeply affected auditories. He then departed for Boston, 
where he was met on the road by the governor's son, several of 
the clergy, and other gentlemen of principal character, who con- 
ducted him into the city. His assemblies there were so large, that 
the most capaciotis houses could not contain them, and he often 



necticut was, however, more remarkably the seat of 
the work than any part of New England, or of the 
American colonies. In the years 1740, 1741, and 
1742, it had pervaded, in a greater or less degree, 
every part of the colony. In most of the towns and 
societies, it was very general and powerful. 

It has been estimated, that, during three years, 
frorp thirty to forty thousand persons had their minds 
affected in the decided manner which has been de- 
scribed. It might naturally have been supposed, that, 
as many of these impressions occurred at a period oi 
extraordinary excitement, they would not have been 
generally productive of permanently beneficial results. 
The contrary, however, in a very great majority of 
instances, appears to have been the fact. " The ef- 
fects on great numbers," says Dr. Trumbull, " were 
abiding and most happy ; they were the_most uniform, 
exemplary christians, with whom I was ever ac- 
quainted. I was born, and had my education, in 
that part of the town of Hebron in which the work 
was most prevalent and powerful. They were extra- 
ordinary for their constant and serious attention on 
the public worship ; they were prayerful, righteous, 
peaceable, and charitable ; they kept up their reli- 
gious meetings for prayer, reading, and religious con- 
versation, for many years ; they were strict in the re- 
ligion and government of their families, and I never 
knew that any one of them was ever guilty of scan- 
dal, or fell under discipline. About eight or ten 
years after the religious revival and reformation, that 
part of the town was made a distinct society, and it 
was mentioned to Mr. Lothrop, the pastor elect, as an 
encouragement to settle with them, that there was 

preached on the common. This was the beginning of the most ex- 
traordinary revival of religion ever experienced in Boston, or in 
that part of New England. When Mr. Whitefield left Boston, it 
was for Northampton. He had read in England the narrative of 
Mr. Edwards, of the remarkable work of God in that place, in 
I7I55, and had a great desire to see him, and receive the account 
from his own mouth. On his way, pulpits and houses were every 
where open to him, and the same happy influence and effects at- 
tended his preaching, which had been experienced in other places. 
When he arrived at Northampton, about the middle of October, he 
was joyfully received by Mr. Edwards and the people. After 
leaving their interesting society, he preached in the neighbouring 
towns to large and deeply affected congregations. On the 23d of 
October, he reached New Haven. Here he was affectionately re- 
ceived ; and, as the general assembly were then sitting, he re- 
mained several days,,and had the pleasure of seeing numbers daily 
impressed. After the sabbath he preached at Milford, and prose- 
cuting his journey to New York, and the southern colonies, he 
preached with his usual popularity and success. Taking leave of 
Connecticut, he preached at Rye and Kingsbridge, and, on the 
30th of October, arrived at New York. Here he remained three 
days, and then departed, preaching through the southern colonies, 
as he had done before, but apparently with still greater success. 
It appears he was the instrument of great good in New England, 
as well as in the southern colonies. He greatly quickened and 
animated ministers, as well as private Christians, especially in 
Massachusetts and Connecticut. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



95 



noi a drunkard in the whole parish. While I lived 
in it, I did not know of one prayerless family among 
his people, nor ever heard of one. Some of those 
people, who dated their conversion from that period, 
lived until they were far advanced in life ; and after 
I was settled in the ministry, I became acquainted 
with them in one place and another. They appear- 
ed to be some of the most consistent practical Chris- 
tians with whom I ever had an acquaintance. Their 
lio;ht shone before men, through a long life, and 
brightened as they advanced on their way. Some I 
was called to visit in their last moments in full pos- 
session of their rational powers, who appeared per- 
fectly to acquiesce in the will of God, to die in the 
full assurance of faith, and in perfect triumph over 
the last enemy." 

These proceedings, though so accordant with the 
principles and spirit of the reformation, the professed 
model of the Connecticut establishment, did not re- 
ceive its concurrence. In the midst of such a mani- 
festation of popular feeling, there were some irregu- 
larities which did not comport with the discipline, and 
some doctrinal variations from the creed, of " the 
Saybrook platform." Every deviation or excess was 
magnified into importance by the majority of the 
clergy, who were indisposed to any extraordinary ex- 
ertion, and who dreaded the infectious zeal spreading 
among their flocks. Numerous opposers appeared 
against what they were pleased to term the " new 
light ;" and, as in most similar cases, the oppugners 
of reform were supported by the aristocracy. The 
baneful effects of establishments and of " consocia- 
tions," were also plenteously exhibited. A striking 
instance of the deplorable illiberality of the latter 
occurred in the case of Mr. Robbins, who, after a 
variety of vexatious proceedings on the part of the 
consociation of New Haven county, was deposed from 
his office of pastor of the church at Branford, for 
having preached for a dissenting baptist minister at 
Wallingford, without the permission of the establish- 
ed clergyman of the parish ! His own church, how- 
ever, resolved, " that this society desire the Rev. Mr. 
Robbins to continue in the ministry among us, not- 
withstanding his preaching to the Baptists, and what 
the consociation of New Haven county have done 
thereon ;" thus preferring to be excluded from the 
consociation, and become dissenters themselves, ra- 
ther than submit to spiritual tyranny in so gross a 
form.* 

The edicts of the state were still more oppressive 

* Those of our readers who may be desirous of becoming more 
intimately acquainted with the ecclesiastical history of this colony 
than our limits will permit, can refer to Trumbull's History of 

13 



than those of the clergy, and remind us of the pater- 
nal decrees of the Emperor Ferdinand II., who, from 
the " urgings of his tender conscience," and from his 
" fatherly care" for the salvation of his kmgdom of 
Bohemia, denounced ruin and destruction against all 
who resisted his spiritual decrees. In May, 1742, 
the general assembly of Connecticut resolved as fol- 
lows : — 

"1. Be it enacted by the governor, council, and 
representatives in general court assembled, and by the 
authority of the same, that if any ordained minister, 
or any other person licensed as aforesaid, to preach, 
shall enter into any parish not immediately under his 
charge, and shall there preach and exhort the people, 
he shall be denied and excluded the benefit of any law 
of this colony, made for the support and encourage- 
ment of the gospel ministry, except such ordained 
minister, or licensed person, shall be expressly invited 
and desired to enter into such parish, and there to 
preach and exhort the people, by the settled minister, 
and the major part of the church and society within 
such parish. 

" 2. And it is further enacted by the authority 
aforesaid, that if any association of ministers shall 
undertake to examine or license any candidate for the 
gospel ministry, or assume to themselves the decision 
of any controversy, or as an association, counsel and 
advise in any affair that, by the platform, or agree- 
ment above mentioned, made at SayV)rook, aforesaid, 
is properly within the province and jurisdiction of 
another association, then, and in such case, every 
member that shall be present in such association so 
licensing, deciding, or counselling, shall be each and 
every one of them denied and excluded the benefit of 
any law in this colony, for the encouragement and 
support of the gospel ministry. 

" 3. And it is further enacted, by the authority 
aforesaid, that if any minister, or ministers, contrary 
to the true intent and meaning of this act, shall pre- 
sume to preach in any parish, not under his immedi- 
ate care and charge, the minister of the parish where 
he shall so offend, or the civil authority, or any of 
the committee of said parish, shall give information 
thereof in writing, under their hands, to the clerk of 
the society or parish where such offending minister 
doth belong, which clerk shall receive such informa- 
tion, and lodge and keep the same on file in his office, 
and no assistant or justice of the peace in this colony 
shall sign any warrant for the collecting any minis- 
ter's rate, without first receiving a certificate from 



Connecticut, a very valuable work, to which we are indebted lor 
much of the information comprised in this chapter. 



96 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



the clerk of the society, or parisli, where such rate is ' 
to be collected, that no such information as is above 
mentioned hath been received by him, or lodged in 
bis office. 

" 4. And be it further enacted, by the authority 
aforesaid, that if any person whatsoever, that is not 
a settled or ordained minister, shall go into any 
parish, without the express desire and invitation of 
the settled minister of such parish, if any there be, 
and the major part of the church and congregation 
within such parish, and publicly teach and exhort 
the people, he shall, for every such offence, upon 
complaint made thereof to any assistant or justice of 
the peace, be bound to his peaceable and good beha- 
viour, until the next county court in that county 
where tlie ofience shall be committed, by said assist- 
ant or justice of the peace, in the penal sum of one 
hundred pounds lawful money, that he or they will 
not offend again in the like kind ; and the said 
county court may, if they see meet, furtlier bind the 
said person or persons, offending as aforesaid, to 
their peaceable and good behaviour, during the 
pleasure of the court. 

"5. And it is further enacted, by the authority 
aforesaid, that if any foreigner, or stranger, that is 
not an inhabitant of this colony, including as well 
such persons as have no ecclesiastical character, or 
license to preach, or such as have received ordina- 
tion or license to preach, by any association or pres- 
bytery, shall presume to preach, teach, or publicly 
exhort, in any town or society within this colony, 
without the desire and license of the settled luinister, 
and the major part of the church of such town and 
society, or at the call and desire of the church and 
inhabitants of such town and society, provided that 
it so happen that there be no settled minister there, — 
that every such preacher, teaclier, or exhorter, shall 
be sent, as a vagrant person, by warrant from any 
assistant or justice of the peace, from constable to 
constable, out of the bounds of this colony." 

These enactments were afterwards rendered still 
more severe ; and, under their authority, several worthy 
ministers were arrested and imprisoned. Thislawwas 
an outrage on every principle of justice, and on the most 
inherent and valuable rights of the subject. It was 
a palpable contradiction, and gross violation, of the 
Connecticut bill of rights. It was equally an inva- 
sion of the rights of heaven, and incompatible with 
the command, " Go ye into all the world, and preach 
the gospel to every creature." In obedience to this 
command, the primitive preachers went every where, 
preaching the word. They regarded no parochial 
limits, and when high priests and magistrates forbade 



their preaching, they answered, " Whether it be 
right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more 
than unto God, judge ye ; for we cannot but speak 
the things which we have seen and heard." This 
law was also contrary to the opinion and practice of 
all the reformers and puritans. The reformers all 
preached within the parishes and bishopricks of the 
Roman catholics, and by this means, under Divine 
Providence, effected the reformation. It never could 
have been effected without it. The puritans preached 
within the parishes of the church of England, and 
judged it their indispensable duty to preach the gos- 
pei whenever and wherever they had an opportu- 
nity. They did it zealously and faithfully, though 
exposed to fines, imprisonment, and loss of living. 
Even in Connecticut, the Episcopalians were allowed 
to preach and collect hearers, erect churches, and 
form ecclesiastical societies, in opposition to the 
established ministers and churches. The law was 
therefore partial, inconsistent, and highly persecu- 
ting. 

Another circumstance, of a character equally 
illiberal, occurred about the same period as the 
enactment of these obnoxious laws. Two young 
men, of the name of Cleveland, were students at 
Yale College. Their parents had separated, with 
others, from the ministry of a Mr. Coggswell, at 
Canterbury, and had attended meetings at a private 
house. These young gentlemen, while at home 
during the vacation in September, attended the sepa- 
rate meetings with their parents. One of them, it 
seems, was a member of the separate church. For 
this, and their neglect to confess their fault in that 
respect, they were both expelled from college. The 
expulsion of these yoimg men made a great clamour 
in the state, as unprecedented and cruel. It was 
considered as a severity exceeding the law of college 
respecting that case. The president and tutors 
allowed young men of the church of England, and 
of other denominations, to be in college without 
renoxmcing their principles : the treatment of these 
young men was therefore considered as partial, 
severe, and unjust. It began to be perceived, by 
many, that people had a right to worship God 
according to the dictates of their own consciences, 
and at such times, and in such places, as they plea- 
sed ; that this was the principle on which the pro- 
testants and puritans acted, and the only one on 
which their separation and conduct could be justified. 
They discovered, that if christian legislatures and 
councils had a right to appoint the modes and places 
of worship, and confine Christians to them, that then 
the papists, and church of England, had a right to 



I 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



97 



bind all Christians to worship with them, and the 
reformers and puritans were totally wrong, and the 
persecutions raised against them were just. Hence 
they rejected the constitution, as then understood 
and acted upon, and the laws as really tyrannical and 
persecuting.* 

This circumstance tended considerably to mcrease 
the dissatisfaction which had already evinced itself by 
several separations from the established church, and 
these now became more frequent and extensive. The 
ministers of the separatists were exposed to continual 
persecution at Canterbury. Some of them were ar- 
rested, condemned, and sentenced to be bound in a 
bond of a hundred pounds not to offend again in 
the like manner ; but as they conceived it was their 
indispensable duty to exhort and teach the people, 
and as they determined to teach and exhort when 
they should have opportunity, they would not give 
bonds, and so were committed to prison, and kept a 
long time from their families, and from the worship 
and communion of their brethren, and endured much 



* " The acl of the legislature, and the proceedings in conse- 
quence of it towards ministers and others, and the procedure at 
college, were repugnant to the sentiments of Mr. Locke, and all 
the best writers on toleration. The intolerant spirit of the president 
and governors of college at that time, will appear from an atfair 
which happened soon after the law was made to prevent disorders, 
&c. A number of the senior class in college set a subscription on 
foot for the reprinting of Mr. Locke's essay on toleration, and ob- 
tained a considerable number of subscribers, and were about to en- 
gage, or had engaged, for the reprinting of it. The president found 
it out, and reprimanded thetn for such a piece of conduct, and or- 
dered them to make a public confession for what they had done, or 
else they should not have their degrees. They all made their con- 
fessions but one ; he was of age, and a man of considerable pro- 
perty, and had some knowledge of the credit of Mr. Locke's wri- 
tings, and of that tract in particular, and he would make no con- 
fession for his attempts to obtain the reprinting of such a tract. 
The day before commencement he found his name was not in the 
catalogue of his class, who were to have their degrees ; he waited 
on the president and corporation to know the reason why his name 
was not in the catalogue ; he was told that he had been in the mis- 
chievous business of carrying about subscriptions for the reprinting 
of Mr. Locke on toleration. Ele told them he was of age, and had 
property, and if he could not have his degree, he would appeal to 
the king in council; that he had an attorney, and would enter it 
soon. Some time after, a freshman was sent to him, acquainting 
him that the president and corporation wished to see him. He 
waited on them, and they treated him with much complaisance, 
and told him to appear with his class, and take his degree." — 
Trumbull, vol. ii. p. 183. 

t To know well the origin of our early institutions, and those 
shades of djflerence which mark different portions of the Union, 
In legard to our religious and literary establishments; and, also, 
the cause of certain sectional feelings or prejudices, now less felt 
than formerly, is a subject of some interest. We profess not to 
be able, in every case, to give complete satisfaction, but we hope, 
in the e.x.amination of this subject, to show, generally, the origin 
of our institutions, to develop the character of the first settlers of 
our country, and to exhibit the causes which have given certain 
sectional traits to our people. 

We praise our ancestors, and deservedly too, for our literary, 
moral, and religious institutions ; but when we examine the sub- 
ject with accuracy, we shall know what, and how much, to attri- 
bute to accident, and what to design. "To do this, we must look 



hardship in their long confinement. Others were ar- 
rested and imprisoned for refusing to pay their min- 
ister's rates which were laid upon them, though they 
had protested against his settlement, and withdrawn 
themselves wholly from his ministry. Others had 
their cattle and goods taken and sold at half their 
value, to pay for the support of the minister of the 
parish. These violent measures, instead of checking 
the separation, and conciliating the minds of the peo- 
ple, alienated them more and more from the constitu- 
tion and standing churches, and confirmed them in 
their belief that they were right, and actually suffering 
in tlie cause of christian liberty. 

The persevering opposition of the dissenters, though 
a circumstance of great annoyance to a large portion 
of the community, was attended with results, remote 
indeed, yet highly beneficial. It put to the test the 
principles on wliich the Connecticut establishment 
was founded ; its constitution has consequently under- 
gone successive modifications, until it has been render- 
ed far more worthy of a liberal and enlightened state.! 



to the parent country, and ascertain, with brevity, the religious, 
and political stale of England previous to the settlement of this 
country, and see with what motives and feelings our progenitors 
were induced to leave their native land, where were deposited the 
ashes of their ancestors, and dissolve all the ties of home and 
friendship, and emigrate to a wilderness, separated from the mo- 
ther country by a great ocean. 

We go back to the time of Henry VIII., and take a short view 
of the state of religion from that period to the time of the first 
settlements in our own country. During this period changes were 
effected which dissolved the ties by which England was held to the 
papal See, and created other sects, which equally dissented from 
the prolestant episcopal church of England. 

At the commencement of the reign of Henry, the whole Chris- 
tian world acknowledged the supremacy of the Pope, and every 
crowned head did him homage and received his dominions of him. 
In fact, all countries were considered the dominions and actual pa- 
trimony of his holiness. 

Perhaps no prince was ever more devoted to the representative 
of St. Peter than Henry VIII. The holy father pressed him to his 
bosom as his most faithful child. Henry wrote a hook in vindica- 
tion of the Pope's supremacy in temporal and spiritual affairs, and 
in answer to Martin Luther, a monk, who wrote and preached 
against the sale of indulgences by Leo X. For this act of filial de- 
votion, Henry, in addition to his other splendid titles, received from 
his holiness that of " defender of the faith," a mark of confidence 
not before or since bestowed on any monarch. This appendage he 
bore with peculiar complacency during his reign, and handed it 
down to his successors. 

But that capricious monarch received an affront from the Pope, 
because he refused to grant him a divorce from his queen, Catha- 
rine of Arragon. He openly renounced all subjection to his holi- 
ness, and actually declared war against him. He breasted the 
spiritual thunders of the Vatican, which in former times had 
shook the most powerful kingdoms, and humbled to the dust the 
proudest monarchs. Henry seized upon the revenues of the church, 
which were considered sacred, and converted them to his own use j 
besides this, he put himself at the head of the English church, 
without materially affecting any articles of faith or forms of 
worship. 

This was then considered by the Christian world a wicked and 
blasphemous usurpation ; and the life of Henry, as well as many 
subsequent monarchs of England, would badly fit them to stand 
at the head of those who minister at the altar of the living God 



98 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



But the course pursued served in a degree to diminish the amount 
of general reverence for the Pope, and the head of the British 
church. IVlany were led to examine the pretensions of both, and 
lo discard the arrogance of morials, who should dictate creeds and 
forms of worship. But at this period, there was universally adopt- 
ed this principle, by all sects, that uniformity of faith was indis- 
pensable to religion. It never entered their minds, that honest men 
could come to diiferent results upon so momentous and so im- 
portant a subject. Wickliff, Huss, Jerome of Prague, Luther, and 
Calvin, and their respective followers, were equally sure of infal- 
libility with the King and the Pope. They seem never to have 
seriously thought or actually believed, that the great object of the 
Christian religion was to make mankind lead pure and honest 
lives, and extend the principles of charity and benevolence, to in- 
culcate forgiveness to enemies, and give a confident hope in the 
hour of death. Hence we may trace the cruel persecutions in- 
flicted by the dominant sects in succeeding reigns. 

Edward, the successor of Henry, is represented to have been a 
mild and amiable prince, but his reign was short. He died before 
schemes of ambition and the pomp of power had corrupted his 
heart or inflamed his passions. He left the throne to Mary, with- 
out ameliorating the condition of ecclesiastical affairs. His suc- 
cessor was wholly devoted to the papal See. She threw herself 
into the arms of his holiness, and laboured lo atone for the heresy 
of her falher, by a prodigal use of fire and sword, to produce uni- 
formity in faith and worship, according lo the canons of the Ro- 
mish church. All who perished in Ihese religious conflicts, were 
believed by their respective sects to have fallen martyrs to the true 
faith ; so that, in every change of power, the lines of party be- 
came distinct, and the parties more confirmed in a failh as positive 
as actual knowledge. 

Elizabeth, the successor of Mary, possessing all the masculine 
virtues, without a moderate share of the qualities which render 
the woman amiable in private life, was equally tenacious of pre- 
rogative as her father, Henry, and exerted her power to stop the 
progress of popery, — seated herself at the head of the church, and 
remained undisturbed in this seat during her long, and to the peo- 
ple of England, happy reign. She appears (o have been more than 
half a Papist ; but the love of power would not permit her to sub- 
mit to the supremacy of the Pope. She treated the dissenters with 
great rigour, and placed them without the pale of law and hu- 
manity. The dissenters increased in numbers, in proportion to 
their persecutions and hardships. But the vigilant energy of the 
government, and her unyielding nature, made the bravest dissent- 
ers timid. Uniformity in religious faith and worship, was with her 
a grand and unvarying object ; but, in many instances, much re- 
laxation was granted to the Papists. 

This change from popery to protestantism efl^ected by Henry, 
and from protestantism lo popery by Mary, and protestantism re- 
stored by Elizabeth, appeared more the result of human pride, 
policy, and passion, than the effect of divine wisdom. Contradic- 
tory systems always tend to destroy each other ; and especially 
when they have been advocaled and enforced by the physical 
strength of a whole kingdom. When the rights oi^ both contend- 
ing parties were examined, these several claims weighed, and the 
balance struck, nothing remained for either, except what was re- 
tained by the arm of power. Hence, in England, were many who 
disregarded the claims of both, and threw ofi" the imposing forms 
of established worship, and established one of Iheir own. These 
were principally the followers of Calvin. They intended to insti- 
tute a pure and spiritual worship, unshackled by the canons and 
rescripts of human invention ; and it seems to be granted by all 
writers of the day, that the lives of these people were more in con- 
formity with the strict rules of moral duty, than that of any other 
sect in the kingdom; and from this they assuuied the name of Pu- 
ritans, and were known by that appellation till long after the emi- 
gration of a portion of them to this country. But it should be re- 
membered that at this time they were few in number — a weak and 
inefficient minority. They could hardly be said to have acted 
themselves from the spontaneous impulse of principle and chasten- 
ed feeling, for they were continually surrounded by spies and in- 
formers, to drag them to imprisonment, scourging, and death. It 
is impossible that we should discern a complete development of 
their principles; for, however daring and bold, they inust have act- 



ed under a partial disguise ; undoubtedly much of human passion 
was enlisted on their side, for it is in our nature, and never has 
been on neutral ground in long and protracted controversy. How- 
ever, we must behold them with admiration for their courage, 
which nothing can overawe, and for Iheir constancy and zeal, 
which could brave danger, imprisonment, and death. Neal, in his 
history of the Puritans, gives a detail of the hardships and suflfer- 
ings of this sect, during the reign of Elizabeth, so cruel, that what- 
ever allowances we make for the times and circumstances attend- 
ing ihem, we must see the unrelenting hand of a despot in a prin- 
cess, where softness and sympathy might have been expected. The 
accumulated weight of distress heaped upon this class of Christ- 
ians in England, France, and Germany, form a catalogue of hor- 
rors useful only lo teach us moderation and forbearance in religious 
controversies; and that religion is a matter of conscience, and lies 
between inan and his Maker. 

James I., the successor of Elizabeth, came to the throne with as 
high notions of his unlimited power as any of his predecessors. 
His right to control the faith and consciences of men, was not to 
be questioned. James was a good natured prince, and valued him- 
self much for learning, and his power of discussion upon all sub- 
jects. His object in matters of religion, was complete uniformity 
in failh and modes of worship, the reasonableness of which he at- 
tempted to show by argument. It seems that here he was unsuc- 
cessful; but what he wanted in argument and the arts of persua- 
sion, he made up by absolute power ; but this argument, enforced 
by power, did not convince or deter the unyielding Puritans. They 
held fast their determination to enjoy freedom in religion, and held 
equally fast the belief, that they were correct in matters of failh 
and worship ; so delermined and so confident were Ihey in their 
principles, that civil liberty, disconnected with religious aflairs, was 
haidly considered. Hence we find a whole congregation, with 
their minister, Mr. Robinson, in 1607, renounced iheir country and 
all its endearments, and settled in Holland, for the sole purpose of 
enjoying religious freedom. This was a most unequivocal mark of 
their sincerity, and devotion to their favourite object. 

At this period the manners of the Puritans were rigidly austere 
— their long periods of fasting, and the length of their prayers 
and devotional exercises, approached, in severity, monkish castiga- 
tion and corporeal chastisements. Their customs led to a belief, 
that they were the peculiar favourites of Heaven, and daily had 
peculiar converse and special tokens of favour from Iheir Maker. 
But this removal to HolLindby this resolule congregation, was by no 
means suited to their feelings and principles, although ihey were 
protected in all their civil and religious rights. The manners of 
the Dulch were not sufficiently austere. The youth of this con- 
gregation w-ere insensibly drawn aside from the narrow path of 
puritanic discipline and walk in life, by the cold and frigid man- 
ners of the Dutch. The observance of the Sabbath was kept with 
a strictness surpassing the rigidity of the Jewish ceremony. Their 
fastings approached lo starvation. No wonder, then, that the youlh, 
and others who were not thoroughly saturated with enthusiasm, 
should intermix wifh the Dulch, and hail with pleasure, and even 
with gralilude to God, some relaxation from the severe ihtlies of re- 
ligion. The elders of this church were alarmed at the growing 
evil, and Ihey resolved on another removal. Their attention was 
turned to the New World, where they should not be troubled by 
heretical neighbours, and where the youlh would be kept pure from 
the contagion of loose morals. 

This ccmgregation, having obtained permission from James to 
settle in his territories, and also assurances from him of toleralion 
in religion, delermined lo encounter the perils of the ocean, the 
hardships of Ihe wilderness, and the dangers to which they must 
be exposed from Ihe savage tribes who inhabited the shores of this 
new world. James was undoubtedly willing to rid his kingdom of 
subjecls, which he could not subdue by confiscations, fines, im- 
prisonment, and death — and indeed, of such as he could nol quietly 
relain in his own kingdom. The public feeling was lired and sa- 
tiated by frequent spectacles of horror, and the prisons had groan- 
ed a long time, by being overcrowded with obstinate and confirmed 
heretics. James granted them no aid for the voyage, or any faci- 
lities for commencing a new settlement. He undoubtedly expect- 
ed that this wandering people would fall a prey tc the hardships 
and diseases incident to new settlements, or be cut off bv the na- 



II 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



99 



lives, or should any survive, their obstinacy being subdued, and 
spirits broken, they would relent, and return with humble submis- 
sion to his royal will, and bring with them a lesson and example to 
the Puritans in England, which they would learn and imitate ; or 
should they brave and surmount all the ditficultics to be expected, 
and make a permanent settlement in his waste and uncultivated 
lands, his power would be extended, and the resources of tlie na- 
tion would be increased, without any expense to the crown. 

Perhaps no course of discipline could be contrived by the inge- 
nuity of man, so well adapted to prepare the mind and feelings lor a 
great and hazardous project, as was imposed on the first settlers of 
New England in the mother country. The forty years travel of 
the children of Israel in the wilderness, directed by Deity himself, 
was not better suited to them for a forcible entry into the promised 
land. Frederick the Great never enforced a discipline upon his troops 
more .severe, nor half so salutary, to prepare them for conflict and 
victory, as was forced upon our progenitors, to fit them to settle in 
a new world. Our forefathers were familiar with danger and dis- 
tress in all its forms. They knew the lies of home and of country, 
and they had experienced the dissolution of them. They had en- 
dured poverty, cold, hunger, stripes, and imprisonment, and rose 
above them, and even death was disrobed of his terrors. Such 
■were the people who landed at Plymouth in the cold of winter, in 
1620, and of this cliaracter were the settlers generally in New 
England, firm and resolute in action, and in matters of religion, 
unyielding, and fully per.suaded in the complete rectitude of their 
own peculiar creed, without a single ray of toleration, or any thing 
like charity for those who might dilfer from themselv-es in opinion. 
They insisted, with equal force and power, to coerce opinion, and 
control matters of faith, and produce uniformity in it, as ever were 
practised by a Catholic or Protestant monarch. 

The early writers and historians of our country give us only the 
details of ecclesiastical affairs, the gathering of churches, dull and 
tininteresting accounts of ministers, church disturbances, the sup- 
pression of heresy, and barbarous and cruel punishments inflicted 
against it, and various bloody conflicts with the Indians. But 
enough is told us to lead to a correct knowledge of the nature of 
the government, and of the spirit of the times. We have often 
been told, that our first settlers were a race of stern republicans, 
who came here to enjoy civil and religious freedom. But no opi- 
nion is more erroneous. It is true they came here to enjoy their 
own peculiar system of religious faith and mode of worship, but 
not to admit or tolerate any other. Our republican feelings, insti- 
tutions, and habits, which made us free, were purely accidental, and 
were by no means designed by the first settlers. 

In 1629, about three hundred emigrants arrived at Salem from 
England, where they found a few families under the care of Mr. 
Endicott. These families undoubtedly were there to attend to the 
fisheries and carry on a traffic with the natives. Mr. Hutchinson says, 
in the ten succeeding years, more than twenty-one thousand settlers 
came to New England. About 1640, emigration ceased, owing to 
the ascendancy of the puritanic party in England, headed by the 
famous Oliver Cromwell. 

The first General Court in the Province of Massachusetts Bay 
was held in 1629, on board the ship Arabella, moored in Charles 
River. This court resolved that every elector, or any person eligi- 
ble to office, should be a member of some regular church. This 
edict, so often praised, made the government purely ecclesiastical. 
The power of the church to punish heresy, afterwards so frequently 
exercised, and also to determine, in all cases, what heresy was, laid 
prostrate all civil liberty. We shall notice the exercise of this 
power hereafter in several instances. There can be no question, 
that nearly all the males of every congregation would become mem- 
bers of the church, and it was in fact a stigma upon a man then, 
as it would be now, not to possess the rights and privileges of his 
neighbour. All offices were then elective, and we may presume, 
that office then had charms, as well as at the present age. Office 
seekers then had their views to subserve, and the requisite means 
at hand, as they have at the present day. If long prayers, absti- 
nence, and a piteous whine, were required to obtain an object, they 
were as readily performed, as professions of love of country and 
(he happiness of the nation are made in the present state of our 
republic. We may, perhaps, calculate the amount of sincerity in 
tlie early professors, as we now may calculate the amount of pa- 



triotism of those who make lond and noisy professions of it. In 
both cases, perhaps, much credit will be given, but the man of ex- 
perience will not be bound beyond the conclusions formed by the 
honest dictates of his own mind. 

To repel the attacks of the Indians, to acquire their lands, and 
to guard against the various avenues where heresy might advance 
and make encroachments upon their religious system, were the 
only public employments of our ancestors. They were nearly as 
hostile to the deluded and mistaken heretic, as to the savage, arm- 
ed with his tomahawk and scalping knife. It is true, that the he- 
retic was first ordered to recant and renounce his wicked and er- 
roneous opinions, but on refusal he was doomed to banishment, and 
on a return to the province was to suffer death. But with the In- 
dians there was not perpetual war ; there were times cf peace and 
a friendly interchange of kind offices between them and the whites, 
but there was neither truce nor peace with heretics. 

In 1634, Roger Williams, who had been a distinguished minis- 
ter at Plymoutli, and afterwards at Salem, was banished the colony 
for holding many exceptionable tenets. He was enthusiastic in hi.s 
sentiments, and had in great abhorrence every relic of popery, and 
any conformity to the protestant episcopal church of England ; yet 
he was no persecutor. His declared opinion was, " that to punish 
a man for any matters of conscience is persecution." His attach- 
ment to this principle, so worthy of an enlightened mind, was fully 
evinced by his subsequent life and conduct. Mr. Williams went 
south, without the jurisdiction of the province, and settled in a 
place, now Providence. He obtained a charter from the crown of 
a district called Providence Plantations, of which he was a long 
time governor. Here he displayed all the mild and Christian vir- 
tues. His province was the asylum of the oppressed and perse- 
cuted of all sects and denominations. Mr. Williams possessed a 
mind more than a'century and a half in advance, in liberality and 
manlj'lhinking, to his conlempoiaries in New England. His exam- 
ple is scarcely equalled in brightness at the present day. It is true 
we have not at present actual persecution in matters of religion or 
conscience, yet the hollow murmur of heresy too often rolls through 
the gloomy recesses of the dark, and its labours sometimes are ex- 
posed to the light, attended with the fierce and intolerant spirit of 
ancient times. 

The case of Mrs. Hutchinson is worthy of consideration, since 
it shows more unequivocally the temper of the times, the state of 
the church, and the important and religious triflings of synods and 
councils, composed of the civil and religious dignitaries of the co- 
lony. Mrs. Ann Hutchinson came to Boston, in 1636. Her hus- 
band was a man of good estate, and of much note and esteem 
among the people. He several times represented the town in Ge- 
neral Court. She was a woman of good education, of a lively 
imagination, and of distinguished zeal and piety. She attracted 
much attention in Boston, was greatly caressed by Sir Harry Vane, 
Ihe governor, and treated with marked respect by Mr. Cotton and 
Mr. Wheelwright, two very distinguished ministers of that day. 
Her house became the resort of religious females, to whom Mrs. 
H. expounded the Scriptures, and made her remarks upon the ser- 
mons recently delivered. She was greatly extolled for learning 
and an aident piety. At her lectures, she had an attentive and 
crowded auditory. Whether her popularity gave the alarm to the 
ministers of the other sex, who chose rather that women should 
listen and obey— or that the good lady actually stepped aside from 
the narrow and mysterious path of prescribed faith, we have not 
sufficient documentary evidence to determine. But certain it is, 
that she was charged with heresy, and brought before the gover- 
nor, deputy governor, and council of assistants, Ihe teachers and 
elders of the churches, assembled in conclave at Cambridge. A 
historian of that day says, " the heresy she propagated divided the 
people, and came near bringing destruction upon church and state." 
" Fortunately," says he, " by the vigilance and prudence of Go- 
vernor Winthrop, the evils' and mischiefs of her heresy were 
brought upon herself" 

This grave and dignified assembly continued in session at Cam- 
bridge for three weeks; and all this time they spent in fervent 
prayer for divine light and direction, and in interrogatories put to 
the accused with all the subtlety peculiar to scholastic divinity. 
Every member of this synod was a grave inquisitor ; and what is 
remarkable in this transaction, is, that a female, unassisted by 



100 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



counsel, should be able to stand this length of time in presence of 
this most dignified and learned body, and answer, defend and reply to 
it, individually and collectively. The council must have been 
gieatly embarrassed; and this is manifest from the long period of 
its session. But the charge of heresy was a crime hard to defend, 
and we have no records of a complete acquittal in such a case. At the 
conclusion, the synod foimd that Mrs. Hutchinson entertained more 
than eighty heretical opinions in matters of religion ! These opi- 
nions she was ordered to recant and renounce, under the penalty of 
excommunication and banishment from the jurisdiction of the pro- 
vince, and not to return under pain of death ! Mrs. Hutchinson 
did not renoimce to the satisfaction of the church, and she left the 
province according to sentence. 

Our grave historian does not inform us how many correct opi- 
nions this lady had, but charity would lead us to conclude that she 
had some. So plain are Christian precepts and Christian doctrine, 
that it is a matter of surprise, that a person could entertain more 
than eighty distinct heresies. "We have not the curiosity to inquire 
mori! particularly into the doctrines or discipline of the church at 
that time. It is apparent that much, and perhaps the greater part, 
was mere serious and holy trifling, wherein the heart and tmder- 
standing had very little to do. 

It is manifest frcm history, that the inquisitorial powers and ar- 
bitrary proceedings of the Cambridge synod, were not wholly ap- 
proved by the people. They must have seen the hand of oppres- 
sion in the long and protracted inquiry, and cruelty in the sen- 
tence pronounced against Mrs. Hutchinson. This may be fairly 
inferred from the nature of the transaction, unless we .suppose the 
last feeling of sympathy and the generosity natural to man to be 
wholly extinct. That this council was censured is evident; for at 
the next general court a law passed rendering it highly penal for 
any person to censure or comment upon the doings of ministers or 
magistrates. It was tantamount to saying that ministers and ma- 
gistrates " could do no wrong." 

It was expected that numbers of Mrs. Hutchinson's friends and 
adherents were on the eve of embarking to this country. This 
gave alarm to the people, and that they might guard against so 
great an evil, in 1637 the general court took the matter into hand. 
They intended to preserve entire the absolute power of the church 
at the expense of humanity and ordinary justice. The general 
court passed a severe law against entertaining strangers in their 
houses, or selling lands to them, or affording aid, as, we now con- 
ceive, the common principles of humanity enjoin. By the two laws 
above mentioned, the right of expressing an opinion of censure, or 
making any comments upon the doings of ministers or magistrates, 
and of showing hospitality and kindness to strangers, were wholly 
taken away and rendered highly penal. It would require a won- 
derful degree of chymical knowledge in politics and religion, to 
find a single principle, upon which our republican liberty of any 
kind could claim growth and residence at this time. For the liber- 
ties of our country we must look to other sources than the princi- 
ples of our ancestors at that day, or till long after the restoration 
of Charles II. For the government was completely ecclesiastical, 
and equally arbitrary and despotic as any government in all Chris- 
tendom. 

Our early historians dwelt much upon remarkable providences, 
and the frowns and favours of God; so that His clear and manifest 
counsels were open and known to the people. If a heretic should 
die of a fever, break a limb, be taken captive by the Indians, or 
killed by them, they would see, in all this, the just anger of Hea- 
ven, and deserved punishment and displeasure of God towards 
them. Should the same pious historians revisit New England, and 
see the great variety of sects, and not one pursuing the course of 
the then dominant party, they would think that our Heavenly Fa- 
ther had neglected his business, and ceased from his watchful care ; 
otherwise we should all have been exterminated without distinc- 
tion, for having violated the primitive and puritanic faith. They 
might bewail our departure, but if they possessed the kindly feel- 
ings of humanity, they would rejoice to see errors corrected, 
abuses reformed, and the principles of justice and charity widely 
extended; so that, except in some strongly excited people, shadow- 
ed by ignorance and strong and gloomy prepossessions, the different 
sects live in harmony', without any provocation, unless it be " to 
provoke one another to love and good works " 



Our ancestors separated from all other religious sects by their 
own acts, and guarding at every corner against heresy, soon be- 
came sensible that time would shortly lessen the number of elders 
and teachers, and many more would be required lO supply destitute 
flocks, daily increasing by natural growth of population, and by 
emigration. Those who could aflbrd to send their sons to the 
mother country for an education, would not harbour the thought 
of exposing them to the heresies of the established church of Eng- 
land ; and above all, on their return to the province, these sons 
would be a medium to communicate doctrines so much detested. 
There were very few in the province of sufficient wealth to give 
their sons an education in a distant country. All these circum- 
stances combined, our progenitors looked to their own resources, 
and resolved to educate their sons at home for the ministry, the 
only liberal profession of that day, and in fact, all that was great 
and good in society. For this purpose, a college was established 
I in Cambridge as early as the year 1638, for the sole and expres.*: 
purpose of educating and raising up a learned ministry. Common 
and public schools were also established, that the youth might be 
able to read the scriptures and the standard works of puritanic 
faith and discipline in our churches. 

Cotton Mather, who wrote voluminously and reasoned sparingly, 
if he reasoned at all, states explicitly the object of the founders of 
our college, and the object of our common and public schools. 
This writer says nothing upon the principles of civil liberty, nor 
does he any where advocate the rights of conscience and private 
judgment in matters of religion. These were unknown in his day, 
and his writings serve only to show the darkness of the mental at- 
mosphere. Dr. Mather filled a great space in his time, both in 
church and state — for church included both. In his writings we 
have specimens of the greatest fanaticism, the most shameless cre- 
dulity, that ever escaped the lips or pen of mortals. His account 
of the flying vessel and the Salem witchcraft, and the latter upon 
his own knowledge, are enough to give a lasting stamp upon his 
own character, and mark in capitals the spirit of the times. We 
hope not to offend by our remarks; but we would rather wish that 
our institutions, so wisely calculated for the happiness of our na- 
tion, and as blazing examples to the world, should be traced to their 
true and legitimate sources. AVe have so long been in the habit of 
extolling our brave and venerable forefathers, as if they came pure 
from the regions of blessedness, pious, devout, and patriotic, that 
they with political foresight laid the foundation of our republican 
liberties, that we shall not be disappointed if we do not obtain full 
credence, when we state, that our liberties, both civil and religious, 
were accidental, rather than designed. We have no need to call 
to our aid any thing like a fabulous origin of our race — we have 
no need of a " she u-olf" to nurture our ancestors, or to cany off 
in a tempest the founders of our churches. We have only to fol- 
low the march of mind, attended with local circumstances, to ac- 
count for our freedom and our goodly institutions. We ought to 
value highly every thing done by our fathers, the fruits of which 
we daily reap ; but by no means ought we to suppose that our an- 
cestors had powers and faculties, or wisdom, superior to those of 
the present generation — for we must remember, that their whole 
business was to repel the Indians, and acquire possession of their 
lands, to preserve uniformity of faith and practice in matters of re- 
ligion, and to guard with sleepless vigilance against heresy. 

It is not the present object to censure with severity the acts of 
the ecclesiastic government of the colony, and much less to apolo- 
gize for them. We could not offer any thing to extenuate the 
cruelty, or even guilt, of punishing four Quakers in Boston, with 
death, about the year 1660, for heresy. This rigour in discipline 
has often been passed over, if not with applause, certainly with the 
plea of necessity— this necessity we could never understand. Dr. 
Increase Mather, once a promoter of these cruel and bloody pro- 
ceedings, in time relented, and denounced this intolerant spirit. 
The colonies of Plymouth and Massachusetts obtained no advan- 
tages by such proceedings over Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and 
Maryland, where religious persecutions have never been known. 
Governor Winthrop, in the last days of his life, when urged to sign 
a warrant, to carry into effect the decrees of spiritual domina- 
tion, said, " I have done too much of this business already," and 
refused his signature. When such men as Governor Winthrop 
and Dr. increase Mather, in the cool of the evening of life, when 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



101 



objects of earthly power were in subjection to reason and con- 
science, gave their decided and unequivocal opinion against cruel 
coercion in matters of faith aud modes of worship, what must we 
think of those of the present day, who stand their professed apolo- 
gists, and represent the present, compared with former times, as the 
period of impiety and irreligion t 

We know that our fathers have been praised with the extrava- 
gance of eulogy, and we acknowledge that they have strong claims 
upon us for respect and reverential regard, but we cannot bestow 
upon them any thing of commendation for piety and love of reli- 
gion beyond what now belongs to the present age. We would ask the 
most enthusiastic admirer of the puritans, whether he would now 
desire to exchange his turn of existence, and spend his life with 
such a people, or wait and stay with the present veneration, till he 
returned to the dust 1 We believe that he woulu not be inclined 
for a change, and we are confident that the present circumstances 
of our country are such, that no period since the first settlement of 
it has been equally propitious to the man of science, tlie artisan, 
agriculturist, and merchant. The man of benevolence and charity 
will hail the present as the holyday of holy affections, compared 
to any former period. We, in fact, belittle ourselves, as did many 
of the Patrician families in Rome, by a constant strain of panegyric 
upon our venerable forefathers, and pious pilgrims. 

Liberty is natural lo man, and we can scarcely find an instance 
since the creation of Adam, that man has not exercised that li- 
berty when in his power. Our ancestors did this, and were cau- 
tious in leaving a single trace of neglect in their course. But they 
did no more than what has been done in the mother coimtry. The 
British parliament from the time of King John, when they wrested 
from him his magna charter, which he nor his successors ever ob- 
served, unless in extreme peril, and to avoid a revolution, have 
seized upon every circumstance to extend the liberty of the subject. 
Even what the British call their constitution at the present day, is 
an invasion upon what was once the acknowledged rights of the 
king. The increase of knowledge, directing physical force, is the 
origin of modern liberty ; and this j^jerty is more or less extensively 
enjoyed according to the degree of knowledge and other accompa- 
nying circumstances favourable or unfavourable to the attainment 
of the object. The love of liberty was as great in Britain at the 
commencement of our revolution as in America, but circumstances 
in regard to the enjoyment of it were different in these two portions 
of the world. 

We would not here be understood that Great Britian was then 
mled in despotism. The person, property, and reputation of the 
subject, were as well secured and protected at that period in the 
realm, as at any subsequent time, in this or any other country. 
Where these rights are secured by permanent and equal laws, 
aided by the trial by jury, there must be liberty, let the form of go- 
vernment be what it may. We have, in a great measure, in poli- 
tics, said what our ancestors often repeated in regard to religion, 
that pone could be genuine, except the one of our o-n-n creed. The 
object of religion is to make men good, and the object of govern- 
ment is to make the governed secure in their rights, promote in- 
dustry, encourage learning and enterprise, and make (he naticm 
contented, safe, and happy. When these objects are attained, the 
names and forms are of minor consideration. The mind of man 
has never been able to devise a system of government so well adapt- 
ed to the feelings, habits, and circumstances of a people, as our 
own is for us ; but we should greatly err, should we suppose that 
our constitution and form of government were suited, under exist- 
ing circumstances, to almost any other nation in the world. 

Prom the first landing of our ancestors, in New England, till the 
year 1692, if we except the rule of Sir Edmund Andros, which 
lasted about two years, all officers were elective. Plymouth and 
the Massachusetts colonies were as free in the management of their 
affairs in the election and support of their rulers, as the Common- 
wealth is now. The lands were parcelled out in such manner that 
every one had enough, and few had any to spare. A monopoly 
was not sought, except by Mason and Gorges, who probably failed 
in the accomplishment of their wishes, for this very reason. In- 
dustry and rigid economy were requisite among the early settlers, 
to obtain the means of subsistence. Almost every settler had a 
freehold estate, that he would claim as absolute property — he had 
no tithes, rents, or service to perform, as the condition of his te- 



nure. This raised him to the dignity of a peer of the realm, in 
all respects, but a seat m the house of lords. He acknowledged 
himself a loyal subject, but fell no gratitude to the king, for he or 
his ancestors never received any acts of parental kindness for which 
they should return any sincere acknowledgments. The story of the 
wrongs which were suffered at home, and the actual labours and 
hardships endured here, without aid or assistance, were enough to 
extinguish all sincere regard for king, queen, lords, and commons; 
and above all, the abhorrence with which they beheld the religion 
of the court, amoimted to absolute hatred. 

But from the influence which the French had with the natives, 
the common enemies of the whites, by means of the Jesuits, our 
ancestors could look only to the mother country for aid in case of 
extremity. This almost continual and common danger operated 
powerfully to restrain and keep within bounds the commcn and 
uniform feelings of the colonists towards the parent country. The 
great number of people, to whom our ancestors were connected by 
family and friendship, at hovie, was another tie which bound them 
to remember Great Britain with partial affection. Our fathers had 
much more loyalty upon their lips than was felt in their hearts. 
Until the arrival of the new charter under William and Mary, ex- 
cepting the short government of Andros, the colonies exercised all 
the rights and privileges they could desire, and these continued lor 
a period of more than sixty years. Many of the settlers were born 
and bred with this free exercise of right ; so that they could not be 
divested of it, without an invasion of their best and dearest pri- 
vileges. The crown took care to control their commerce, and pro- 
fit by it. The duties levied on goods in England, exported to the 
colonies, were acquiesced in without a murmur, and these duties be- 
ing paid by the consumer, were scarcely felt or thought of here. 

Sir William Phipps, the first governor under the charter of 
AVilliam and Mary, arrived here in 1692. By this charter, the 
governor, deputy governor, and secretary, were appointed by the 
crown. The judicial department was appointed by the executive, 
at the head of which was the governor, who represented majesty 
itself The people chose their representatives, who, in general 
court, elected a council, to assist in executive duties. The general 
court could make no laws to have any force or effect, if the crown 
should disapprove of them within three years from the time they 
were enacted. Power was reserved to parliament, to make laws, 
to regulate our trade, and legislate for us in other cases; and these 
statutes were to be binding upon us. This charter prohibited any 
religious test in regard to the elective franchise. By this, an end 
was put to ecclesiastical tyranny ; and from the time the provisions 
of this charter went into operation, we may date the cry of the de- 
cay of religion in our country. We may also, with more truth, 
state the gradual decay of hypocri.sy, and from this period, the 
commencement of bold and correct reasoning, and the introduction 
of common law and common sense in courts of justice. By all 
these our liberties were deeply rooted, had their growth, and have 
arrived to maturity. 

When Governor Phipps came here, he found the colonies dis- 
tracted with ecclesiastical matters, at the old business of hunting 
out and punishing heresy, to the almost total neglect of civil affairs. 
Although the people were deprived of a voice in the choice of 
some of their rulers, they gained much in other respects. They 
•were freed from ecclesiastical domination, under which republi- 
can liberty never has, and probably never will be enjoj-ed. The 
one depends on an accurate development of our natural rights, and 
the methods to make them secure against passion, pride, avarice, 
and hostile attacks at home, and from our enemies abroad ; the 
other depends whollv upon the credulity of the people, and a com- 
plete surrender of private judgment and the reasoning powers to 
fallible man, inflated with spiritual pride, and armed with physical 
force. 

This charter, framed with so much caution as to restrain the co- 
lony in all acts of legislation, unless these acts were conformable 
to ro3'al will and pleasure, left not a trace of liberty to the subject. 
The resistance to the measures of Great Britain afterwards made 
by the colonists, could not he for a violation of any rights secured 
by this charter. The rights exercised under former charters were 
expressly taken away by this ; but the love and fondness of former 
rights and privileges were increased by privation, and enkindled 
into a flame the bosoms of the thinking and intelligent men of our 



102 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



counlry. They saw nothing but complete and absolute subjection 
which awaited tliem. The habits of the people firmly fixed, and 
the great inci-ease of population, and a good share of knowledge 
generally dilTused among them, and this knowledge, and those ha- 
bits, all favourable to resist encroachments upon natural rights, ex- 
cited the jealousy of Britain, and caused her to adopt measures 
that could not be borne, and such measures as were successfully re- 
sisted. 

In practice and in principle, the colony lost nothing, but gained 
much in the emancipation from religious tyranny. Whatever of 
liberty had been granted was enjoyed, while practicable, and was 
never forgotten. The recollection of past privileges remained in 
their miiids, fresh as the existence of perpetual spring. These 
feelings and habits were not to be controlled by charters, and they 
afford a lasting example of the complete futility of compacts of a 
national character, when these compacts are opposed to national 
habits and feelings. In the great question which separated this 
country from Britain, our fathers did not confine themselves to the 
provisions of the charter of William and Mary, but claimed the 
right of representation in parliament, as a condition upon which a 
revenue should be raised in this country for the use of the crown. 
This representation they knew was impracticable ; and in regard 
to the revenue, it had been imposed upon them by exactions at 
home, and acquiesced in for a long period. In fact, our remon- 
strances and petitions acknowledged the right of parliament "to 
regulate our trade," even at the commencement of the American 
revolution. This undoubtedly meant the imposition of import and 
export duties. We cannot see any difference in principle, whether 
these duties were collected in a port of Great Britain, or in 
Boston. 

But the difference of places in the exaction of revenue could 
not alter the principle on which it was exacted ; yet place had a 
powerful effect upon the minds of the scrutinizing and watchful 
public. Our leading men knew the power and influence which 
office has upon the people ; they knew that these revenue officers 
were numerically so many spies upon their liberties ; and that by 
style of livmg and caresses, these officers would allure some, and 
by that hauteur and manner, the frequent concomitant of hand- 
some salaries, would deter more to a complete acquiescence to the 
raising a revenue here. The resistance to the acts of these exact- 
ors shows a degree of sagacity in meeting the insinuatmg influence 
of men of rank, from the highest grade down to the petty place- 
man, and must command our admiration and applause. 

The great Earl of Chatham, Burke, and others, who knew well 
our character, and who were the reputed advocates of the colonies, 
never pretended that parliament had invaded chartered rights; but 
the measures pursued by ministers were inexpedient and impolitic, 
that they had a direct tendency to exasperate the colonists, and in- 
jure the dignity and happiness of the British nation. They re- 
commended measures to soothe our feelings and hold fast our trade, 
but not to surrender a single principle for which we then contend- 
ed. Had such measures been adopted and pursued, as recom- 
mended by the noble earl, the independence of the colonies would 
have been retarded for more than half a century. The leaders of 
our revolutionary struggle claimed rights and privileges granted by 
former charters, which had been annulled, and reasoned from the 
impulse of habits, and upon the true principles of civil liberty, and 
they came to results which gained our complete emancipation. 
With them independence was the grand object from the first and 
serious difficulties with the parent country. We presented humble 
and loyal petitions to king and parliament with one hand, while we 
held the sword in the other. It is not a matter of astonishment, 
that these petitions were not graciously received. Had the colo- 
nies been sufficiently strong, and their strength sufficiently concen- 
trated, these humble petitions would have never been sent across 
the Atlantic, nor would the date of Lexington battle have been the 
first in order of conflict. 

If positive resistance was not intended, wh}' were companies of 
minute men organized through the whole colony 1 What meant our 
committees of safety and correspondence 1 Why were magazines 
of warlike stores placed in various parts of the country ? And for 
what purpose were the British troops under General Gage so nar- 
rowly watched, and their particular movements made known in all 
parts of the colony, while the troops were closely besieged in Bos- 



ton by public opinion 1 Hancock, Patrick Henry, the Adamses, and 
other distinguished men of that day, knew too well the pride and 
power of the Britisli nation, to petition the throne in liope of suc- 
cess under such warlike and daring attitudes. They did what will 
be done in all countries, where the education, habits, and moral 
feelings of the people, concur to promote so noble an enterprise. 

We have seen that the foundation of Harvard College was laid 
in the fear of propagating heresy, and receiving any thing from 
the mother country which could possibly entail upon us so great an 
evil. It must be confessed, that New England, at the time of 
founding the college, had many learned men among them. But 
their learning was chiefly confined to the clergy; and we may here 
acknowledge, in sincerity, that the clergy have been the main depo- 
sitories of science here from the first settlement of the countiy, 
nearly to the present day ; and from this class of men, we have re- 
ceived more light and knowledge than from all others. Our fa- 
thers looked well to ineir own resources, and have seldom been re- 
miss in making the most of them. From this we must attribute 
the degree of advancement in science and the arts, to which New 
England has attained beyond most of her neighbours. We find 
the effect of this in the persevering enterprise of our young men 
and citizens, who have, with much advantage, incorporated them- 
selves with onr sister States. In fact, the common and general 
good has thereby been greatly increased ; an impulse has been com- 
mimicated, which will be felt for generations yet to come. 

Virginia, the oldest state in the Union, settled at the expense of 
the crown, nurtured for years as an only child, felt not the neces- 
sity to look to her own resources. She was always dandled in the 
lap of complaisance. Her religion was congenial to the mothei 
country, and she drew her nourishment from the breast of parental 
kindness. She had all the assurance and importance of the child 
of a rich and indulgent father. She sent her youth to Cambridge 
and Oxford, in England, to be educated, where they were, in many 
things well instructed, and where they drank deeply of the preju- 
dices against the puritans. To deride with ability our New Eng- 
land habits and principles, and beat poor Jonathan, soundly, was 
the first point in a complete Vireinia education. He felt the dig- 
nity of his church, he remembered with pride the loyalty of his 
colony, during the /I'wm;? and the protectorate of Cromwell, he con- 
trasted the manners in religious worship between his own and the 
colonies of New England; while he repeated his liturgy with the 
"ore rotundo," he could not but feel a hearty disrelish to the sing- 
song manner of the puritans, who distorted their faces, and tortur- 
ed their language, to resemble nothing which belonged to the protest- 
ant episcopal church. These northern peculiarities became his 
jiastime, and to transmit them down to succeeding generations, 
was a labour of some exertion and much pleasure, but at present 
exercised with limited success. 

In Massachusetts every thing which belonged to the episcopal 
church was treated as antichristian, and carried the mark of the 
beast. Christmas holydays were forbidden by law. Perhaps no 
two colonies ever existed with more strongly marked and defined 
antipathies than the Massachusetts and Virginia. Unlike in edu- 
cation and habits, the one driving from her jurisdiction all puri- 
tans, the other equally unbending and stern to all episcopalians, se- 
parated by a great extent of country, they scarcely felt for each 
other according to the dictates of a common humanity. 

While a law imposing five shillings fine for observing a Christ- 
mas holyday in Massachusetts was in force, Virginia gave full 
scope to all the festivities usual on such occasions in the mother 
country. The social and convivial feelings of man could not, with 
alacritjr, forego all pastime, and be resigned to abject sobriety in 
the foim of religion. Our ancestors well knew this, and set apart 
one day in the year, previous to Christmas, as a day of public 
thanksgiving and praise to our Heavenly Father, for the mercies 
and favours of the past year. But in this, there should be no re- 
semblance of an episcopal Christmas. We may here observe, that 
our puritanic institution answered all the purposes of bringing to- 
gether family, friends, and connexions, and afforded a multitude of 
enjoyments of the social kind in the short space of one day, before 
satiety could degenerate into disgust, and much more conveniently 
suited to good morals and the condition of the people, than the 
twelve days of Christmas observed by the episcopal church. There 
can be no doubt that we varied in our food, and substituted pump- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



103 



kin pie in room of the autichristian plumb pudding, and used some 
exertion tliat our thanksgiving should not resemble a Christmas 
dinner. Our pies, and manner of reading, and devoiional exer- 
cises, now caricatured Ijy our southern neighbours, are sufficient 
proofs that we were ofTensive to the southern colonies ; and from 
our own establishments and customs, we cannot suppose that they 
were our favourites. 

Virginia was the great mother and leader in the south. She 
was proud of her aseendency in the affections of the court, and 
took to herself a peculiar complacency in regard to religion. She 
drove from her colony all dissenters from the proteslant episcopal 
church ; and, by this ill timed and cruel policy, built up Maryland 
to become a rival in trade. In return for her affections for the 
•crown and the church, she obtained extensive credit at Aomc, im- 
ported largely the luxuries of Europe, and assumed a style of living, 
und a grandeur of dcportmen^ far beyond any sister colony. It is 
hard to retrencli wlien the CTiarms of good living are well known 
to a people. The expense of educating their sons in England, 
and by private tutors at home, was no addition to economy or 
frugal habits among the Virginians. Their expenditures were 
great beyond ordinary income, so that in time a large Eurojiean 
balance of debt had gradually increased, and amounted, accord- 
ing to their own statement, to more than they were then able to 
pay. 

While our southern friends lived in much ease and great splen- 
dour, eating the luxuries of Europe, and wearing foreign fabrics, 
and their sons drinking at the full fountains of science in England, 
we were looking well to our own resources, avoided a large co- 
lony debt, and left individuals unembarrassed in their circumstan- 
ces. Our sons drank of the wells dug by their fathers, and pre- 
served their identity with their countrymen; and if not so learned, 
they made a favourable impression upon the public on the side of 
economy and simplicity of inanner.s. All this was accomplished 
here from the fear of heresy and hatred of the epi.scopal church. 
We cannot trace the origin of our college, and the establishment 
of our schools, to other sources. This fear and hatred did not ex- 
ist in Virginia, and there public education was wholly neglected. 
The college of William and Mary was early established, but has 
had only a languishing existence. The fact is, the people took no 
degree of interest in the establishment, and sent most of iheir sons 
abroad, or without the colony, to be educated. This must ever be 
the is.sueof all literary establishments under the like circum- 
stances. 

During this period, our New England colleges were well ap- 
preciated by the people, and generously patronized ; and have 
proved sources of great moral and political worth to the public. 
From them, we have obtained a rank in the literary world be- 
yond our neighbours of the south, and the moral impulse given by 
them to all classes of people here, are such as distinguish us from 
our less fortunate neighbours. But we can by no means say, that 
these effects of education were designed, or even contemplated, 
by our ancestors — they are, in fact, the production of accident. 
We can neither believe, that the Virginia policy was so pursued to 
produce the effects already witnessed. Virginia has never been 
charged with the want of self-love and self-respect, nor with the 
want of acute discernment to ascertain h^r own interest, nor with 
not bringing forward the measures to promote it. The different 
results, in regard to education, in both Massachusetts and Virginia, 
must be attributed to accident, rather than design. Should we say 
that they were designed, we should claim a compliment for our- 
selves, of which our fathers never dreamed, and of which Cotton 
Mather, in his time, never heard, or he would have placed it in his 
Magnalia ; and at the same time, we should cast a reproach on 
Virginia, which she ought not to bear, and which she by no means 
deserves. 

But the pride and aristocracy of Virginia have been equal to 
that of lords, dukes, and nobles. She could not assume any thing 
on the score of her resources beyond her sisters, and nothing from 
her origin and ancestry, which could be subjects of boasting. 
Many, very many, were descended from mothers " who came to try 
their luck in Virginia," and were purchased by their sires with 
tobacco, at prices according to the quality and soundness of the ar- 
ticle. The resources of that commonwealth at the present day, 
and 8J her industry, hardly keep pace with the other states in the 

14 



Union. She has produced men who would do credit to an> civi- 
lized nation in the world, and one, whom we all acknowledge was 
emphatically the father of his country; yet, for many years, her in- 
I fluence in the councils of the nation has declined with the decline 
of party feeling, and her overwhelming influence and power re- 
cede in proportion to the test we have made from experience. We 
could wish to cast a veil over some portion of what has been, but 
we would by no means attribute any thing to corrupt motives. Wf: 
must blame ourselves, that we elected many to the office of public 
servants, who had Utile knowledge, and less political honesty. These 
men, without much training, stood on their ground, and kept their 
ranks filled, in array against their own constituents ; and the vic- 
tory being now won, it is with reluctance that the victors lay aside 
their weapons. But we hope not to arouse any unpleasant feel- 
ings, or blow into a blaze the embers which a long-time have been 
sleeping. 

At the commencement of the revolutionary war, the most difh- 
cult thing for solution is, that all the colonies united and mac'c 
common cause against the parent country. As has been alreadv 
observed, Massachusetts in the east, and Virginia in the somh, 
were the two great and leading colonies. They were not equnllv 
oppressed by king and parliament; the one, a favourite of ihi 
court, and shared largely of the royal bounty and favour — th.^ 
other, never a favourite, alienated in affection from oppression al. 
home, and heavj' exactions abroad, and both differing in religion i 
forms and creeds, and obnoxious and baleful to each other on tha; 
account. How happened it, that they should both coalesce in dt- 
cidcd opposition to the mother country 1 How could men unite i < 
arms, and in Iheir physical energies, when they could not mingi ■ 
their prayers at the altar of their common God 1 

The Massachusetts colony was oppressed and cruelly trealec, 
and the measures adopted against her, were unworthy of the Britisn 
crown and nation. But those oppressions were not dealt out to lb' 
colonies generally — some of them had no cause of complaint ; but 
all had cause to fear the weight of the heavy hand laid upon Ma.s- 
sachusetts. They undoubtedly viewed the measures of king and 
parliament, as a rod in terrorevi. If the oppressed colony haa 
submitted, the restrictions and exactions imposed were so greal, ll'.ri 
the discontented and aggrieved would have soon left it, and sought 
a residence in some of the sister colonies, less oppressed and less 
aggrieved. They would have carried with them a discontenteil 
spirit, and a spirit desirous of the enjoyment of political liberty, 
and -would, from the natural propensity of man, have carried this 
spirit and infused it at the place of migration. The vindictive 
temper of parliament would have watched with sleepless vigilance 
everv motion of the malcontents, and have visited, in vials it 
wrath, every symptom of disloyalty and disobedience; so that, 
sooner or later, each colony might expect a similar course of men- 
sures adopted for her, as had been imposed on the colony of Maf- 
sachusetts. These are such reasonings, as miglit,we think, have It on 
used with propriety at the epoch of our revolution. They were lo 
some degree familiar with the statesmen of the several colonies, v, e 
well know; but that other circumstances strongly operated in lin 
decision of the colonies to meet force with force, and " try the lucr 
of war," is equally well known. 

From the character of the people of New England, and iLfir 
warlike preparations, the other colonies could not doubt her inten- 
tions to manfully resist the cruel'acts of parliament, and the fii^l 
rencounter wilh the veteran soldiers of England, fully justifipri this 
anticipation, and taught the haughty Brilon a lesson of circumspec- 
tion, which lasted for more than seven years. Foi one colony i'. 
assist in enslaving the others, would have been subversive of the 
principles of common justice, and would, at the same time, have been 
an avowal of sentiments which would have prepared the way for 
complete slavery with ihemselves. Bui. we apprehend, although 
similar reflections had weight with the Virginians, there was an- 
other subject equally weighty, w-hich fixed their resolution to make 
common cause with New England in resisting the parent country 

The great amount of debt due from the merchants andplanicrs 
of Virginia, to creditors in England, was more thon they were able 
to pay ; and it was expected, that a war with Britain, ending in the 
independence of the colonies, would fully liquidate and cancel this 
great amount. Two great and important objects, then, would be 
attained. This position is greStly strengthened, if not fully con- 



104 



HISTOHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



firmed, by snbrequent facts, which took place in the State of Vir- 
ginia, and in the halls cf Congress. The violent opposition made 
to the commercial treaty of 1794, between the Unted States and 
Great Britain, commonly called Jay's treaty, must lead to the con- 
clusion, that the payment of these debts by the war, was not an in- 
significant object in the struggle. The most active and strenuous 
opposers of measures which were adopted tu carry into effect that 
treaty, by which British subjects should find no impediments in col- 
lecting the debts of our citizens, were peculiarly caressed, loaded 
with honours, and overwhelmed in the affections of the people. On 
the other hand, those in Congress who laboured for its ratification, 
and struggled hard and successfully to procure the measures neces- 
sary to carry this treaty into effect, were loaded with reproach, and 
Washington himself did not escape without severe censure. 

After a lapse of thirty years, we can look h.ick upon transac- 
tions, and weigh circumstances and opinions, and find many ingre- 
dients which, in the smoke and heat of passion, were wholly ob- 
scured. What is called patriotism, is often the result of some sor- 
did self-interest, some unhallowed prejudice or violent hatred, and 
much sagacity and dispassionate judgment are requisite in forming 
and giving a correct decision upon public measures in time of great 
political excitement. It is no certain mark that a man tenderly 
loves his own family, because he bitterly hates his neighbour. We 
have .several flagrant and well authenticated instances which trans- 
pired during the late war with England, and which show that 
some public men regarded their own private interest more than 
they did the public good or the laws of the land ; and what has 
been, we again expect under the like circumstances. 

In regard lo education, Virginia has commenced where Massa- 
chusetts began nearly two hundred years ago, by founding a college 
and using laudable efforts for its encouragement and support ; but 
in one particular, she differs much from us. She has imported large- 
ly in teachers from Europe to fill the several seats of instruction in 
ber new college ; and in this particular, it is hoped, that the balance 
of trade will not be against Acr. But there is something in this 
importation which shows a want of knowledge of the character of 
New England men, and of their literary acquirements, or a strong 
partiality to England, indicative of a return to " her first love ;" 
and that Virginia should prefer gentlemen bred and educated in a 
monarchical government, to teach republican principles and enforce 
republican habits, is strange indeed. The time has been, when 
such an act in New England would have substantiated, in the mind 
of a Virginian, " a bold and wicked attempt to dissolve our Fede- 
ral Union, and again put ourselves imder the protection and govern- 
ment of the British king." 

New England has often been arraigned at the public tribunal, on 
information of the ancient colony, and charged with crimes and 
heresies — to all which. New England has pleaded not guilty, and 
hath put herself upon posterity. New England could not subscribe 
to the requirements of the south,, and the south has been too proud 
to confess an error, but come to the right about; yet still persists, 
that she has not changed the line of march. We care not, whe- 
ther the people discover it, or not; but in a practical point of view, 
this change of course is of some importance — for we have never 
considered public men raised to a high degree of sublimation, who 
could act contrary to their public and openly declared convictions 
and settled principles. , 

Climate and productions have, and always will cause, a difl^er- 
ence in manners and customs in all countries, as well as the origin 
of the inhabitants. But as it respects New England, Virginia, and 
some of the southern states, the lines of distinction which so plainly 
defined them, are now le.ss vivid and fresh ; the original demarca- 
tions Avere imported into both sections nearly at the same time. 
These limits have continued, and probably will continue for centu- 
ries to come. Although the partition wall of separation is broken 
down, yet the effects of this wall will long remain. We have now 
no religious test, nor any tribunal, thank God, to punish by.banish- 
raent, fines, imprisonment, stripes, and death, for heresy ; but we 
have some imaginary lines of distinction, which will be done away 
in time. 

Since many in the south laid a foundation to fame and conse- 
quence, b/ their opposition to Jay's treaty, and by that means have 
provided well for themselves and families, by a monopoly of ho- 
nourable and lucrative offices, it would be fair and just to bring 



again this subject, as well as many others connected with it, and 
growing out of it, before the public ; for at the public tribunal all 
public measures must be tested, and have their award of merit or de- 
merit, accordingly as the people are benefitted or injured by such 
measures. Such a course is due, not only to individuals, but to the 
nation, — that we look dispassionately upon measures, at the cool of the 
■present time, and take a fair and manly view of the whole. Mr. 
Jay is not alive, but his worth and worthiness are not questioned 
by the most fastidious and sqtjeamish politicians, who contribute 
tlicir efl^usions to the veriest sinks of the nation. We should look 
back to the object of our departure, and examine well the course which 
we have steered, to the motives and skill of our pilots, in order to 
come to a correct conclusion, whether our voyage, under all cir- 
cumstances, has been so prosperous as it ought, or might have been, 
under the direction of dispassionate councils and prudent and firm 
management. The above subject, |pd many others, which have 
agitated and convulsed the public mind, demand investigation. 
The present generation owe it lo posterity and to the world. 

The New England people, from the first arrival of the puritans 
upon our shores, as far as their limited and intolerant principles of 
religion would admit, have uniformly been republican in habits and 
in manners. If not so from inclination, and a common feeling, 
they were republican from circumstances, all being involved in 
common labour and industry, and from the absolute necessity of 
;5ituation. Our fathers have left our common schools, and a whole- 
some law, to perpetuate them in their high standing and purity; 
our colleges and churches, as lasting monuments of their moral 
and political excellence. In vain shall we look to other portions 
of the United Slates for similar and noble establishments. We 
would not boast of our principles, habits, and manners, and the 
amount of general information among the people, but we have a 
right to make these observations with some self-gratulation. Our 
fathers, or those of the present day, have not been republican in 
theory and aristocratic in practice. There has been a harmony in 
principle and practice, which has emanated from a long and prac- 
tical observance of the natural rights of man, brought in subser- 
viency to his most substantial good. We choose the dull and slow 
method of determining differences, wherein the dearest rights of the 
citizen are concerned, by established laws and legal forms, to the 
quick and capricious decision of the rifle. In sober and correct 
thinking, we have without doubt surpassed the south ; but in ge- 
nuine hospitality and cordial reciprocation of kindly feelings, we 
cannot claim any superiority. But the great and prominent events, 
which have in appearance divided the north from the south, will in 
some day be analyzed, and honour will be given to whom honour 
is due. Posterity will demand a severe investigation, and will not 
be silenced or satisfied by a few cant phrases and epithets. Some 
Hume or Robertson will rise up, and place before posterity the 
deeds of our fathers and our contemporaries, with their proper 
lights and shades, for the instruction of generations yet to come. 
The records of our time will afford ample and sufficient mate- 
rials. 

The great contest in our happy republic is for place and power. 
We cannot think that these can give somanyjovs, and the satisfac- 
tions of a brief hour upon the stage can have so many charms, 
that every fibre of mind and body should be exerted to attain them. 
The mind must reach to posterity, and anticipate the solid and last- 
ing honours to be bestowed by after ages for good and uprighl con- 
duct. Nero and Caligula, in their own time, had their respective 
eulogists, as well as Aurelius. Upon their characters, public opinion 
is fixed ; the names of the two former have become epithets de- 
noting the worst and most malignant combination of qualities 
that ever existed in the mind of man. Let not the fortunate aspi- 
rant from any section of our country, indulge the thought, that he 
shall pass on unnoticed by subsequent historians. They will tear 
off" the mask of the hypocrite, and show the deformity and true 
lineaments of his face. Facts will be faithfully recorded and pre- 
served, and will speak for themselves, when present interest, pre- 
judice, and partiality, will he forever buried. Perhaps such an his- 
torian of the events since the formation of our constitution, need 
not at present give the result of his labours to the public, since 
some, and even many, of the great actors are now alive, who took 
conspicuous parts in many important transactions; but he might 
with much proprietv have in readiness a faithful narrative of al] 



HISTORY OF THE UNJTED STATES. 



105 



CHAPTER VI. 



RHODE ISLAND. 



The circumstances which originated the settlement 
of Providence and Rhode Island, have necessarily 
been recorded in the history of the Massachusetts 
colony. In the year 1634, Roger Williams being 
banished, for his too liberal opinions, or for his zeal 



important events from the close of the revolutionary war to the 
close of the administration of President Washington. This period 
will include a time of great labour and much and complicated dif- 
ficully ; a period, the events of which, should be well studied, and 
completely understood, by every freeman of the United Stales. In 
this liiue, the French revolution which convulsed all Europe, and 
shook to it.s centre our republic, burst forth like a tempest, threat- 
ening general destruction. In this period, our own politicians were 
fruitful in conjectures as to the results of our own struggle, and the 
throbs and throes of France. We owe much, and perhaps our na- 
tional e.Kistence, to the cool dispassionate judgment and unbending 
firmness of the distinguished individual then at the head of our na- 
tion. But most of his constitutional advisers, and others, who co- 
operated with him, in this time of peril, are forgotten ; their labours 
are no longer mentioned with applause, nor a single pulse beats in 
lively gratitude for the services of the patriotic dead, nor is sincere 
respect shown for the living. 

We boast not of our ancestry, but claim an origin equally re- 
spectable as that of any portion of our country. Our public schools 
and colleges, founded by onr ancestors, are so many monuments of 
our moral and intellectual worth. These monuments we have pre- 
served, beautified, strengthened, and adorned ; they will last, and 
increase in grandeur and utility, till we, as a people, shall be com- 
pletely changed. 

The foregoing observations on the first settlement of our country, 
were communicated to me bya shrewd and deep thinking New Eng- 
land historian, and we believe will give the reader much informa- 
tion, and great pleasure, though he may not agree with him in all 
his reasoning.— 4/7iL'r{ca7t Editor, 

* The spot where Mr. Williams and his companions landed, was 
within the jurisdiction of the Narraganset Indians.* The sa- 
chems of this tribe were Canonicus, and his nephew Miantinomo. 
The former was an old man, and he probably associated witl) him 
his young nephew, as better fitted to sustain the toils and cares of 
royalty. Their residence is said by Gookin w have been about 
Narraganset Bay, and on the island of CanoniCTR. 

The first object of Mr. Williams would naturally be, to obtain 
from the sachems a grant of land for his new colony. He proba- 
bly visited them, and received a verbal cession of the territory, 
which, two years afterwards, was formally conveyed to him by a 
deed. This instrument may properly be quoted here :t 

" At Narraganset, the 24th of the first month, commonly called 
March, the second year of the plantation or planting at Moshas- 
euck, or Providence ; Memorandum, that we, Canonicus and Mi- 
antinomo, the two chief sachems of Narraganset, having two years 
since sold unto Roger Williams the lands and meadows upon the 
two fresh rivers, called Mosha.ssuck and Wanasquatucket, do now, 
by these presents, establish and confirm the bounds of these lands, 
from the river and fields of Pawtucket, the great hill of Notaquon- 
canot, on the northwest, and the torni of Mashapaug, on the west.t 

• " Under the general name of Narraganset, were included Narras;anset 
proper, and Coweset. Narraganset proper extended south from what is 
now called Warwick, to the oce^n ; Coweset, from Narraganset northerly 
to the Nipmuck country, which now forms Oxford, (Mass.) and some 
other adjoining towns. The western boundaries of Narraganset and 
Coweset cannot be definitely ascertained. Gnokin says, the Narragan- 
set jurisiction extended thirty or forty miles from Seekonk river and 
Narraganset Bay, including the islands, southwesterly to a place called 
VVekapage, four or five miles to the eastward of Pawcaluck river; that it 
infludeJ a part of Long Island, Block Island, Coweset, and Nianiick, and 
received tribute from some of the Nipmucks. After some research, I am 
iaduoed 15 believe, that the Nianticks occupied the territory now called 



in promulgating them, by the general court of Massa- 
chusetts, repaired to Seeconk ; but being informed by 
the governor of Plymouth, that that place was within 
the limits of the colony, he proceeded to Mooshausic, 
where, in 1036, with those friends who followed him, 
he began a plantation. He purchased the land of 
the Indians,* and, in acknowledgment of the kindness 
of Heaven in affording him a shelter from his perse- 



We also, in consideration of the many kindnesses and services he 
hath continually done for us, both with our friends of Massachu- 
setts, as also at Connecticut, and Apaum, or Plymouth, we do freely 
give unto him all that land from those rivers reaching to Pawtuxel 
river ; as also the gra.ss and meadows upon the said Pawtuxet 
river. In witness whereof, we have hereunto set our hands. 
The mark (a bow) of CANONICUS. 
The mark (an arrow) of MIANTINOMO. 
In the presence of 
The mark of Sohash. 
The mark of Alsohunsit. 

" 1639. Memorandum. 3d Month, 9th day, this was all again 
confirmed by Miantinomo. He acknowledged, that he also [ille- 
gible]! and gave up the streams of Pawtucket and Pawtuxet, with- 
out limits, we might have for our use of cattle. 
Witness hereof, 
Roger Williams, 
Benedict Arnold." 

The lands thus ceded to Mr. Williams he conveyed to twelve 
men, who accompanied, or soon joined him, reserving for himself 
an equal part only. Before we narrate the particulars of this trans- 
action, a few remarks are necessary. 

It appears from the tenor of the deed, and from other evidence, 
that the original sale included only the lands mentioned in the fir.st 
part of the deed. These are said by the sachems to have been 
" sold" to Mr. Williams. The grass and meadows on Pawtuxrt 
river are said to be given to him, in consideration of his services 

An interesting question, which occasioned much debate in the 
early times of the colony, claims consideration here. Were the 
lands, ceded by the sachems, so conveyed, that they became the 
property of Roger Williams himself, and might he, with justice 
and honour, have sold or retained them, as he pleased 1 An an- 
swer to this question will throw light on his .subsequent conduct. 

The conveyance in the deed is made to him alone. The title, 
consequently, was vested in him, so far as the instrument went. 
But this fact does not decide the point. It was a subject of accu- 
sation against him, that the conveyance was not made to him and 
his associates. Did he, then, act on behalf of others, as well as for 
himself! 

If his own solemn and often repeated assertions are worth}' of 
credit, he obtained the lands by his own money and influence, and 
might have held them as his property. 

He argues the case at large, in his letter to the Commissioners, 
in 1677, to whom he was accused of unfair conduct respecting the 
lands. 

He asserts, in the first place, " It is not true, that I was employ- 
ed by any, was supplied by any, or desired any to come with me 
into these parts. My soul's desire was, to do the natives good, and 
to that end to learn their language, (which I afterwards frintej,) 
and therefore desired not to be troubled with English company.' 



Westerly. If so, then the jurisdiction of the Narragansets extended to th ? 
Pawcatuck, and perhaps beyond it."— Whatcheer, Notes, p. ira. 

t This is transcribed from a copy furnished by John Howland, F.f^i 
It differs a little from that contained in Backus, vol. i. p. S9. The or- 
thography is conformed to modern usage. 

t " The great hill, Notaquoncanot, mentioned as a bound, is three miles 
west from VVeybosset bridge. Mashapaug is about two miles south of 
the hill.— J. H." 

§ Mr. Backus (vol. i. p. 90) has this reading: "He acknowledged this 
his act and hand j up the streams," ifcc. But the reading in the text it^ 
retained, according to Mr. Howland's copy. The deed was written by 
Roger Williams, but the memorandum by seme other person. 



106 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



cutors, Le called his new abode Providence. Actinff 
in conformity with the wise and liberal principle he 
had avowed, and previously maintained, he allowed 

He acids, thai " out of pity, he gave leave to several persons to come 
alon? in his company." He makes tlie same statement in his deed 
of 1661 :- " I desired it might be for a shelter for persons distressed 
for conscience. I then considering the condition of divers of my 
distressed countrymen, I communicated my said purchase unto my 
loving friends, [whom he names,] who then desired to take shelter 
liere with me." 

It seems, then, that his original design was to come alone, pro- 
bably to dwell among the Indians, and do them good ; but he 
altered his plan, and resolved to establish a refuge for those who 
might flee from persecution. The project was his own, and worthy 
of his generous and liberal mind. , He certainly was not employed, 
us an agent to purcliase lands for others. He uses another argu- 
mt-.M : " I mortgaged my house in Salem (worth some hundreds) 
for supplies to go through, and, therefore, was it a single business." 

Having thus shown that he acted for himself, and on his own re- 
sponsibility, he stales, that the lands were procured from the sa- 
•cliems by his inflnence alone. He enumerates several advantages 
which he enjoyed in this negotiation: " 1. A constant, zealous de- 
sire to dive into the natives' language. 2. God was pleased to give 
me a painful, patient spirit, to lodge with them in their filthy, smoky 
holes, (even while I lived at Plymouth and Salem,) to gain their 
loague. 3. I spared no cost towards them, and in gifts to Ousa- 
inecjuin, yea, and all his, and to Canonicus, and all his, tokens and 
presents, many j-ears before I came in person to the Narraganset, 
'ind when I came, I was welcome to Ousamequin, and to the old 
prince Canonicus, who was most shy of all English, to his last 
breath. 4. I was known by all the AVampanoags and the Narra- 
pansets to be a public speaker at Plymouth and Salem, and, there- 
fore, with them, held as a sachem. 5. I could debate with them 
(in a great measure) in their own language. 6. I had the favour 
and countenance of that noble soul, Mr. Winthrop, whom all In- 
dians respected." 

He proceeds to state, respecting Canonicus, that "it was not 
thousands nor tens of thousands of money could have bought of him 
an English entrance into this bay." 

In the deed, already quoted, he says, " By God's merciful assist- 
ance, I was the procurer of the purchase, not by moneys nor pay- 
ment, the natives being so shy and jealous, that monej's could not 
do it, but by that language, acquaintance and favour with the na- 
tives, and other advantages, which it pleased God to give me; and 
also bore the charges and venture of all the gratuities, which I gave 
lo the great sachems, and other sachems round about us, and lay 
engaged for a loving and peaceable neighbourhood with them, to 
my great charge and travel." 



• See above. He adds, " It hath been told me, tliat I laboured for a li- 
centious and contentious people ; that I have foolishly parted with town 
nnil colony advantages, by which I might have preserved both town and 
colony in as good order as any in the country about us." The following 
li^Iter ftom his son maybe properly quoted here, as confirming the prece- 
ding statements : 

" To all them that deem themselves purchasers in the town of Provi- 
dence, if they be real purchasers, I would have them make it appear. 
" Gentlemen, 

" I thought good in short to present you with these few lines, concern 
ing the boimds of Providence, (fee. I have put forth several queries lo se- 
veral men in the township, to be answered ; but have not any answer 
from any of them ; and, as I Judge, doth not cnre to have any discourse 
about it. Therefore, now I speak to you all, desiring your honours will 
be pleased lo consider of the matter, and to answer me to one or two 
queries; that is, whether you have any thing under my father's hand to 
l)rove the bounds of this town afore those twelve men were concerned ; 
or whether my father disposed of any of the township to any other per- 
sons since the twelve men were first in power, &c. If my father had 
disposed or sold his whole township, and they he sold it to, or have it 
under his hand, prove ihe sale, although it was but for one penny, God 
forbid that ever l»8houM open my mouth about it, &c It is evident, that 
this township was my father's, and it is held in his name against all un- 
just clatncurs, &c. Can you find such another now alive, or in this age ? 



entire freedom of conscience to all who came within 
his borders, and set the first practical example of the 
perfect equality of all religious sects in the same poli- 

These facts prove, that the lands were granted to Mr. Williams, 
as a personal favour, as an expression of gratitude on the part of 
the sachems, and as a remimeralion for presents which they had 
been receiving from him for several years. Mr. AVilliams, then, 
was entitled to make the assertion, which is contained in Jiis touch- 
ing letter to the town of Providence, in 1654 : " I have been blamed 
for parting with Moshassuck, and afterwards Pawtuxet, (which 
were mine own, as truly as any man's coat upon his back,) without 
reserving to myself a fool of land, or an inch of voice, more than 
to my servants and strangers." 

Mr. Williams was thus the legal proprietor of the lands which 
were ceded to him, and he might have remained so, if he had 
pleased. He had a clear title from the Indians, and he had, a few 
years later certainly, sufficient influence with the rulers in Eng- 
land, to obtain a recognition of his rights, and a confirmation of 
his authority. He might, doubtless, have Oeen, like William Penn, 
the proprietary of his colony, and might have exercised a control 
over its government. He would, we may easily believe, have ex- 
ercised his authority as wisely and beneficially as the great legisla- 
tor of Pennsylvania. The peace of his settlement and his own 
comfort would, perhaps, have been promoted, if he had retained 
this power awhile, instead of committing it to the whole company 
of settlers, among whom, from the nature of the colony, as a refuge 
for "all soits of consciences," some heterogeneous and discordant 
tempers might be expected to find admission. That he was blamed 
for this conduct, we know from his letter to the town of Providence, 
already quoted ;» and as that letter was written soon after his re- 
turn from England, we may infer, that the censure came from 
leading men there. 

But he chose to found his colony on pure democratic principles; 
as a commonwealth, where all civil power should be exercised by 
the people alone, and where God should be the only ruler over the 
conscience. 

We will now relate the facts respecting his division of the lands 
among his associates. 

The persons who accompanied him, at his first landing, were 
William Harris, John Smith, Joshua Verin, Thomas Angell, and 
Francis Wickes. Several others joined him at various times, pre- 
viously to October 8, 1638, on which day Mr. Williams executed 
an ftistrument, of the following tenor.t 

" Providence, 8lh of Ike 8th month, 1638, {so called.) 

" Memorandum that I, Roger Williams, having formerly pur- 
chased of Canonicus and Miantinomo, this our situation, or planta- 
tion, of New Providence,? viz. the two fresh rivers, AVanasqua- 
tucket and Moshassuck, and the grounds and meadows thereupon; 



He gave away his lands and other estate, to them that he thought were 
most in want, until he gave away all, so that he had nothing to help him- 
self, so that he being not in a way to get for his supply, and being ancient, 
it must needs pinch somewhere. I do not desire to say what I have done 
for both father and mother. I judge they wanted nothing that was con- 
venient for ancient people, &c. What my father gave, I believe he had a 
good intent in it, and thought God would provide for his family. He never 
gave ine but about three acres of land, and but a little afore he deceased. 
It looked hard, that out of so much at his disposing, that I should have 
so little, and he so litlle. For the rest, &c. I did not think to be so large: 
so referring your honours to those queries you have among you, 
" A''our friend and neighbour, 

"DANIEL WILLIAMS. 

"Providence, Aug. 2-1, 1810. 

"If a covetous man had that opportunity as he had, most of this town 
would have been his tenants, I believe. D. W." 

t The first deed was " written in a strait of time and haste," as he al- 
leged, and contained only the initials of the names of the grantees. He 
was censured for this by some of them, as if he had done it for some si- 
nister design! They urged him to give them another deed, which of 
finally did, on the 2ad of December, 1C66, when the document in the text 
was written, retaining the original date. 

t The name. New Providence, appears m a few documents written by 
Mr. Williams himself, and by others, but it was soon discontinued. The 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



1U7 



tical community. Nor was his benevolence confined 
to his civilized brethren ; he laboured to enlighten, 
improve, and conciliate the savages ; he learned their 

in consideration of thirty pounds received from the inhabitants of 
said place, do freely and fully pass, grant, and make over equal 
right and power of enjoyinjj and disposing of the same grounds 
and lands, unln my loving friends and neighbours, Stukely West- 
colt, William Arnold, Thomas James, Robert Cole, John Greene, 
John Throckmorton, William Harris, William Carpenter, Thomas 
Olney, Francis Weston, Richard Waterman, Ezekiel Holliman, 
and such others as the major part of lis shall admit into the same 
fellowsliip of vote with us: — As also I do freely make and pass 
over equal right and power of enjoying and disposing of the lands 
and grounds reaching from the aforesaid rivers unto the great 
river Pawtuxet, with the grass and meadows thereupon, which was 
so lately given and granted by the aforesaid sachems to me. Wit- 
ness my hand, 

" ROGER WILLIAMS." 

On the 20th of December, 1661, the following deed was execu- 
ted. It is inserted here, because it is an interesting document, 
and it throws much light on the transactions which we are con- 
sidering. 

" Be it known unto all men by these presents, that I, Roger 
Williams, of the town of Providence, in the Nan aganset Bay, in 
New England, having, in the year one thousand six hundred 
thirty-four, and in the year one thousand six hundred thirty-five, 
had several treaties with Canonicus and Miantinomo, the two 
chief sachems of the Narraganset, and in the end parchased of 
them the lands and meadows upon the two fresh rivers called Mos- 
hassuck and Wanasquatucket, the two sachems having, by a deed, 
under their hands, two years after the sale thereof, established and 
confirmed the bounds of these lands from the rivers and fields of 
Pawtncket, the great hill of Notaquoncanot on the north-west, and 
the town of Mashapaug on the west, notwithstanding I had the fre- 
quent promise of Miantinomo, my kind friend, that it should not 
be land that I should want about these bounds mentioned, provided 
that I satisfied the Indians there inhabiting. I having made cove- 
nant of peaceable neighbourhood with all the sachems and natives 
round about us, and liaving, of a sense of God's merciful Provi- 
dence unto me in my distress, called the place Providence, I de- 
sired it might be for a shelter for persons distressed for con- 
science. I then considering the condition of divers of my distress- 
ed countrymen, I communicated my said purchase unto my loving 
friends, John Throckmorton, William Arnold, William Harris, 
Stukely Wescolt, John Greene, Senior, Thomas Olney, Senior, 
Richard Waterman, and others, who then desired to take shelter 
here with me, and in succession unto so many others as we should 
receive into the fellowship and society of enjoying and disposing 
of the said purchase; and besides the first that were admitted, our 
town records declare, that afterwards we received Chad Brown, 
William Field, Thomas Harris, Senior, William Wickenden, Ro- 
bert Williains, Gregory Dexter, and others, as our town book de- 
clares; and whereas, by God's merciful assistance, I was the pro- 
curer of the purchase, not by moneys nor payment, the natives he- 
ing so shy and jealous that moneys could not do it, hut by that lan- 
guage, acquaintance, and favour with the natives, and other advan- 
tages, which it pleased God to give me, and also bore the charges 
and venture of all the gratuities, which I gave to the great sachems 
and other sachems and natives round about us, and lay engaged 
for a loving and peaceable neighbourhood with them, to my great 
charge and travel ; it was therefore thought fit by some loving 



ori^n of the epithet New may have been, a desire to distinguish the town 
from the island of Providence, one of the Bahama islands, on which a 
plantation was begun in 1629. Holmes's Annals, vol. i. p. 201. This 
island has since received the name of New Providence. The town of Ro- 
ger Williams was entitled to the precedence. 

• This seems to be loosely expressed. Mr. Williams could not mean 
that he delivered the deed to the grantees in 1637, for several of the per- 
sons named did not arrive in Providence till after April, I63S. (Backus, 
vol. i. p. 92.) His own deed of cession is dated Oct. 8, 1638. He proba- 
bly meant, that he delivered the deed, signed by the sachems in 1637, to 



language, travelled among them, and gained the en- 
tire confidence of their chiefs ; and had often the 
happiness, by his influence over them, of saving from 

friends, that I should receive some loving consideration and gra- 
tuity, and it was agreed between us, that every person, that should 
be admitted into the fellowship of enjoyingland and disposing of the 
purchase, should pay thirty shillings unto the public stock; and 
first, about thirty pounds should be paid unto myself, by thirty shil- 
lings a person, as they were admitted ; this sum I received, and in 
love to my friends, and with respect to a town and place of succour 
for the distressed, as aforesaid, I do acknowledge the said sum and 
payment as full satisfaction ; and whereas in the year one thousand 
six hundred and thirty-seven,* so called, 1 delivered the deed sub- 
scribed by the two aforesaid chief sachems, so much thereof aa 
concerneth the aforementioned lands, from myself and from my 
heirs, unto the whole number of the purchasers, with all my power, 
right and title therein, reserving only unto myself one single share 
e(iual unto any of the rest of that number ; I now again, in a mora 
formal way, under my hand and seal, confirm my former re- 
signation of that deed of the lands aforesaid, and bind myself, 
my heirs, my executors, my administrators and assigns, never to 
molest any of the said persons already received, or hereafter to be 
received into the society of purchasers, as aforesaid ; but that they, 
their heirs, executors, administrators and assigns, shall at all 
times quietly and peaceably enjoy the premises and every part 
thereof, and I do further by these presents bind myself, my heirs, 
my executors, my administrators and assigns, never to lay any 
claim, nor cause any claim to he laid, to any of the lands afore- 
mentioned, or unto any part or parcel Ihereot', more than unto my 
own single share, by virtue or pretence of any former bargain, sale 
or mortgage whatsoever, or jointures, thirds or entails made by me, 
the said Roger Williams, or of any other person, either for, by, 
through or under me. In witness whereof, 1 have hereunto set my 
hand and seal, the twentieth day of December, in the present yeai 
one thousand six hundred sixty-one. 

" ROGER WILLIAMS, (Seal.t) 

" Signed, sealed, aiid delivered in the presence of us, Thomas 
Smith, Joseph Carpenter. Memorandum, the words, of the pur- 
chase, were interlined before these presents were .sealed. I, Mary 
Williams, wife unto Roger Williams, do assent unto the premises. 
Witness my hand, this twentieth day of December, in this present 
year one thousand six hundred sixty-one. 

The mark of (M. AV.) MARY WILLIAMS.! 

" Acknowledged and subscribed before me, 

" WILLIAM FIELD, Assisianl. 

"Enrolled, April the 6th, 1662, pr. me, 

" TH0M.1S OLNEY, Junr., Towm Clerk." 

From this document, it appears, that the twelve person to whom 
the lands, on the Moshassuck and Wanasquatucket rivers, were 
conveyed by Mr. Williains, did not pay liim any part of the thirty 
pounds, which he received ; but that the sum of thirty shillings was 
exacted of every person who was afterwards admitted, to form a 
common stock. From this slock, thirty pounds were paid to Mr. 
Williams, for the reasons mentioned in the instrument last 
quoted. 

For the lands on the Pawtuxet river, however, Mr. Williams re- 
ceived ttvelve-lhirteenths of twenty pounds, from the twelve persona 
named in the deed of October 8, 1638. On the same day, the fol- 
lowing instrument was executed : — 

" It is agreed, this day abovesaid, that all the meadow grounds at 
Pawtuxet, bounding upon the fresh river, on both sides, are to be 



the purchasers. This deed was dated March 24, the last day of 1637, 
old style. 

t An anchor, reclining. 

t We are surprised at the form of this signature. That Mrs. Williams 
could not write, would be incredible, if it were not rendered certain lliat 
she could write, by a reference to her letters, in a public document at Pro- 
vidence. It is probable, that she wrote the initials, believing them to be 
sufRcient ; and some person added the words, the mark of, and wrote 
the name at length. 



108 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



injury the inhabitants of the very colony which had 
proclaimed hina an outlaw, and driven him into the 
wilderness.* 

Two or three years after this, the antinomian con- 

impropriated unlo ihose thirteen persons, being now incorporated 
togetlier in our town ol' Providence, viz. : Ezekiel HolUman, Fran- 
cis Weston, Roger Williams, Thomas Olney, Robert Cole, Wil- 
liam Carpenter, William Harris, John Throckmorton, Richard 
Waterman, John Greene, Thomas James, William Arnold, Stukely 
Westcott ; and to be equally divided among them, and every one to 
pay an equal proportion to raise up the sum of twenty pounds for 
the same; and if it shall come to pass, that some, or any one, of 
these 'thirteen persons aforesaid, do not pay or give satisfaction of 
his or their equal proportion of the aforesaid sum of twenty pounds, 
by thisday eight weeks, which will be the 17 th day of the 10th month 
nex.1 ensuing, then they or he shall leave their or his proportion of 
meado\7 grounds unto the rest of those thirteen persons, to be at 
their disposing, who shall make up the whole sum of twenty pounds, 
which is to be paid to R.oger Williams." 

This money was punctually paid on the 3d of December follow- 
ing, and was acknowledged as follows ; — 

" According to former agreement, I received of the neighbours 
abovesaidthe full sum of iSl. lis. Sd. Per me, 

ROGER WILLIAMS." 

He thus retained an equal share in the lands on the Pawtuxet 
river, which were very valuable to the new settlers, on account of 
the natural meadows along its banks. These lands were afterwards 
the occasion of a protracted contention. 

From the facts which we have stated, it appears, that Mr. Wil- 
liams generously admitted the first twelve proprietors of the Provi- 
dence purchase to an equal share with himself, without exacting 
from them any remuneration. The thirty pounds which he re- 
ceived were paid by succeeding settlers, at the rate of thirty shil- 
lings each. But this sum of thirty pounds was not paid to him, as 
an equivalent fur the land. It was, as he calls it, a " loving gra- 
tuity," and was intended to remunerate him for the presents which 
he liad given to the Indians, and for the expenses which he had 
incurred in procuring the lands. But he affirmed, that all which 
he received was far less than he expended.* The same may be 
said respecting the money paid for the Pawtuxet lands. 

The conduct of Mr. Williams, in these transactions, must be 
acknowledged to have been highly honourable, disinterested, and 
liberal. He held the title to the whole territory, and he might, ap- 
parently, have amassed wealth and gratified ambition, by retaining 
the control of the town, and selling the lands, to be held of him as 
the proprietor. But he renounced all plans of power and emolu- 
ment ; he placed himself on an equality with the other settlers, and 
surrendered the territory to the whole body of freemen, among 
whom he claimed no other influence than that which sprung from 
his personal character. The sum which he received was not even 
a remuneration for his actual expenses in procuring the territory. 

It does not diminish this praise, that the settlers were obliged to 
satisfy the claims of many individual Indians. The grant from 
the sachems might, perhaps, have been considered as a full title ; 
but the justice and humanity of Roger Williams and his friends, 
led them to make compensation to the natives who occupied the 
territory. The whole sum paid to Mr. Williams and to the In- 
dians, for Providence and Pawtuxet, was stated by William Har- 
ris, in lG77,to have been one hundred and sixty pounds. — Knowles's 
Memoir of Roger Williams. 

• " He died in April, 1683, at the age of eighty-four years. He 
seems in the early part of his residence in this country to have 
been governed in some respects by a blind zeal ; but his memory 
is deserving of lasting honour for the correctness of his opinions 
respecting liberty of conscience, and for the generous toleration 
which he established. So superioi- was he to the meanne.ss of re- 
venge, and such was his magnanimity, that he exerted all his in- 



troversy, as it has been called, arose in Massacliu- 
setts, and Mrs. Hutchinson, Mr. Coddington, and 
others, were also banished from thatcolony.t These 
persons, with the assistance- of Roger Williams, in 



♦ He found "Indian gifts" very costly. He was under the necessity of 
making frequent presents. He says, that he let the Indians have his 
shallop and pinnace at command, transporting fifty at a time, and lodging 
fifty at his house ; that he never denied them any thing lawful ; that when 



fluence with the Indians in favour of Massachusetts, and ever 
evinced the greatest friendship for the colony from which he had 
been driven. For some of its principal men he preserved the high- 
est affection, and maintained a correspondence with them. In his 
controversial writings, especially with Mr. Cotton respecting tole- 
ration, he shows himself a master of argument. His talents were 
of a superior order. In the religious doctrines which he embraced, 
he seems to have been remarkably consistent. The Scriptures he 
read in the originals. Though his writings and his conduct in the 
latter periods of his life evince that he was under the influence of 
the Christian spirit, yet his mind ivas so shrouded in doubt and un- 
certainty, that he lived in the neglect of the ordinances of the gos- 
pel. He did not contend, like the quakers, that they were superseded, 
but found himself incapable of determining to what church it was 
his duty to unite himself. He would pray and preach with all who 
would hear him, of whatever denomination. If his conscience had 
been enlightened, one would suppose, it must have reproved him 
for not partaking of the sacrament also with different sects. His 
first baptism he appears to have renounced, not so much because 
he was dissatisfied with the time or the mode of its administration, 
as because it was received in the church of England, which he 
deemed anti-christian. He published a Key to the Language of 
America, or, A Help to the Tongue of the New England Indians, 
8vo. 1643, which has been lately reprinted in the collections of the 
Massachusetts Historical Society, An Answer to Mr. Cotton's 
Letter, concerning the Power of the Magistrate in matters of Re- 
ligion; The Bloody Tenet of Persecution for the cause of Con- 
science, 1644 ; The Bloody Tenet yet more Bloody by Mr. •Cotton'.'' 
endeavour to wash it White in the Blood of the Lamb, &c., to 
which is added, A Letter to Mr. Endicot, 4to. 1652 ; The Hireling 
Ministry none of Christ's, or, A Discourse on the Propag tion of 
the Gospel of Christ Jesus ; Experiments of Spiritual Life and 
Health, and iheir Preservatives, London, 1652 ; George Fox digged 
out of his Burrows, 1676, which was written against Fox and Bur- 
rowes, and gives an account of his dispute with the Quakers. An 
answer to it was published in 1678, entitled, A New England Fire- 
Brand duenched. An interesting letter of Mr. Williams to Major 
Mason is preserved in the collections of the Historical Society." — 
Allen's Biography, p. 608, 609. 

+ "Lastly, Samuel Gorton, and his eleven followers, descending 
the Narraganset Bay on the west side, settled on Warwick Neck. 
This flourishing abode of heresy and toleration soon inflamed the 
religious or official zeal of Governor Winthrop, and a Captain 
Cook, with an armed parly of treble Gorton's number, was des- 
patched with strict orders to bring the heretics to Boston, dead or 
alive. At the head of this crusade in miniature, marched a holy 
man, with strict injunctions to keep his soldiers regularly to their 
prayers, and to explain to Gorton and his deluded followers the 
whole enormity of their errors before they put them to death. What 
these errors were, it is immaterial to relate ; suffice it to say, they 
had reference to the most abstruse and speculative doctrines, and 
were wholly immaterial to christian piety and a good life. Gorton 
persisted sturdily in the argument against the nuncio of Winthrop, 
and thinking he had the best of it, refused to acknowledge himself 
convinced. Cook accordingly gave the word for the onset, ajid 
they were made prisoners, and conveyed to Boston. The women 
and children were dispersed in the woods, and as it was at a time 
when the ground was covered with snow, several of them actuall) 
perished. The rest of these helpless fugitives, after sustaining in- 
credible hardships, were protected, clothed, and hospitably enter- 
tained — by savages." — Johnson's Life of Greene. " Being brought 
before the court at Boston, the charge exhibited against them was 
in the following words : — ' Upon much examination, and serious 



he established a trading house at Narraganset, Canonicus had freely what 
he desired ; and when the old chief was about to die, he sent f«ir Ms. Wil- 
liams, and " desired tn be buried in my cloth, of fr£e gift." 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



1C9 



March, 1638, purchased of the Indians, the island of 
Aquetnee, since called Rhode Island. The settlers 
at Providence and Rhode Island, were, at first, dis- 
tinct communities, and had separate governments. 
Both formed civil compacts for themselves. The in- 
habitants of Providence, and " all new comers," at 
first promised " to submit themselves in active and 
passive obedience to all such orders and agreements 
as should be made for the public good of the body, 
in an orderly way, by major consent of the inhabit- 
ants." At Rhode Island, the settlers, to the number 
of eighteen, subscribed to the following civil com- 
pact : " We, whose names are underwritten, do here- 
by solemnly, in the presence of Jehovah, incorporate 
ourselves into a body politic ; and as he shall help, 
will submit our persons, lives, and estates, unto our 
Ijord Jesus Christ, the King of kings and Lord of 
lords, and to all those perfect and absolute laws of 
his, given in his holy word of truth, to be judged and 
guided thereby." In 1640, being about forty in num- 
ber, they combined in a plan of government, as best 
suited to promote peace and order in their circum- 
stances. William Coddington, was chosen a judge, 
to do justice and judgment, and to preserve the peace. 
In March, 1641, at a general court of election, it was 
uuanimousl)'^ declared, that the government was a 
democracy, or popular government, and that the power 
was iu the body of the freemen, orderly assembled, or 
the major part of them, to make or constitute just 
laws, by which they should be regulated, and to de- 
pute from among them such ministers as should see 
them faithfully executed. It was at the same time 
ordered, that none should be accounted delinquent 
for doctrine, provided it be not directly repugnant to 
the established government and laws.* 

When the New England colonies, in 1643, formed 
the celebrated confederacy, Rhode Island applied to 
be admitted into the luiiou. Plymouth objected, on 
the ground that the settlements were within her 
boundaries. The commissioners decided that Rhode 
Island might enjoy all the advantages of the confede- 

consideration of your writings, with your answers about Ihem, we 
do charge you to be a blasphemous enemy of the true religion of 
our Lord Jesus Christ and his holy ordinances, and also of civil 
authority among the people of God, and particularly in this juris- 
diction.' Their writings were produced in evidence against ihem ; 
and they explained thein in such a manner, that the governor, Mr. 
• Winthrop, said he could agree with them in their answer, though 
he could not in their writings ; but Mr. Dudley stood up, much 
moved, and said he would never consent to it while he lived, that 
they were one with tiiem in those answers. The governor then 
asked Gorton what faith was 1 He answered, in the words of the 
apostle, that " faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the 
evidence of things not seen;" the governor told him that was true, 
but he could say more of faith than that. He desired to be ex- 
cused, and Mr. Bradstreet, prudently enough, excepted to such 
questions, unles-^he was free to speak to them: and thereupon they 



racy, if she would submit to the jurisdiction of Ply- 
mouth ; this she resolutely declined, proudly preferring 
independence to all the benefits of dependent union. 
In the year 1644, Roger Williams was deputed to 
England to obtain of the commissioners of planta- 
tions, appointed by Parliament, a new charter. These 
commissioners granted to the inhabitants of the towns 
of Providence, Portsmouth, and Newport, residing in 
a tract of country, called by the name of Narraganset 
Bay, bordering northward and north-east on the pa- 
tent of the Massachusetts, east and south-east on 
Plymouth patent, south on the ocean, and west and 
north-west on the country of the Indians, called Nar- 
ragansets, the whole tract extending about twenty-five 
English miles unto the Pequod river and country, "a 
free and absolute charter of incorporation, to be known 
by the name of the Incorporation of Providence plan- 
tations in the Narragansets Bay, in New England, 
with full power and authority to rule themselves, and 
such others as shall inhabit in any part of the said 
tract of land, by such a form of civil government, as 
by voluntary consent of all, or the greater part of them, 
they shall find most suitable to their estate and con- 
dition ; and for that end,, to make and ordain such 
civil laws and constitutions, and to inflict such pu- 
nishments upon transgressors ; and for the execution 
thereof, so to place and displace ofiicers of justice, as 
they, or the greatest part of them, should, by free 
consent, agree thereto ;" with a proviso, that the laws, 
constitutions, and punishments, for the civil govern- 
ment of the plantation, be conformable to the laws of 
England, so far as the nature and constitution of the 
place would admit. A court of commissioners, con- 
sisting of six persons from each of the towns, was 
invested with legislative authority, but all acts passed 
by these commissioners were subject to be repealed 
by a majority of the freemen assembled in town meet- 
ings called for that purpose. A president and four 
assistants were chosen annually, to be conservators 
of the peace, with civil powers, and by special com- 
mission they were judges of the courts, assisted by 



were dismissed and remanded to prison. Their sentences were 
cruel. Gorton was ordered to be confined to Charles-town, there 
to be kept at work, and to wear such bolts and irons as might hin- 
der his escape ; and if he broke his confinement, or by speech oi 
writing published or maintained any of the blasphemous abomina- 
ble heresies wherewith he had been charged by the general court, 
or should reproach or reprove the churches of our Lord Jesus 
Christ in these united colonies, or the civil government, &c., that 
upon conviction thereof, upon trial by jury, he should suffer death 
The rest were confined to different towns, one in a town, and upon 
the same conditions with Gorton ; their cattle were seized and or- 
dered to be sold, and the charge of fetching them, and the expense 
attending the trial and imprisonment, to be paid out of the proceeds 
and the overplus to be reserved for their future maintenance du 
ring their confinement." — Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 120 — 122 
« Pntin vol. i. p. 47. 



no 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



two wardens or justices of the peace in the towns in 
which the courts were held. Each town elected a 
council of six persons to manage their own affairs. 
This council was also a town court, for the trial of 
causes of inferior magnitude, with a right of appeal 
to the court of president and assistants. This form 
of government continued, with little interruption, 
until a chaiter was obtained from Charles II. in 1663. 

The town of Newport was situated on one of the 
best harbours in America, and its inhabitants soon en- 
gaged in commerce. Their commercial transactions 
were deemed of so much importance in 1647, as to re- 
quire laws suited to commercial men and seamen. At 
this early perfod, therefore, it was ordered at the court 
of election, " that the sea laws, otherwise called the 
laws of Oleron, should be in force among us, for the 
benefit of seamen, (upon the island,) and the chief 
officers in the town should have power to summon 
the court for the case or cases prescribed.* 

Upon the application of the inhabitants, in 1663, 
Charles II. granted a charter to Rhode Island and 
Providence plantations. The supreme or legislative 
power was to be exercised by an assembly, which 
was to consist of the governor, of ten assistants, and 
of representatives from the several towns, all to be 
chosen by the freemen. The first meeting of the ge- 
neral assembly, under the new charter, was on the 
1st of March, when the government was organized. 
Among a great variety of ordinances which were en- 
acted by the legislature of this colony, one was for 
declaring the privileges of his majesty's subjects. It 
enacted, " that no freeman shall be imprisoned, or 
deprived of his freehold, or condemned, but by the 
judgment of his peers, or the law of the colony ; that 
no tax shall be imposed or required of the colonists, 
but by the act of the general assembly ; that all men 
of competent estates, and of# civil conversation, (Ro- 
man Catholics only excepted,)! shall be admitted free- 
men, or may choose or be chosen colonial officers." 
In 1665, the general assembly enacted a law, autho- 
rizing the seizure of the estates of quakers, who re- 
fused to bear arms in defence of the colony ; but be- 
ing generally condemned by the people, it was never 
carried into execution. 

The commissioners sent by Charles II. to inspect 



* Pitkin, vol. i. p. 49. 

t " The authenticiiy of the clause, ' Roman Catholics only ex- 
cepted,' has been disputed ; and strictures have been made upon 
Clialmers, as maintaining ' that the toleration of Roger Williams 
did not extend to Roman Catholics,' and upon the author of Ame- 
rican Annals, as having ' repeated this charge.' That clause was 
an integral part of the ordinance, as recited by Chalmers, and the 
omission of it would have been censurable. It has since been af- 
tirmed, on very respectable authority, that the act in question is 



the affairs of the New England colonies, were received 
at Rhode Island with more deference than in the neigh- 
bouring colony of Massachusetts, arising, probably, 
partly from their religious sentiments, and partly from 
a sense of their comparative want of strength to cope 
with royal power. Their conduct received the warm- 
est approbation of their monarch ; and he assured 
them, that he should never be unmindful of their du- 
tiful behaviour, which, he observed, was set off with 
the more lustre by the contrary deportment of Mas 
sachusetts, as if, by its refractoriness, it had designed 
to recommend and heighten their merits. |: The ge- 
neral strain of the government of Rhode Island and 
Providence was conciliatory, though independent, and 
seems to have given satisfaction to Charles II. during 
the remainder of his reign. 

On the accession of James II. to the British crown, 
the assembly of Rhode Island immediately transmitted 
an address, acknowledging themselves his loyal sub- 
jects, professing obedience to his power, anJ begging 
protection for their chartered rights. Their suppli- 
cations, however, could not protect them from the ef- 
fects of those plans of reformation for New England 
which were now resolved on. Articles of high mis- 
demeanour were exhibited against them before the 
lords of the committee of colonies, accusing them of 
breaches of their charter, and of opposition to the 
acts of navigation. These charges were referred, in 
July, 168-5, to Sawyer, attorney-general, Avith orders 
forthwith to issue a writ of quo warranto against 
their patent ; and formal notice of the legal process 
was soon afterwards communicated to the governor 
and company. But, without much hesitation, they 
resolved that they would not stand suit with their 
king. It was ordered by the committee of colonies, 
that Sir Edmund Andros, the governor of Massachu- 
setts, should demand the surrender of their charter, 
and govern them as other colonies of New England, 
the king assuring them of his protection, and of his 
determination to extend no other rule of administra- 
tion over them, than over the neighbouring planta- 
tions. In December, 1686, Andros, agreeably to his 
orders, dissolved the government of Rhode Island, 
broke its seal, admitted five of its inJiabitants into his 
legislative council, and assumed the administration in 



not to be found in the records of Rhode Island. In copying the 
ordinance, the .supposed implication of Mr. Williams was not ad- 
verted to; it was merely a transcript of an article in our history. 
Whatever may have been the legislation of 1664, Roger Williams 
has a just claim to the honour of establishing, at the foundation of 
his colony, ' a free, full, and absolute liberty of conscience.' "- 
American Annals, vol. i. p. 336, 337. 

t See the King's Letter in New England Papers, vol. iii 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Ill 



the place of that which he had thus annihilated. 
When the revolution put an end to his power, Rhode 
Island and Providence resumed their charter, on the 
ground that an act which was extorted by terror 
might be justly recalled when restraint no longer re- 
mained. All the officers who had been displaced 
three years before were now restored. 

The benevolence, justice, and pacific policy of 
Williams, secured to the colony an almost total ex- 
emption from Indian hostility. Its prosperity was 
proportionate to these favourable circumstances, and 
the population rapidly increased ; in 173U, the num- 
ber of inhabitants was 18,000; and in 1761, it had 
augmented to 40,000. 

Brown University was founded at Warren, in 1764. 
On the petition of a number of respectable persons, a 
charter for founding a seminary of learning was grant- 
ed by the general assembly of the colony ; the in- 
corporation took place in the name of the " trustees, 
or fellows of the College or University in the English 
colony of Rhode Island and Providence plantations." 
The president must be a Baptist, but professors and 
other officers of instruction are not limited to any de- 
nomination of Christians. The charter, in the spirit 
of the other institutions of that colony, declares, "All 
the members of this institution shall forever enjoy 
full, free, absolute, and uninterrupted liberty of con- 
science ; and the places of professors, tutors, and all 
other officers, the president excepted, shall be free and 
open for all denominations of protestants." In 1770, 
the college was removed to Providence, where, by 
the generous donation of individuals, principally of 
the town of Providence, a large and elegant building 
was erected for the accommodation of the students. 



CHAPTER VII. 



NEW YORK. 



The history of the middle ages renders it very ap^ 
parent that many of the ideas which were entertained 
by the governments of Europe on the subject of title 
to property, both private and national, have been very 
incorrect. This was especially the case with respect 
to the claim to proprietorship, supposed to be con- 
ferred by discovery, a doctrine which gave rise to 
many, by no means bloodless, disputes. Had the 
simple idea of priority of occupation been deemed 
the just ground of national or individual claims to 
colonial possessions, little difficulty would have arisen, 
though it would have been subversive of many of the 
lofty imaginations of regal or aristocratic ambition, 

16 



This principle would have been just to the natives, 
who, as far as their occupancy extended, were the 
only parties who could convey a just title to the new- 
comers to the American continent. What would 
have been the indignation of British pride, had some 
adventurous Indian sachem discovered, and granted 
to his faithful followers, some of the extensive and 
thinly inhabited wastes which Britain exhibited in 
the reigns of James or Charles? Yet, what other 
title could Charles urge to the territories of the brave 
king Philip, that the latter could not, had he visited 
the coast of England, have retorted on the former ? 

The absurdity of the principle of a legitimate title 
being conferred by discovery only, was nowhere more 
clearly evinced, than in the transactions of the colony 
of New York. In 1609, Henry Hudson, an English- 
man employed by the East India Company of Hol- 
land, set sail from the Texel for the discovery of a 
north-west passage to India. Not succeeding in the 
object of his voyage, he entered the bay of Chesa- 
peake, where he found the infant settlement of the 
English. He afterwards proceeded to Long Island, 
and sailed up the river Manhattan, on whose bf-, '■ 
the chief fruits of his enterprise were destined to grow. 
It has been affirmed, that he sold his right to this 
territory to the Dutch ; but the assertion is as un- 
supported by proof as it is improbable ; he could con- 
vey to them no right which the voyage did not vest, 
by a much better title, in themselves. Several voya- 
ges were afterwards made from Holland to the river 
Manhattan, which subsequently received the name of 
the able navigator, hy whom it had been introduced 
to the acquaintance of the Dutch. The favourablrr 
report of Hudson having been confirmed by other 
voyagers, a body of Dutch merchants embraced the 
resolution of establishing a trading settlement ; and 
the States-General promoted the enterprise by granting 
them a patent for the exclusive trade of Hudson's 
river. They erected a fort near Albany, which they 
named Fort Orange, and a few trading-houses on the 
island of New York, then called by the Indians, 
Manhattan. 

If the Dutch settlers made proper arrangements 
with the natives, they had certainly now a right to be 
considered as the legitimate occupiers of the soil ; 
and no other European nation was entitled to dis- 
pute their possession. The British monarch, how- 
ever, was of a different opinion, as were his repre- 
sentatives in America — pretending to found their 
claim on the discovery of the Cabots in the previous 
century, a claim which has found an advocate in so 
sensible a writer as Chalmers ; and the title of the 
Hollanders is denied, because "the sovereign of 



112 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



France in 1603, and the king of England, in 1606, 
had declared their intention to appropriate the same 
region, which their subjects immediately planted."* 
Why the intention of the French or English was a 
better title than ihe' occupation of the Dutch, or what 
definition is to be allotted to the terra region, when 
no European had a settlement withm one hundred 
miles of the Dutch, Mr. Chalmers has left his readers 
to guess ; and if they exercise their rational faculties 
correctly, they will be far from countenancing his 
opinion. 

It was not long before the Dutch experienced the 
injurious eifects of the unjust principle to which we 
have alluded. In the very first year of their settle- 
ment, Captain Argal, who had proceeded from Vir- 
ginia to drive the French from their settlements on 
the bay of Fundy, visited, on his return, the Dutch 
on Hudson's river. Claiming the country for his 
sovereiofn, he demanded their acknowledcfment of 
his authority ; and being few in number, they pru- 
dently submitted, without attempting to resist. In 
the year following, however, a new governor having 
arrived at the fort with an additional complement of 
settlers, the claim of the English to the stipulated 
dependence was forthwith defied, and the payment 
of tribute imposed by Argal resisted. For the better 
protection of their independence, the colonists now 
erected another fort on the south-west point of Long 



• Annals, p. 568. 

t New Netherland, born republican, might have been nurtured 
in free principles, made the healthy and vigorous representative of 
the parent republic, and the depository for transmission to posterity 
of that liberty wliich was to expire at heme. The infant colony, 
might, at least, have been saved from the contamination which 
Tendered profession a mockery in practice. The West Indian 
Company were amply remunerated for all expenses and care which 
they bestowed ; and if magnanimity in policy had prevailed over 
the unstatesman-like maxims of gain and loss, they might have 
added to their renown, the celebrity of founding the first republic in 
the new world. But actuated by different views, and calculating 
the progressive profits of trade only, they now determined, if we 
may judge from the amount of their last transhipment, to carry to 
a fuller extent the commercial strength and spirit of the colony. 

Since their brilliant commencement, they suffered within the last 
two years reverses and misfortunes from the pirates, the Dunkirk 
free-booters, and the public enemy. But in 1627, the capture of 
thirty of the enemy's ships, under the batteries of St. Salvador, by 
Admiral Peter Pielersen Heyn, after an unequal conflict on his 



* Seawan was the name of Indian money, of which there were two 
kinds; wompam (which signifies white) arttf suckauhock, {sucki signifying 
btack.) Wompam or wompampeague, or simply peague, was, though im- 
properly, also understood among the Dutch and English, as expressive of 
the generic denomination. Wompam, or white money, was made of the 
stem or stock of the meteauhock or periwinkle: suckauhock, or black 
money, was manufactured from the inside of the shell of the quahaug, 
[venus mercenaria,) a round thick shell-fish, that buried itself but a little 
way in the sand, and was generally found lying on it in deep water, and 
gathered by rakes, or by diving after it. The Indians broke off abouf half 
an inch of a purple colour of the inside, and converted it into beads. 
These, before the introduction of awls and thread, were bored with sharp 
Btones. and strung upon sinews of beasts, and when interwoven to the 
breadth of the hand, more or less, were called a belt of seawan or wom- 



Island. They continued for a series of years, in 
unmolested tranquillity, to mature their settlement, 
enlarge their numbers, and by the exercise of their 
I national virtues of patience and industry, to subdue 
the first difficulties and hardships of an infant colony. 
In 1621, the Dutch republic, desirous of establish- 
ing a colony in America on a firm basis, granted to 
the Dutch West India Company, an extensive terri- 
tory on both sides of the Hudson, and entitled it New 
Netherlands. The boundaries were not accurately 
defined, but were considered by the company as 
including Connecticut river at the north, and Dela- 
ware river at the south. Under the management of 
this company, the settlement was soon both consoli- 
dated and extended. The city of New Amsterdam. 
afterAvards called New York, was built on York 
Island, then known by the name of Manhattan ; and 
at the distance of a hundred and fifty miles higher 
up the Hudson, were laid the foundations of the city 
of Albany. In 1623, they erected a fort on the 
Delaware, which they called Nassau ; and ten years 
afterwards another on the Connecticut, which they 
called Good Hope. Near the former, the Swedes 
had a settlement; and from the interfering claims of 
the two nations, quarrels arose between the settlers, 
which, in a few years, terminated in the subjugation 
of the Swedes. t 

If the policy of the Dutch in extending their set- 
part, in which .skill was seconded by the most obstinate heroism, 
gave renewed vigour to the company. These prizes were richly 
laden with sugar, tobacco, cotton, and some gold and silver. 

Sugar, linens, cloths, and stuffs of various fabric, formed a part 
of tlie imports into New Netherland. Its trade was with the na- 
tives, who, as far as from Q.uebec and Tadousac, brought furs to 
Fort Orange. But to this chief mart of the province, the five na- 
tions introduced the greatest supplies. Fort Amsterdam was still 
the head-quarters, M'here ships rendezvoused, and whence smaller 
ves.sels coasted the country from New-port-May to the Flat Corner, 
{Oe Vlack-hoeck ; the Dutch name for Cape Malabar.) But the 
above mentioned articles were unnecessary in the fur-trade, except- 
ing cloth of a dark colour, suitable to the melancholy temperament 
of the Indians, who rejected fabrics in which the least whiteness 
in their texture v.'as discoverable. Cloth of this description, hoes, 
hatchets, awls, beads, and other trinkets, looking glasses, Dutch 
triimpets in which the natives delighted, fire-arms, which originated 
a mischievous trafhc with the Mohawks, were the articles for the 
Indian trade. The circulating medium was seau-an* This was 
manufactured particularly by the Indians of Seawav^hacky, (Long' 



pam. A black bead, the size of a straw, about one third of an inch long 
bored longitudinally, and well polished, was the gold of the Indians, and 
always esteemed of twice the value of the white; but either species wns 
considered by them of much more value than F.uropean coin. An Indian 
chief, to whom the value of a rix-dollar was explained by the first clergy- 
man of Renselaerwyck, laughed exceedingly to think the Dutch set so 
high a price upon a piece of iron, as he termed it. Three beads of black, 
and six of white, were equivalent, among the English, to a penny, and 
among the Dutch, to a stuyver. But with the latter, the equivalent num- 
ber sometimes varied from three and six, to four and eight. One of Go- 
vernor IWinuit's successors fixed, by placard, the price of the "good splen- 
did seawan of BTanlialtan," at four for a stuyver. A string of this money, 
one fathom long, varied in price from five shilhngs, among the New Eng- 
landers. (after the Dutch gave them a knowledge of it,) to four guilders. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



113 



tlements so far eastward as Connecticut was to sup- 
ply a defective title by extent and priority of occupa- 
tion, it completely failed ; and they at length disco- 
vered, that the early extent of their occupation only 

Island,) and of this, as well as the first mentioned articles, the New 
Netherlandershad on hand a surplus quantity. It is obvious, there- 
fore, that for the purpose of vending these wares, a favourite po- 
licy of Governor Minuit was to ascertain a new market. His 
trading vessels had visited Anchor-bay and Sloop-bay, situate on each 
side of Red-Island, {Roode Eylandl, corrupted into Rhode Island,) 
ascended the river, (Taunton,) flowing into the bay of Nassau, (Nar- 
ragansett,) and trafficked at Sawaans or Puckanokick, where Massas- 
sowal, the friend of the Plymouth people, held dominion. From 
him and other Indians the latter had often heard of the Dutch, and 
from the same source the Dutch had no doubt received intelligence 
of the English. But during the six years which had elapsed since 
the settlement of Plymouth, there had not been the least intercourse 
with New Netherland. This negative relation would have con- 
tinued, if the commercial policy which has been suggested, had 
not now induced Governor Minuit to seek out New Plymouth, as 
the market which was most convenient to intercourse, most conge- 
nial in temper and circumstances, and, therefore, preferable to Vir- 
ginia or Canada, for the purpose of establishing a treaty of com- 
merce and amity. The people of Plymouth had a trading house 
at Manomet, (north side of Cape Cod,) but, comparatively unam- 
bitious, their commerce, fortifications, and strength of men, were, 
as was acknowledged by thein, far inferior to those of New Nether- 
land. Confined in their operations to the vicinity of the barren 
and lonely spot on which they had been cast, their little trade was 
indispensable, and they were aggrieved that (he Dutch had en- 
croached upon this trade, almost to their very doors. Having no 
transatlantic 9ommerce, they, this year, ( 1 627,) sent an agent to Eng- 
land and Holland, to make arrangements for such stipplies as their 
wants or commerce demanded. 

Such was the relative situation of the two colonies, when in 
March, Governor Minuit caused a deputation to the Governor and 
Council of Plymouth, with two letters, written in Dutch and French, 
dated at " Manhatas, in Fort Amsterdam, March 9th, 1627," (N. 
S.) signed " Isaac de Razier, Secretary." The Dutch governor 
and council congratulated the people of Plymouth on the success 
of their praise-worthy undertaking, proffered their " good will and 
service in all friendly correspondency and good neighbourhood," 
invited a reciprocity of amicable feeling, suggested for this pur- 
pose, among other things, " the propinquity of their native coun- 
tries, and their long continued friendship" — and concluded by de- 
siring " to fall into a way of some commerce and trade" — offering 
" any of their goods that might be serviceable," and declaring that 
they should feel themselves bound to accommodate and help " their 
Plymouth neighbours with any wares that they should be pleased 
to deal for."* 

The answer of Governor Bradford and Council was as fol- 
lows : — 



(one dollar sixty-six and a half cents,) among the Dutch. The process 
of trade was this : the Dutch and English sold for seawan, their knives, 
combs, scissors, needles, awls, looking-glasses, hatchets, hoes, guns, 
black cloth, and other articles of the Indian trnffic, and with the seawan 
bought the furs, corn, and venison, from the Indians on the seaboard, 
who also, with their shell money, bought such articles from Indians re- 
Biding in the mterior of the country. Thus by this circulating medium, a 
brisk commerce was carried on, not only between the white people and 
the Indians, but between different tribes among the latter. For the sea- 
wan was not only their money, but it was an ornament to their persons. 
It distinguished the rich from the poor, the proud from the humble. It was 
the tribute paid by the vanquished to those, the five nations for instance, 
who had exacted contribution. In the form of a belt, it was sent with all 
public messages, and preserved as a record of all public transactions be- 
tween nations. If a message was sent without the belt, it was considered 
an empty word, unworthy of remembrance. If the belt was returned, it 
was a rejection of the offer or proffer accompanying it. If accepted, it 
was a confirmation, and strengthened friendships or effaced injuries. 
The belt, mth appropriate figures worked in it, was also the record of 



served to bring their rights the sooner into c.-Uision 
with the pretensions of neighbours more powerful 
than themselves. These disagreeable results, how- 
ever, were not experienced till after the lapse of 



" To the Honourable and Worshipful the Director and Counc 1 
of New Netherland, our very loving and worthy friends and 
Christian neighbours. 

" The Governor and Council of Plymouth, in New England, 
wish your Honours and Worships all happiness and prosperity in 
this life, and eternal rest and glory with Christ Jesus our Lord, in 
the world to come. 

" We have received your letters wherein appeareth your good 
will and friendship towards us, but is expressed w'ith over high 
titles, and more than belongs to us, or than is meet for us to re- 
ceive : but for your good will and congratulation of our prosperity 
in this small beginning of our poor colony, we are much bound 
unto you, and with many thanks do acknowledge the same, taking it 
both for a great honour done unto us, and for a certain testimony of 
your love and good neighbourhood. Now these are further to give 
your Honours, Worships, and Wisdoms, to understand, that it is.tu 
us no small joy to hear, that it hath pleased God to move his Ma- 
jesty's heart, noLonly to confirm that ancient amity, alliance, and 
friendship, and other contracts formerly made and ratified by his 
predecessors of famous memory, but hath himself, (as you say,) 
and we likewise have been informed, strengthened the same with a 
new union, the better to resist the pride of that comirion enemy, 
the Spaniards, from whose cruelty the Lord keep us both, and our 
native countries. Now for as much as this is sufficient to unite us 
together in love and good neighbourhood in all our dealings, yet 
are many of us further tied by the good and courteous entreaty 
which we have found in your country, having lived there many 
years with freedoin and good content, as many of our friends do to 
this day, for which we are bound to be thankful, and our childreu 
after us, and shall never forget the same, but shall heartily desire 
your good and prosperity as our own for ever. Likewise, for your 
friendly proposition and offer to accommodate and help us with any 
commodities or merchandise which you have, and we want, either 
for beaver, otters, or other wares, is to us very acceptable, and we 
doubt not but in short time we may have profitable commerce and trade 
together. But you may please to understand that we are but one 
particular colony or plantation in this land, there being divers 
others besides, unto whom it hath pleased those Honourable Lords 
of his Majesty's Council for New England, to grant the like com- 
mission, and ample privileges to them, (as to us,) for their better 
profit and subsistence, namely, to expulse or make prize of any, 
either strangers or other English, which shall attempt either to 
trade or plant within their limits, (without their special license and 
commission,) which extends to forty degrees : yet, for our parts, 
■we shall not go about to molest or trouble you in any thing, but 
continue all good neighbourhood and correspondence as far as we 
may; only we desire that you would forbear to trade with the na- 
tives in this bay, and the river of Narragansett and Sowame.s, 



domestic transactions. The confederation of the five nations was thua 
recorded. The cockle shells had indeed more virtue amongst Indians, 
than pearls, gold, and silver, had among Europeans. Seawan was the 
seal of a contract— the oath of fidelity. It satisfied murders and all other 
injuries, purchased peace, and entered into the religious as well as civil 
ceremonies of the natives. A string of seawan was delivered by the orator 
in public council, at the close of every distinct proposition made to others, 
as a ratification of the truth and sincerity of what he snid i and the white 
and black strings of seawan were tied by the pagan priest around the ucck 
of the white dog suspended to a pole, and offered as a sacrifice to 7'A.i- 
longhyawaa^on, the upholder of the skies, the god of the five nations. 

* Extract from a manuscript history of Plimouth, communicated fay 
Hon. Francis Baylies, of Massachusetts. Prince's New England Annals, 
p. 172. Morton's New Englnnd Memorial, p. 91. Gov. Bradford's Letter 
Book, III. Mass. Historical Collections, p. 51. Hutchinson, II. App. 

"To which (snys Morton, secretary of Plimouth) the governor and 
council of Plimouth returned answerable courteous acceptance of their 
loving propositions, respecting their good neighbourhood in general, and 
particularly for commerce." 



114 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



several years of uninterrupted peace, during the 
administration of Wouter Van Twiller, the first 
governor appointed by the West India Company. It 
was near the close of his administration, that the 

which is, as it were, at our doors. The which, if you do, we think 
also no other English will go about any way to trouble or hinder 
ycu ; which otherwise are resolved to solicit his Majesty for re- 
dress, if otherwise they cannot help themselves. 

" May it please yoit further to understand, that for this year we 
are fully supplied with all necessaries, both for clothing and 
other things ; but it may so fall out, that hereafter we shall deal 
with you, if your rates be reasonable : and therefore, when your 
people come again, we desire to know how you will take beaver by 
the pound, and otters by the skin, and how you will deal per cent, 
for other commodities, and what you can furnish us with ; as like- 
wise what commodities from us may be acceptable to you, as tobac- 
co, fish, corn, or other things, and what prices you will give. 

" Thus hoping that you will pardon and excuse us for our rude 
and imperfect writing m your language, and take it in good part, 
because, for want of use, we cannot so well express that we under- 
stand, nor happily understand every thing so fully as we should : 
and so we humbly pray the Lord, fur his mercy's sake, that he will 
take both us and our native countries, into his holy protection and 
defence. Amen. 

" By the Governor and Council, your Honours' and Worships' 
very good friends and neighbours." 

In August, Governor Minuit and council sent another deputy, and 
in reply, insisted upon their right to trade to the places which Go- 
vernor Bradford and council had interdicted, that, " as the English 
clEiimed authority under the King of England, so we, the Dutch, 
derive ours from the states of Holland, and will defend it." The 
letter was in other respects very friendly, and, as if to preclude any 
interruption to the harmony of their projected intercourse, the mes- 
senger was charged with a present of " a rundlet of sugar and two 
Holland cheeses," for which many thanks were retitrned in the 
answer by Governor Bradford : he also requested that a deputy 
might be sent to confer respecting their future trade and commerce, 
and with the most friendly zeal cautioned the Dutch to avoid the 
Virginia ships or fishing ve.ssels, which might make prize of them, 
IS they had a few years previously, of a French colony that had 
intruded within their limits ; apprised them of the patents of Clueen 
Elizabeth, and advised Ihem to solicit the Slates General, to nego- 
liate with England for an amicable understanding upon the stihject. 
Governor Bradford communicated copies of the correspondence to 
the council for New England, and to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, re- 
questing advice. But now, as if apprehensive lest the contem- 
plated intimacy with the New Netherlanders, might give plausibility 
to their local pretensions, he wrote again to Governor Minuit in 
October, that he should suspend a decision on the question of trade, 
till the Plymouth agent should return from England and Holland, 



♦ In the language of a contemporary of Gov. Minuit and Gov. Brad- 
ford;— "If any tax me for \\a.=;ti]ig paper with reoordinc; these small mat- 
ters, such may consider, that small things in the beginning of natural or 
politic bodies, are as remarkable as grcaler, in bodies full grown." 
Thomas Dudley, the first deputy governor of Massachusetts, in an epistle 
to " my very good lady, the Lady Bridget Countess of Lincoln," dated 
Boston, 1631, and published in "Massachusetts, or the first Planters," 
&c. Boston, 1696, p. 22. 

+ Addressed to "Monsieur Monseignieur, William Bradford, governor 
in Nieu Plemeuen. 

"After the wishing of all good unto you, this serves to let you under- 
stand that we have received your (acceptable) letters, dated the 14th of 
last month, by John Jacobson of Wiring, who besides, by word of mouth, 
bath reported unto us your kind and friendly entertainment of him : for 
which cause (by the good liking and approbation of the director and coun- 
cil) I am resolved to come myself in friendship to visit you, that we may 
by word of mouth friendly communicate of things together; as also to 
report unto you the good will and favour that the Honourable Lords of 
the authorized West Indian Company bear towards you; and to show 
our willingness of your good accommodation, have brought with me some 
cloth of three sorts and colours, and a chest of white sugar, as also some 



English colonists extended their settlements beyonti 
the boundaries of Massachusetts into the territory o: 
Connecticut. He was succeeded in the following 
year by William Kieft, a man more fitted to encountei 



whither he had been sent to make arrangements, before it was as- 
certained that supplies could be obtained from the Dutch. He again 
advised them to adjust iheir title to a settlement " in these parts," lest 
in these "stirring evil times," it should become a source of contention. 

But before the reception of the last letter. Secretary Razier, ac- 
tuated by the prior communication of Governor Bradford, resolved, 
with the approbation of the Governor and Council, to be himself 
the bearer of an embassage to Plymouih. In the bark Nassau, 
freighted with a few articles for trafiic, manned with a retinue of 
soldiers and trumpeters, conformable to the fashion of the day, and 
proportional to the dignity of his station, this second officer of the 
government, departed on an embassy, which was as important in 
the primitive aflairs of New Netherland and New Plymouth, as 
any of the magnificent embassies of the old world were to full- 
grown kingdoms.* 

The reader's fancy will follow the bark through the east river, ( Oost 
rivier, called also Hcllc Gadtrivier, )m\.o the great bay of the island 
of shells, (Long Island Sound,) and as it boldly swept over the bay, 
or cautiously glided along its shores, skirted by thousands of wig- 
wams, he will picture the wild and joyful gesticulations of the In- 
dians, as they gazed upon the fantastic arrangements of the little 
vessel, or listened to the deep notes of the trumpeters. 

Arrived in safety at Manomet, (north side of Cape Cod,) the se- 
cretary despatched to Governor Bradford a letter, t announcing his 
arrival, specifying the articles that comprised his cargo, and re- 
questing some mode of conveyance to Plymouth. His request was 
granted. A boat was sent to Manonsciisset, (on the south side of 
Cape Cod,) and Razier, " honourably attended by » noise of trum- 
peters," was ushered into fort Plymouth. Here he was kindly 
entertained .several days. The meeting was not merely one of com- 
mercial speculation and heartless formality. It was the first meet- 
ing, in tiie solitude of the new world, of the friendly colonists 
of two allied European nations. It was the joyful meeting of 
kindred as well as friends, for the wives and little ones of some of 
the pilgrims had also their birth-place in Holland. Though the 
rigid simplicity of puritan costume and manners, the simple saluta- 
tion, for instance, of goodman and goody, were in direct opposition 
to the high-sounding titles, formal stateliness, and warlike decora- 
tions of the Dutch, yet the very spirit of amity consecrated the in- 
tercourse upon this novel occasion. 

When the Dutch departed, they were accompanied to Manomet 
by the Plymouth people, by whom articles of (heir merchandise 
were purchased, particularly the seawan, which was then introduced 
into New England, and became the medium of profitable trade 
with the Eastern Indians.t Such was the harmony of the first 
communication between the two colonies, that the Dutch ofi"eied 



seawan, &c. not doubting hut, if any of them may be serviceable unto 
you, we shall agree well enough about the prices thereof. Also, John 
Jacobson aforesaid, hath told me that he came to you over land in six 
hours, but I have not gone so far this three or four years, wherefore 1 fear 
my feet will fail me ; so I am constrained to entreat you to afford me the 
easiest means, that I mav, with least weariness, come to congratulate 
with yoii : so leaving other things to the report of the bearer, shall here- 
with end; remembering my hearty salutations to yourself and friends, &c 
From aboard the bark Nassau, the 4lh of October, 1627, before French- 
man's point. 

"Vour affectionate friend, ISAAC DE RAZIER." 

t Dr. Chalmers (Political Annals) says that Razier brought peltry and 
purchased corn. Hence it is inferred the Dutch had made httle progress 
in agricidture. The conclusion is true, though the premises are not. It 
is doubtful whether Plymouth raised corn enough for domestic consump- 
tion. " But whatever were the honey in the mouth of that beasi of trade, 
there was a deadly slinii in the tail. For it is said they first brought oui 
people to the knowledge of wampampeag ; and the acquaintance there- 
with occasioned the Indians of these parts to learn the skill to make it, by 
which, as by the exchange of money, they purchased store of arldleryi 
both from the Enghsh, Dutch, and French, which bath ptoved a fatal bu- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



115 



with spirit, than to stem with prudence, the troubles 
which now began to assail tlie possessions of the 
Dutch. Numberless causes of dispute were continu- 
ally occurring between New Netherlands and the 
colonies of Connecticut and New Haven. The 
English charged the Dutch with disturbing, kidnap- 
ping, and plundering their traders ; with enticing 
servants to rob and desert their masters ; and with 
selling arms and ammunition to the natives. Yet, 
notwithstanding their mutual disagreements, the Dutch 
and English colonists never suffered themselves to 
forget entirely either the forms of courtesy, or the 
more substantial rights of humanity ; and when, 

Iheir assistance against the French, if needed; urged their friends 
to abandon the barren spot on which fate had cast them, and re- 
move to the fertile banks of the Fresh River, ( Versche Rivier — the 
Connecticut.) The adoption of this advice might have perpetuated 
their good feeling, which, though afterwards supplanted by conten- 
tion and bitterness, was for years the foundation of repeated inter- 
course and profitable commerce. The Dutch frequently went to 
Manomet, exchanged their linens and stulfs for tobacco, which trade 
was extremely advantageous to the people of Plymouth, until the 
Virginians found out the Dutch colony, and drove Ihem from this 
market by underselling them in tobacco. 

The West Indian Coinpany also enjoyed immediately the salu- 
tary fruits of this coinmercial interchange, for the year after it 
commenced, (viz. 1628,) Governor Minuit, without the necessity 
of any fresh imports that year, exported to the Amsterdam depart- 
ment more furs than at any other prior period. 

The earnestness of Governor Bradford and his council, in ad- 
vising the Dutch to clear up their right to settle in the land, evinces 
the light in which the foriner viewed that right, and their igno- 
rance of any previous remonstrance upon the subject. It has, how- 
ever, been affirmed that Sir Ferdinando Gorges, one of the paten- 
tees of the New England charter of 1620, had remonstrated, in 
1624, to King James, against the occupation of the Hudson, and 
that ihe Stales General, by their ambassador, disclaimed it, as 
merely a private undertaking of their West Indian Company.* It 
might admit inquiry whether the English charter, in its construc- 
tive application, embraced that river ; for though it extended nomi- 
nally to the fortieth degree, it contained an exception in favour of 
the possession of any Christian prince or state. The Hollanders 
in 1620 had the possession. The policy of King James, not, per- 
haps, very liberal on this subject, was pacific, and he probably pre- 
ferred that the river should be settled upon by the Dutch rather 
than by the Spaniards or French, both of whom claimed the coun- 
try. He was, if we credit English statements, aware that the 
Dutch had begun a settlement, and, perhaps, he caused the proviso 
in the great charter, as a tacit acquiescence. If therefore the re- 
monstrance was made, no eflicienl interposition was obtained, nor 
was any regard paid to it by the West Indian Company : their 
measures with respect to New Netherland were not to be overawed 
by remonstrance, or varied by conflicting title, but proportioned to 
the success of their arms, consequently to the amplitude of their 
resources, and the adaptation of the province to a lucrative invest- 



siness to those that were concerned in it. It seems the trade thereof was 
%t first, by strict proclamation, prohibited by the king. ^ Sed quid non 
rriortalia pcctora cogis — Auri sacra fames 1' The love of money is the 
root of all evil," &c. IJubbard. Hist. New Eng. Mass. Hist. Col. V. 100. 
• This is put about the period of the meeting of the English parliament, 
in February, 1624. See Belk. Biog. vol. i. 3()9— 375. But the loose man- 
ner in which the complaint is told, without any authority cited, and par- 
ticularly the reply which it is said the states made, viz. that if a settlement 
on the Hudson had been made, it w.ns without their order, as they had 
only erected a company for the West Indies, are circumstances wliich 
throw a suspicion over the statement. The grant to the company extend- 
ed as far north as Newfoundland. Perhaps this story is confounded with 
one of a similar kind in the time of Charles I. 



in the course of the same year, Kieft applied to New 
Haven for assistance against the Indians, the govern- 
ment of this colony tendered the amplest contribution 
they could afford of provisions for men and cattle, 
to supply the scarcity that might have arisen from 
the Indian devastations. So unwarlike were the 
Dutch colonists in general, that they found it neces- 
sary to invite Captain Underbill, who had been ban- 
ished from Boston for his eccentricities in religion, to 
take command of the troops. Collecting a flying 
party of one hundred and fifty men, he was enabled 
lo preserve the Dutch settlements from destruction. 
The number of Indians whom he killed in the course 



ment of capital. This year they achieved a victory over the enemy, 
so decisive, so complete, so unexampled in the magnitude of its 
trophies and advantages, as not only to enrich the members of the 
company, but tend directly to the establishment of permanent colo- 
nization in New Netherland. In September (1628) Adiniral and 
General Peter Pieterson Heyn captured in the bay of Mautanzas a 
fleet of twenty vessels laden with silver, gold, and other precious 
articles, valued at more than twelve millions of guilders.t This 
was the famous Spanish silver fleet. The company during tlii=i 
and the preceding year took one hundred and four prizes from the 
Spaniards and Portuguese. Profit had augmented to fifty per cent. 
The treasure now poured upon the bosom of the society was so in- 
fatuating, that the States General found it necessary to interpose 
some rules of government over foreign conquests, not leaving them 
to the arbitrary whim and caprice of the conquerors or naval com- 
manders, and on the other hand found it not very difficult to per- 
suade the company, to their own ruin ultimately, to turn their ope- 
rations expressly for the advantage of the republic, and commence 
a " prince-like, instead of merchant-like war." But at this particu- 
lar crisis, the interposition of their high mightinesses, for the be- 
nefit of transmarine conquests and colonies, accompanied by a de- 
cree, authorizing the different departments of the company to ap- 
point a council of nine persons, who should be entrusted with the 
management of the whole, was the foundation of the appointment 
of commissioners over the affairs of New Netherland, and 
of the adoption by the college of XIX. of a charter of Liber- 
ties, and exemptions for patroons, masters, and private individuals, 
who should plant colonies in New Netherland, or import thither any 
•neat cattle. These privileges and exemptions were adopted in the 
spring of 1629, and recorded in the book of resolutions of the de- 
partment of XlX.t 

A knowledge of the provisions of this charter is not only neces- 
sary for understanding perfectly the civil basis on which the colony 
of New Netherland was erected, but the charter merits attention 
as an object of curious political speculation. It discloses the pecu- 
liar notions of aTi armed mercantile society with regard to coloni- 
zation. While it secured the right of the Indians to the soil, and 
enjoined schools and churches, it scattered the seeds of servitude, 
slavery, and aristocracy. While it gave lo freemen' as much land 
as they could cultivate, and exemjited colonists from taxation for 
ten years, it fettered agriculture, by restricting commerce and pro- 
hibiting manufactures.— Moulton's History of New York. 



t 5,000,000 dollars. Do Laet (History West India Co. book V.) says 
1I,509,5'24 guilders, exclusive of musk, ambergris, bezonr, and other pre- 
cious articles in great quantity, besides the cargoes of two galleons and 
one small prize. r i j 

t Lambrechtsen says they are to be found in the Notulea of that de- 
partment, March 10, 1628, (old style;) but in a deed from Gov. Kiefl to 
ex-Governor Van Twillor, in 1638, of a tohncco plantation at Sapoka- 
nickan, (Greenwich, in the city of New York,) the date of the grant of 
the liberties and exemptions is cited to have been the 7th of Juu", 1629. 
Perhaps, as they were not published till 1630, they underwent modifica- 
tions after they were first adopted, previously to their being finally con- 
firmed as a charter. 



116 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



of the war was supposed to exceed four hundred. 
In 1646. a severe battle was fought on that part of 
Horseneck called Strickland's Plain. The Dutch 
were victorious ; on both sides great numbers were 
slain ; and for a century afterwards the graves of the 
dead were distinctly visible. 

Kieft was succeeded, in the following year, by Pe- 
ter Stuyvesant, a brave old officer, and one of the 
most magnanimous spirits of the republican service of 
Holland. By his prudence and vigour, he appears 
to have succeeded in restoring peace with the In- 
dians, and preserving it unixiterrupted during the 
whole of his administration. In 1650, he met the 
commissioners of the New England colonies at Hart- 
ford, where, after much altercation, a line of parti- 
tion between their respective territories was fixed by 
mutual agreement. Long Island was divided be- 
tween them ; the Dutch retained the lands which they 
occupied in Connecticut, surrendering their claim to 
the residue. 

In the Delaware terrtiory, Stuyvesant resolutely 
defended the claims of his countrymen against the 
invasions both of the English and the Swedes. In 
1651, the Dutch built Fort Casimir, now called New- 
castle, on Delaware. The Swedes claiming the 
country formally protested against this proceeding. 
Risingh, the governor, >mder the disguise of friend- 
ship, came before the fortress, and landed thirty men, 
who were entertained by the commandant as friends ; 
but he had no sooner discovered the weakness of the 
garrison, than he made himself master of it ; and 
compelled several of the people to swear allegiance to 
Christiana, queen of Sweden. Stuyvesant was not 
of a disposition to submit tamely to such an outrage, 
or to content himself with a simple recapture of the 
fort. He determined to invade and subdue the whole 
Swedish settlement. But no sooner did they find 
themselves about to be attacked by this determined 
warrior, and perceived tliat their forts failed to inti- 
midate the enemy, than they peaceably surrendered 
them, toffether with the whole of their establishments. 
Thus, miassisted by the parent state, fell the only 
colony that Sweden has ever possessed. 

During nearly ten years of peace, Stuyvesant used 
diligent exertion in extending and consolidating the 
colony of New Netherlands ; all his labours were, 
however, doomed to prove imavailing to the advan- 
tage of his country. Charles II. had now ascended 
the British throne ; and although he had received, 
during his exile, more courtesy from the Dutch than 
from any other nation, he had conceived a peculiar 
aversion towards the people of Holland ; and did not 
hesitate to use every means to provoke the resentment 



of the States-General : among others, he asserted his 
claim to the province of New Netlierlands ; and, 
without any attempt at negotiation with the States^ 
he executed a charter, conveying to the Duke of York 
the whole territory, from the eastern shore of the De- 
laware, to the western bank of the Connecticut. This 
grant took no more notice of the existing possession 
of the Dutch, than it showed respect to the recent 
charter of Connecticut, which, whether from design 
or ignorance, it tacitly, but entirely superseded. No 
sooner did the Duke of York obtain this grant, than 
he conveyed to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carte- 
ret all that portion irow constituting the province of 
New Jersey. 

It was manifest that this grant would require a 
military force to carry it into eflect. While the Dutch, 
notwithstanding the intimations they received from 
Stuyvesant, continued unsuspecting or incredulous, 
an armament, under the command of Colonel Nichols, 
who was also appointed goverrior of the province he 
was about to conquer, was prepared and despatched. 
After touching at Boston, the fleet sailed to Hudson 
river, and took a position before the capital of New 
Netherlands. Stuyvesant resolved to make a gallant 
defence, but his sentiments did not pervade the minds 
of the inhabitants, who, apprehending all resistance 
to the disciplined forces, and powerful artillery of the 
invaders, utterly hopeless, the most valorous and 
faithful satisfied themselves with the resolution not to 
remain the subjects of their tyrannical conqueror, but 
could not perceive the propriety of aggravating their 
distress by exposing their persons and habitations to 
the certainty of capture by storm, and the extremity 
of military violence. 

Colonel Nichols lost no time in sending a summons 
to surrender the fortress, towns, and the whole terri- 
tory, to the king of England, as his lawful right, which 
had been mtruded on and usurped by the Dutch. As 
the reply of Stuyvesant gives what may be considered 
an authentic account of the grounds of the claims of 
the Dutch, a part of it is presented to the reader : 
" My Lords, 

" Your first letter, imsigned, of the 20^31 August, 
together with that of this day, signed according to 
form, being the 1st of September, have been safely 
delivered into our hands by your deputies, unto which 
we shall say, that the rights of his majesty of Eng- 
land, unto any part of America hereabout, amongst 
the rest, unto the colonies of Virginia, Maryland, or 
others in New England, whether disputable or not, 
is that which, for the present, we have no design to 
debate upon. But that iiis majesty hath an indispu- 
table right to all lands in the north parts of America 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



117 



is that, which the kings of France and Spain will 
disallow, as we absolutely do, by virtue of a commis- 
sion given to me, by my lords, the high and mighty 
States-General, to be governor-general over New Hol- 
land, the Isles of Curacoa, Bonaire, Aruba, with their 
appurtenances _ and dependencies, bearing date the 
26th of July, 1646. As also by virtue of a grant and 
commission, given by my said lords, the high and 
mighty States-General, to the West India Company, 
in the year 1621, with as much power, and as au- 
thentic, as his said majesty of England hath given, or 
can give, to any colony in America, as more fully 
appears by the patent and commission of the said 
lords the States-General, by them signed, registered, 
and sealed with their great seal, which were shewed 
to your deputies. Colonel George Carteret, Captain 
Robert Needham, Captain Edward Groves, and Mr. 
Thomas Delavall, by which commission and patent, 
together, (to deal frankly with you,) and by divers 
letters, signed and sealed by our said lords the States- 
General, directed to several persons, both English and 
Dutch, inhabiting the towns and villages on Long 
Island, (which, without doubt, . have been produoed 
before you, by those inhabitants,) by which they are 
declared and acknowledged to be their subjects, with 
express command, that they continue faithful unto 
them, under penalty of incurring their utmost displea- 
sure, which makes it appear more clear than the sun 
at noon-day, that your first foundation (viz. that the 
right and title of his majesty of Great Britain to these 
parts of America is unquestionable) is absolutely to 
be denied. Moreover, it is without dispute, and ac- 
knowledged by the world, that our predecessors, by 
virtue of the commission and patent of the said lords 
the States-General, have, without control and peacea- 
bly, (the contrary never coming to our knowledge,) 
enjoyed Fort Orange about forty-eight or fifty years, 
the Manhattans about forty-one or forty-two years, the 
South River forty years, and the Fresh Water River 
about thirty-six years. Touching the second subject 
of your letter, viz. ' His majesty hath commanded 
me, in his name, to require a surrender of all such 
forts, towns, or places of strength, which now are pos- 
sessed by the Dutch under your command ;' we shall 
answer, that we are so confident of the discretion and 
equity of his majesty of Great Britain, that in case 
his majesty were informed of the truth, which is, that 
the Dutch came not into these provinces by any vio- 
lence, but by virtue of commissions from my lords 
the States-General,- -first of all in the years 1614, 
1615, and 1616, up the North River, near Fort Orange, 
where, to hinder the invasions and massacres com- 
monly committed by the savages, tliey built a little 



fort, and after, in the year 1622, and even to this pre- 
sent time, by virtue of commission and grant to the 
governors of the West India Company ; and, more- 
over, in the year 1656, a grant to the honourable the 
burgomasters of Amsterdam, of the South River, inso- 
much that, by virtue of the abovesaid commissions 
from the high and mighty States-General, given to 
the persons interested as aforesaid, and others, these 
provinces have been governed, and consequently en- 
joyed ; as also in regard of their first discovery, un- 
interrupted possession, and purchase of the lands of 
the princes, natives of the country, and other private 
persons, though Gentiles, — we make no doubt, that i( 
his said majesty of Great Britain were well informed 
of these passages, he would be too judicious to grant 
such an order, principally in a time when there is so 
straight a friendship and confederacy between our 
said lords and superiors, to trouble us in the demand- 
ing and summons of the places and fortresses which 
were put into our hands, with order to maintain 
them, in the name of the said lords the States-General, 
as was made appear to your deputies, under the 
names and seal of the said high and mighty States- 
General, dated the 28th of .Tuly, 1646. Besides what 
had been mentioned, there is little probability, that 
his said majesty of England, (in regard the articles of 
peace are printed, and were recommended to us to 
observe seriously and exactly, by a letter written to 
us by our said lords the States-General, and to cause 
them to be observed religiously in this country,) 
would give order touching so dangerous a design, 
being also so apparent, that none other than my said 
lords the States-General have any right to these pro- 
vinces, and consequently ought to command and 
maintain their subjects ; and in their absence, we. 
the governor-general, are obliged to maintain their 
rights, and to repel and take revenge of all threaten- 
ings, unjust attempts, or any force whatsoever, that 
shall be committed against their faithful subjects and 
inhabitants, it being a very considerable thing to af- 
front so mighty a state, although it were not against 
an ally and confederate. Consequently, if his said 
majesty (as it is fit) were well informed of all that 
could be spoken upon this subject, he would not ap- 
prove of what expressions were mentioned in your 
letter." 

The reasoning of Stuyvesant, as might have been 
anticipated, did not produce any effect on his oppo- 
nents, who made immediate preparations for the 
reduction of the fort. These prompt measures in- 
duced the governor to make another attempt at nego- 
tiation ; but Colonel Nichols replied, that he could 
treat on no subject but that of surrender. ITnsup- 



118 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



.CJi 



ported as was Stnyvesant by his countrymen, he felt 
compelled to agree to a treaty of capitulation, which 
was concluded on the most favourable terms to the 
inhabitants ; and, to gratify the punctilious feelings 
of Stuyvesant, an article was introduced, that the 
English and Dutch limits in America should be set- 
tled by the court of England and the States-General. 
On the 27th of August, 1664, the commissioners on 
behalf of both parties, met at the governor's farm, and 
signed the articles of capitulation. 

The first article of the treaty declared, " That the 
States-General, or the West India Company, shall 
freely enjoy all farms and houses (except such as 
are in the forts;) and that within six months they 
shall have free liberty to transport all such arms and 
munition, as now belong to them, or else they shall 
be paid for them." The third, that "All people shall 
still continue free denizens, and shall enjoy their 
lands, houses, goods, wheresoever they are within 
this country, and dispose of them as they please.'" 
The sixth, that "Any people may freely come from 
the Netherlands, and plant in this colony, and that 
Dutch vessels may freely come hither, and any of 
the Dutch may freely return home, or send any sort 
cf merchandise home, in vessels of their own coun- 
try." The last of these conditions was manifestly in 
direct opposition to the navigation acts, and conferred 
a privilege it was not in the power of the crown to 
ratify, and which was consequently of very short 
duration. Favourable as were these conditions, it 
was not till two days after their signature by the 
commissioners, that the governor could be induced 
to add his ratification. 

Immediately after its subjugation. New Amsterdam 
received the name of New York ; the appellation 
was also extended to the whole province. Fort 
Orange, which capitulated before the close of the 
month, took the name of Albany. During his abode 
in that neighbourhood, Carteret, who had been 
.despatched to reduce Fort Orange, had interviews 
with the chiefs of the Indians of the Five Nations, 
and entered into a treaty of friendship with them, 
the beneficial effects of which long continued to be 
realized by the colonists. Sir Robert Car was equally 
successful in the south, the garrison of the Delaware 
surrendering on the 1st of October, on which day the 
whole of the New Netherlands became subject to the 
British crown ; and by an act of flagrant injustice, 
the States-General ceased to exercise any authority 
over the North American continent. All the early 
writers ag:ree in describing New Amsterdam as a 

• Qrahame, vol. ii. p. 226. 



handsome well-built town. Indeed, the various pro- 
visions that were introduced into the articles of sur- 
render, to guard the comforts of the inhabitants from 
invasion, attest the orderly and plentiful state which 
these colonists had attained. No account has been 
preserved of the total population of the province and 
its dependencies ; but the metropolis, at this time, 
seems to have contained about three thousand persons.* 
Few of the inhabitants thought proper to remove out 
of the country. Even Governor Stuyvesant himself 
continued to hold his estate, and died there. " Justice 
obliges me to declare," says Smith, " that for loyalty, 
and a pure attachment to the Protestant religion, the 
descendants of the Dutch planters are perhaps ex- 
ceeded by none of his majesty's subjects."! 

Nichols immediately assumed the command of the 
territory he liad conquered, as deputy governor for 
the duke of York ; and without delay proceeded to 
reduce the atfairs of the state to one uniform consti- 
tution and policy. In imitation of what had been 
previously established by the Dutch, he erected a 
court of assize, composed of the governor, the coimcil, 
and the justices of the peace, which was invested 
with every power in the colony, legislative, execu- 
tive, and judicial. The only liberal institution that 
he was allowed to introduce was trial by jury ; and 
to this admirable check on judicial proceedings all 
I causes and controversies were subjected. The court 
having collected into one code the ancient customs, 
with such, improvements as the change of circum- 
stances rendered necessary, still regarding the laws 
of England as supreme, these ordinances were trans- 
mitted to England, and confirmed by the duke of 
York the following year. A dispute having arisen 
between the inhabitants of Jamaica on Long Island 
respecting Indian deeds, it was ordered, that no 
purchase from the Indians should be deemed valid 
without the governor's license, executed in his pre- 
sence. Several of the English methods of govern- 
ment were gradually introduced into the province ; 
and on the 12th of June, the inhabitants of New 
York were incorporated under a mayor, five alder- 
men, and a sheriff. 

When the intelligence of the declaration of war 
against Holland reached New York, the governor 
naturally anticipated an attempt on the part of the 
Dutch to regain their territory of the New Nether- 
lands, and proceeded to adopt measures calculated to 
insure a vigorous and successful defence. The 
inhabitants felt the pressure of the assessments made 
by the court of assize to furnish the requisite pecuni- ■ 

t History of New York, p. 23. 



s 



o«? 



HI I 



i« CO 

on 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



119 



ary supplies the more keenly, since their trade, which 
had been almost exclusively carried on by Dutch 
shipping, was now nearly annihilated. In tliese 
circumstances, Governor Nichols nobly sacrificed the 
greater part of his fortune to supply the public exi- 
gencies. Happily, however, the States-General, made 
no attempt to repossess themselves of New York 
during this war ; and at the peace of Breda it was 
ceded to England, in exchange for Surinam, by a 
general stipulation, that each of the two nations 
should retain what its arms had acquired since the 
commencement of hostilities. It was by this treaty 
also that Acadie was ceded to France, which had 
acted as the ally of Holland during the war, and 
was the only party tliat reaped advantage from it. 

Early in the following year. Colonel Nichols found 
himself compelled, from the pecuniary sacrifices he 
had made, to resign his appointment. He was both 
respected and beloved by the people over whose 
interests he had presided. The benefit of his exer- 
tions devolved on his successor, Colonel liOvelace, 
during whose administration the colony enjoyed 
nearly six years of content and prosperity, the only 
memorable occurrence being the unfortunate event 
that brought it to a close. During the second war 
with Holland, a small squadron was despatched to 
destroy the commerce of the English colonies ; and 
having performed this service with great effect, they 
were induced to attempt a more important enterprise. 
Repairing with secrecy to New York, they had the 
good fortune to arrive at the metropolis while Love- 
lace was at a distance, and the command was exer- 
cised by Colonel Manning, who sent down a mes- 
senger, and treacherously made terms with the enemy. 
The Dutch sailed up the harbour, landed their men, 
and took possession of the fort and city without firing 
or receiving a shot. Captain Anthony Colve was 
appointed governor, but he retained the authority 
for a few months only ; peace being concluded the 
next year, the country was restored to the English 
by the treaty of Westminister. On this pacification, 
the duke of York, to remove all doubt respecting his 
property in America, took out a new patent from the 
king. This grant recited and confirmed the former. 
It empowered the duke to govern tlie inhabitants by 
such ordinances as he or his assigns should establish, 
and to administer justice according to the laws of 
England, allowing an appeal to the king in council. 
It prohibited trade thither without his permission. It 



♦ Collections of New York Historical Society, vol. iii. p. 347, 
353. " It has been alleged, and it is not improbable, that the duke, 
upon becoming king, refused to confirm the privileges he had before 
granted, and determined to govern the province by his absolute 

16 



allowed the piovincials to Import mercliandises, but 
required them " to pay customs according to tlic laws 
of the realm." Under the authority of this charter 
the duke ruled New York until his accession to the 
throne of England. He now commissioned Major 
Edmund Andros to be governor of all his territories 
from the western bank of the Connecticut to the 
farther shore of the Delaware. In October, the 
Dutch resigned their authority to Andros, who 
immediately received the submission of the inhabit- 
ants. 

The administration of Andros and of his successor 
Anthony Brockholst, are not distinguished by any 
remarkable event. In 1682, Colonel Thomas Don- 
gan was appointed governor. During his govern- 
ment the inhabitants of New York first participated 
in the legislative power. The council, the court of 
assize, and the corporation of New York, having 
concurred in soliciting their royal patentee to permit 
the people to possess some share in the government, 
the duke had informed the deputy governor of the 
province that he intended to establish the same form 
of government as the other plantations enjoyed 
" particularly in the choosing of an assembly," ana 
Governor Donoan was accordingly instructed to call 
an assembly of the province. It was to consist of a 
council composed of ten members, and a house of 
representatives chosen by the people, composed of 
eigliteen members ; but its laws were to be of no 
force without the ratification of the proprietary. Or, 
ders were issued to the sheriffs, to summon the free- 
holders for choosing representatives to meet the 
governor in assembly on the 17th of October. A 
session of the assembly was held, pursuant to the 
summons, and several important laws were passed. 
One of the acts of this assembly, passed on the 30th 
of October, is entitled, " The Charter of Liberties; 
and Privileges granted by his royal highness to the 
Inhabitants of New York and its dependencies." 
Another session was held the following year, but it 
is believed there was no other previous to the revo- 
lution of 1688.* 

The interior of New York was originally inhabit- 
ed by a confederacy, which consisted at first of five, 
and afterwards of six, nations of Indians. This 
confederacy was formed for mutual defence against 
the Algonquins, a powerful Canadian nation, and 
displayed much of the wisdom and sagacity which 
mark the institutions of a civilized people. By their 



power. It is therefore reasonable to suppose, that in the new com- 
mission, or oiders to Governor Dongan, the authority respecting 
the assembly was omitted, or revoked."— Holmes's American An- 
nals, vol. i. p. 410, 



120 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



union they had become formidable to the surround- 
ins; tribes. Being the allies of the English, the 
French were alarmed at their successes, and became 
jealous of their power. In the year 1684, De la 
Barre, the governor of Canada, marched to attack 
them, with an army of seventeen hundred men. His 
troops suffered so much from hardships, famine, and 
sickness, that lie was compelled to ask peace of those 
whom he had come to exterminate. He invited the 
chiefs of the five nations to meet him at his camp, 
and those of three of them accepted the invitation. 
Standing in a circle, formed by the chiefs and his 
own officers, he addressed a speech to Garrangula, 
of the Onondago tribe, in which he accused the con- 
federates of conducting the English to the trading 
grounds of the French, and threatened them with 
war and extermination if they did not alter their 
behaviour. Garrangula, knowing the distresses of 
the French troops, heard these threats with contempt. 
After walking five or six times round the circle, he 
addressed De la Barre in the following bold lan- 
eruafre, callinof him Yonnondio, and the English 
governor, Corlear : 

" Hear, Yonnondio, I do not sleep ; I have my 
eyes open, and the sun which enlightens me, disco- 
vers to me a great captain, at the head of a company 
of soldiers, who speaks as if he was dreaming. He 
says that lie only came to smoke the great pipe of 
peace with the Onondagas. But Garrangula says, 
that he sees the contrary ; that it was to knock them 
on the head, if sickness had not weakened the arms 
of the French. We carried the English to our lakes, 
to trade there with the Utawawas, and Q,uatoghies, 
as the Adriondacs brought the French to our castles, 
to carry on a trtide which the English say is theirs. 
We are born freb , \re neither depend on Yonnondio 
nor Corlear. We may go where we please, and buy 
and sell what we please. If your allies are your 
slaves, use them as such ; command them to receive 
no other but your people. Hear, Yonnondio ! what 
I say is the voice of all the Five Nations. When 
they buried the hatchet at Cadaracui, in the middle 
of the fort, they planted the tree of peace in the same 
place, to be there carefully preserved, that instead of 
a retreat for soldiers, the fort might be a rendezvous 
for merchants. Take care that the many soldiers 
who appear there do not choke the tree of peace, and 
prevent it from covering your country and ours with 
its branches. I assure you that our warriors shall 
dance under its leaves, and will never dig up the 
hatchet to cut it down, till their brother Yonnondio 
or Corlear shall invade the country which the Great 
Spirit has given to our ancestors." 



De la Barre was mortified and enraged at this 
bold reply ; but, submitting to necessity, he conclu- 
ded a treaty of peace, and returned to Montreal. His 
successor, De Nonville, led a larger army against the 
confederates ; but fell into an ambuscade, and was 
defeated. These wars within the limits of the colony 
kept Colonel Dongan actively employed, and served 
to perpetuate the enmity of the Indians against the 
French, and their attachment to the English. 

James II. having ascended the throne, determined 
to superadd New York and the Jerseys to the juris- 
diction of the four colonies of New England ; a new 
commission was passed in March, appointing Sir 
Edmund Andros captain-general and vice-admiral 
over the whole. The constitution established on this 
occasion was a legislative and executive governor 
and council, who were appointed by the king, with- 
out the concurrence of the people. The royal order 
to Governor Dongan to deliver up the seal of the 
province to his excellency Sir E. Andros, was read 
in the provincial council on the 28th of July, and 
ordered to be entered among the records of the pro- 
vince of New York. His rule was, however, of very 
brief duration. In the following year, the welcome 
intelligence of the accession of William and Mary to 
the British tlirone was joyfully received at New 
York, and the inhabitants waited with anxiety for 
orders to proclaim them ; but while the principal 
officers and magistrates were assembled to consult 
for the public safety, Jacob Leisler, a captain of the 
militia, seized the fort, and held it for the prince of 
Orange. William and Mary were proclaimed there 
in June ; and the province was for some time ruled 
by a committee of safety, at the head of which was 
Leisler. He was destitute of many of the qualifica- 
tions necessary to conduct a difficult enterprise, but 
possessed the esteem and confidence of many of the 
officers, and of the people. His sudden elevation 
excited the envy of those magistrates and citizens 
who had declined to join him in proclaiming King 
William. Unable to raise a party against him in the 
city, they retired to Albany, where their exertions 
were successful. To diminish tlieir influence, and 
to allay the jealousy of others, Leisler invited several 
of the principal citizens to unite with him in admin- 
istering the government, a trust which had been 
confided to him alone by the militia. In a few 
months, however, a letter arrived from the ministry 
in England, directed " to such as, for the time being, 
take care for administering the laws of the province," 
and conferring authority to perform all the duties of 
lieutenant-governor. Leisler considered this letter 
addressed to himself, assumed the authority conferred, 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



121 



appointed his council, and issued commissions in his 
own name. Before these disturbances, Colonel Don- 
gan had resigned his office, and embarked for England. 
Lieutenant-governor Nicholson, unable to contend 
with Leisler, absconded in the night. 

The people of Albany, led by Bayard, Courtlandt, 
formerly mayor of New York, and Livingston, 
acknowledged King William, but refused to submit 
to Leisler. Milborne was sent with a body of troops 
to enforce obedience, but, finding them united, he 
returned without attempting it. The next spring, 
going with a stronger force, he succeeded. Aban- 
doning the fort to their rival, the leaders of the party 
took refuge in the neighbouring colonies ; and 
Leisler, with vindictive rashness, proceeded to con- 
fiscate their estates. This arbitrary and unjust 
measure so exasperated the suff"erers, that they long 
retained the most violent animosity against Leisler 
and his adherents. 

In this state of contention the colonists of New 
York continued nearly two years, and the miseries 
of a foreign aggression were soon added to those of 
internal discord. War had been declared between 
France and England ; and De Nonville had been 
replaced in the governorship of Canada by Count 
Frontignac, a veteran officer, whose skilful and 
energetic measures, aided by a large re-enforcement, 
soon raised the afl^airs of the French from the brink 
of ruin, and enabled them to act on the offensive. 
Frontignac was indefatigable in his efforts to gain 
over the Five Nations, who had made two attacks 
upon Montreal, and murdered a great number of 
inhabitants. He held a great council with them at 
Onondaga ; and, as they seemed to be somewhat 
inclined to peace, he resolved to give their favourable 
disposition no time for change, and, at the same time, 
to inspirit his own drooping countrymen, by finding 
them immediate employment against the English 
colonies. On the 19th of January, a party of about 
two hundred French, and some Cahnuaga Indians, 
set out, in a deep snow, for Schenectady; they arri- 
ved on the 8th of February, at eleven o'clock at 
night ; and the first intimation the inhabitants had of 
their design, was conveyed in the noise of their own 
bursting doors. The village was burnt, sixty per- 
sons were butchered, twenty-seven suffered the worse 
fate of captivity, the rest made their way naked 
through the snow towards Albany, where some 
arrived in extreme distress, while many perished in 
the attempt. A party of young men, and some 
Mohawk Indians, set out from the latter place, pur- 
sued the enemy, and killed or captured twenty-five. 

To rvenge t!:ese barbarities, and others perpetra- 



ted in New England, a combined expedition against 
Canada was projected. An army, raised in New 
York and Connecticut, proceeded as far as the head 
of Lake Champlain, whence, finding no boats prepa- 
red, they were obliged to return. Sir William Phipps- 
with a fleet of more than thirty vessels, sailed from 
Boston into the St. Lawrence, and, landing a body 
of troops, made an attack by land and water upon 
Quebec ; but the return of the army to New York 
allowing the whole force of the enemy to repair to 
the assistance of the garrison, he was obliged to 
abandon the enterprise. Leisler, transported with 
rage when he was informed of the retreat, caused 
Winthrop, who commanded the New England forces, 
to be arrested, but was instantly compelled, by uni- 
versal indignation, to release him. It was to the mis- 
conduct or incapacity of Leisler and Milborne, (the 
latter of whom, as commissary-general, had made no 
adequate provision for the enterprise,) that the failure 
of this expedition was attributed. 

The messenger whom Leisler had despatched to 
convey his assurances of devoted loyalty to King 
William, had been most graciously received, and 
admitted to the honour of kissing his majesty's hand. 
But the latter lieutenant-governor, Nicholson, on his 
arrival in England, found means to induce the king 
not to recognise expressly the authority of Leisler, 
and so early as August, 1689, the government of New 
York was confided to Colonel Sloughter ; though 
this officer being engaged in affairs of more imme- 
diate interest at home, did not arrive at New York 
till two years afterwards. Leisler felt himself so 
neglected by being thus superseded, and was so 
intoxicated with power, that he determined to retain 
it, and although twice summoned, refused to surren- 
der the fort ; he, however, sent two persons to con- 
fer with the governor, who, declaring them rebels, 
arrested and confined them. Alarmed by this mea- 
sure, Leisler attempted to escape, but was appre- 
hended with many of his adherents, and brought to 
trial. In vain did they plead their zeal for King 
William. In vain did Leisler insist that the letter 
from England authorized him to administer the 
government. They had lately resisted a gover- 
nor with a regular commission, and this governor, 
and a subservient court, were resolved upon their 
conviction. Leisler and Milborne were both con- 
demned to death for high treason. Sloughter was, 
however, unwilling to sacrifice two men, who, 
thousrh they had sometimes erred, had served his 
master with zeal ; but at length he yielded to the 
urg-ent persuasions of their enemies, and signed the 
warrant for their execution, which was speedily car- 



122 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



ried into effect. On application to the king, their 
estates, which had been confiscated, were restored to 
their heirs. 

Sloughter's administration was terminated by his 
sudden death in July, 1691. It had been turbulent 
and ineffective ; the only portion of his government 
which appears to have been beneficial, was a confer- 
ence which he held with the chiefs of the Five Na- 
tions, who had manifested some disposition to enter 
into a treaty with the French ; but in consequence of 
Sloughter's explanations and persuasions, they ex- 
pressed themselves willing to " brighten their ancient 
belt of friendship," and renew their offensive and de- 
fensive league with the English. 

To put their friendship to the test, and to confirm 
it by calling it into exercise, Major Schuyler, who 
possessed great influence with the Indian chiefs, un- 
dertook, at the close of this year, an expedition against 
Montreal. The attempt did not succeed as to the 
principal object of attack, but the spirit of hostility 
was so intensely aroused in the Indians of the Five 
Nations, that they continued to wage war on the 
French during the winter, though the colonial troops 
had retired. Count Frontignac was so exasperated 
with their continued assaults, that he condemned to 
a death, accompanied by all the torments French in- 
genuity could devise, two Mohawk captives, whom 
the fate of war had thrown into his power. " Short- 
ly before the execution, some Frenchman, less inhu- 
man than his governor, threw a knife into the prison, 
and one of the Mohawks immediately despatched 
himself with it : the other, expressing contempt at his 
companion's mean evasion from glory, walked to the 
stake, singing in his death-chant that he was a Mo- 
hawk warrior, that all the power of man could not 
extort an indecent expression of suffering from his 
lips, and that it was ample consolation to him to re- 
flect that he had made many Frenchmen suffer the 
same pangs that he must now himself undergo. When 
attached to the stake, he looked round on his execu- 
tioners, their instruments of torture, and the assem- 
liled multitude of spectators, with all the complacency 

* Giahame, vol. ii. p. 279. Smith, p. 78, 79. 

t This speech is at once a specimen of Colonel Fletcher, and of 
culonial government ; it is therefore inserted at length. " Gentle- 
men, — There is also a bill for settling a ministry in this city, and 
some other countries of the government. In that very thing you 
have shown a great deal of stiffness. You take upon you, as if 
you were dictators. I sent down to you an amendment of three or 
four words in that bill, which, though very immaterial, yet was posi- 
tively denied. I must tell yon, it seems very unmannerly. There 
never was an amendment yet desired by the council board, but 
what was rejected. It is the sign of a stubborn ill temper, and this 
I have also passed. But, gentlemen, I must take leave to tell you, 
if you sf em to understand by these words, that none can serve with- 
out youi collation or establishment, you are far mistaken. For I 



of heroic fortitude ; and, after enduring for some 
hours, with composed mien and triumphant language, 
a series of barbarities too atrocious and disgusting to 
be recited, his sufferings were terminated by the in- 
terposition of a French lady, who prevailed with the 
governor to order that mortal blow, to which human 
cruelty has given the name of coz^^-) de grace, or stroke 
of favour."* 

Colonel Fletcher was appointed to succeed Slough- 
ter, as governor of New York. He was active and 
energetic, but of sordid disposition and violent temper. 
One of his first exploits, the assertion of his claim to 
command the militia of Connecticut, and the recep- 
tion given him by Captain Wadsworth, has already 
been related in the history of that colony. It was a 
fortunate circumstance that he yielded to the superior 
information and advice of Major Schuyler in all af- 
fairs relatmg to the Indians, who were thus kept from 
embracing the offers of peace which were continually 
presented them by Count Frontignac. 

It had been the favourite object of all the gover- 
nors of New York to assimilate the language and 
religion of the inhabitants, and to remove, as much 
as possible, the more striking indications of the Dutch 
origin of the colony. No one pursued this object 
with more zeal than Fletcher, who was bigotedly at- 
tached to the church of England. In two successive 
sessions he introduced the subject to the attention of 
the assembly ; but the members, being generally in 
favour of the church of Holland, to his great mortifi- 
cation, disregarded his recommendations. The mat- 
ter being again laid before them in a subsequent 
session, they passed a bill providing for the settlement, 
in certain parishes, of ministers of the gospel, to be 
chosen by the people. The council added an amend- 
ment, giving to the governor the power of approval 
or rejection ; but the house refused to concur in the 
amendment, at which Fletcher was so much enraged, 
that he commanded them instantly to attend him, 
and addressing them in an angry speech, prorogued 
thein to the next year.! 

The remainder of Fletcher's administration was 



have the power of collating or suspending any minister in my go- 
vernment, by their majesties' letters patent ; and whilst I stay in Ihe 
government, I will take care that neither heresy, sedition, schism, 
or rebellion, be preached among you, nor vice and profanity encou- 
raged. It is my endeavour to lead a virtuous and pious life amongst 
you, and to give a good example : I wish you all to do the 
same. You ought to consider, that you have but a third share in 
the legislative power of the government; and ought not tij ake all 
upon you, nor be so peremptory. You ought to let the council have 
a share. They are in the nature of the house of lords, or upper 
house; but you seem to take the whole power in your hand.s, and 
set up for every thing. You have set a long time to little purpose, and 
have been a great charge to the country. Ten shillings a day is a 
large allowance, and you punctually exact it. You have been 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



123 



not signalized by any occurrence worthy of record. 
The war between the French and the Five Nations 
sometimes languished by the address of Frontignac's 
negotiations, but was ol'tener kindled into additional 
rage and destruction by his enterprise and activity ; 
and as their hostilities were prolonged, the French 
and the Indians seemed to be inspired with a mutual 
emulation of cruelty in victory, no less than of prow- 
ess in battle. The prisoners on both sides were made 
to expire in horrible tortures.* " On one occasion, 
when Frontignac succeeded in capturing a Mohawk 
fort, it was found deserted of all its inhabitants except 
a sachem in extreme old age, who sat with the com- 
posure of an ancient Roman in the capitol, and salu- 
ted his civilized compeer in age and infirmity with 
dignified courtesy and venerable address. Every 
hand was instantly raised to wound and deface his 
time-stricken frame ; and while French and Indian 
knives were plunged into his body, he recommended 
to his Indian enemies rather to burn him with fire, 
that he might teach their French allies how to suffer 
like men."t 

In 1697, the peace of Ryswick, which was conclu- 
ded between Great Britain and France, gave security 
and repose to the colonies. The next year, the earl 
of Bellamont was appointed governor. He was par- 
ticularly desirous of clearing the American seas of 
the pirates with which they had for some time been 
grievously infested. The government, however, de- 
clining to furnish an adequate naval force, the earl 
engaged with others in a private undertaking against 
them. Among the associates were Lord Chancellor 
Summers and the duke of Shrewsbury ; the king 
himself, too, held a tenth share. The company, ha- 
ving procured a vessel of war, gave the command to 
Captain Kidd, and despatched him on a cruise against 
the pirates. He had been but a short time at sea, 
when he made a new contract with his crew, and, on 
the Atlantic and Indian oceans, became himself a 
daring and successful pirate. Three years afterwards 
he returned, burned his ship, and, with a strange in- 
fatuation, anpeared in public at Boston. The earl 

always forward enough to pull down the fees of other ministers in 
the government. Why did you not think it expedient to correct 
your own to a more moderate allowance 1 Gentlemen, I shall say 
no more at present, but that you do withdraw to your private affairs 
in the county. 1 do prorogue yoti to the lOlh of January ne.xt, and 
you are hereby prorogued to the lOlh day of January ne.xt ensuing." 
—Smith, p. 84, 85. 

• We shall give but one instance out of many. " The prisoner 
being first made fast to a stake, so as to have room to move round' 
it, a Frenchman began the horrid tragedy, by broiling the flesh of 
the prisoner's legs, from his toes to his knees, with the red-hot bar- 
rel of a gun His example was followed by an Utawawa, who, 
being desirous to outdo the French in their refined cruelty, split a 
furrow from the prisoner's shoulder to his garter, and filling it with 
gunpowder, set fire to it. This gave him exquisite pain, and 



of Bellamont wrote to the secretary of state, desiring 
that Kidd might be sent for, and a man-of-war was 
despatched upon this service ; but being driven back 
by a storm, a general suspicion prevailed in England, 
that there was collusion between the ministry and 
the adventurers, who were thought unwilling to pro- 
duce Kidd, lest he might discover that the chancellor 
and the other associates were confederates in the pi- 
racy. So powerful was this feeling, that a motion 
was made in the house of commons, that all who 
were concerned in the adventure might be deprived 
of their employments ; but it was rejected by a gi-eat 
majority, and all subsequent attempts to implicate the 
unfortunate shareholders, only proved more satisfac- 
torily their entire innocence of any particij/ation 
either in the designs or the profits of Captain Kidd ; 
although their imprudence in selecting a person whose 
previous character was very indifferent, was evident 
and undeniable. Ultimately Kidd was conveyed to 
England, where he was tried and executed. 

The state in which liOrd Bellamont found the go- 
vernment at New York was thus emphatically de- 
scribed by him in his first address to the assembly : 
" I cannot but observe to you, what a legacy my pre- 
decessor has left me, and what difficulties to struggle 
with ; a divided people, an empty purse, a few miser- 
able, naked, half-starved soldiers, not half the num- 
ber the king allowed pay for ; the fortifications, and 
even the governor's house, very much out of repair ; 
and, in a word, the whole government out of frame." 
After this introduction, he puts them in mind that 
the revenue was near expiring. " It would be hard," 
he adds, " if I that come among you with an honest 
mind, and a resolution to be just to your interest, 
should meet with greater difficulties, in the discharge 
of his majesty's service, than those that have gone 
before me. I will take care there shall be no misap- 
plication of the public money. I will pocket none of 
it myself, nor shall there be any embezzlement by 
others ; but exact accounts shall be given you, when, 
and as often, as you shall require."! 

The abuses and corruption of the late governor, 

raised excessive laughter in his tormentors. When they found his 
throat so much parched that he was no longer able to gratify their 
ears with his howling, they gave him water, to enable him to con- 
tinue their pleasure longer. But at last his strength failinij, an 
Utawawa (layed olT his scalp, and threw burning hot coals on his 
scull. They then untied him, and bid him run for his life. He 
began to run, tumbling like a drunken man. They shut up the way 
to the east, and made him run westward, the country, as they think, 
of departed miserable souls. He had still force left to throw 
stones, till they put an end to his misery by knocking him on the 
head. After this every one cut a slice from his body, to oonclude 
the tragedy with a feast."— Smith, p. 88. 

+ Grahame, vol. ii. p. 287. 

t Smith's History of New York, p. 93, 94, 



124 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Iiowever, were by no means the most severe disorders 
which marred the peace of the colony ; the increasing 
animosity of two numerous factions, consisting of the 
friends and the enemies of the unfortunate Leisler, 
were a still greater evil. Their mutual antipathy 
was roused by the occurrence of fresh opportunities 
to indulge it, and the public business of the province 
was seriously impeded. The character and manners 
of Lord Bellamont were adapted to compose these 
dissensions, although his just displeasure against the 
conduct of his predecessor extended itself to every 
person who had held office along with him, and in 
this class were comprehended the principal adver.sa- 
ries of Leisler. The assembly now consisted chiefly 
of the friends of Leisler, and they voted the sum of 
lOOOZ. to be paid to his son, to be levied immediately 
on the province, as a compensation for the damage 
he had sustained by the violent proceedings against 
his father. 

The administration of Lord Bellamont, which was 
proceeding with a degree of integrity and wisdom 
calculated to excite hopes of very beneficial results 
to the colony, was terminated by his sudden demise, 
in March, 170L In the appointment of a successor, 
that principle appears to have been acted upon, which 
has been so extensively injurious to the prosperity 
and to the loyalty of British colonies: the convenience 
of the ministry at home, and not the welfare of the 
state, induced them to send into honourable and gain- 
ful exile, the grandson of the celebrated earl of Cla- 
rendon. Possessing not one of the virtues of his 
ancestor. Lord Cornbury was moan, profligate, and 
unprincipled ; a burden to his friends at home, they 
procured for him an appointment beyond the reach 
of his creditors. He declared himself an anti-Leisle- 
rian, and, by his influence, the first assembly that he 
summoned was composed principally of men of that 
party. They provided liberally for his expenses ; 
yet several sums of money raised for public purposes, 
being entrusted to him as governor, were chiefly ap- 
propriated to his own use. His extravagance and 
oppression exposed him to the reprehensions of the 
house of assembly. A committee of grievances was 
appointed, and the resolutions proposed by them were 
adopted by the assembly. Although this took place 
at the beginning of the session, the haughty governor 
was so subdued by the opposition against him, and so 
dispirited through indigence, that he not only omitted 
to justify himself, but to show even an impotent re- 
sentment ; for, after all the censiires of the house, he 
tamely thanked them for passing a bill to discharge 
him from a small debt. Among the resolutions adopt- 
ed by the assembly is one too remarkably indicative 



of the tendency to independence which existed even 
at this period, to suffer it to pass unnoticed. It de 
clares, " That the imposing and levying of any mo- 
nies upon her majesty's subjects of this colony, under 
any pretence or colour whatsoever, without consent 
in general assembly, is a grievance, and a violation 
of the people's property ;" an open avowal of the sen- 
timent whicli subsequently occasioned the revolution. 
The profligate and indecent manners of the gover- 
nor rendered him universally odious. It was not 
uncommon for him to dress himself in a woman's 
habit, and then to patrol the fort in which he resided. 
Such freaks of low humour exposed him to the uni- 
versal contempt of the people, while their indignation 
was kindled by his despotic rule, and injustice, not 
only to the public, but even to his private creditors ; 
for he left some of the lowest tradesmen in his em- 
ployment unsatisfied in their just demands.* In 1708, 
the assemblies of New York and of New Jersey, of 
which colony he was also governor, complained to 
the queen of his misconduct. She removed him from 
office ; he was soon after arrested by his creditors, 
and remained in custody until the death of his father, 
when he returned to England and took his seat — 
where pauperism and crime were no disqualification 
for the highest honours and the most important du- 
ties — in the house of lords. Lord Lovelace, who had 
been appointed to succeed Lord Cornbury in the spring 
of 1708, did not arrive till the middle of December. 
The oppressive character of the preceding adminis- 
tration had rendered the people very desirous of a 
change, and the new governor was received with 
every demonstration of respect, and indeed with uni- 
versal joy. His lordship informed them, in his speech 
at the opening of the session of the assembly, " that 
he had brought with him large supplies of soldiers 
and stores of war, as well as presents for the Indians," 
than which nothing could be more agreeable to the 
people. Although the assembly, in their answer, 
heartily congratulated his lordship on his arrival, 
and thanked the queen for her care of the province, 
yet they sufficiently intimated their disinclination to 
raise the revenue which the governor had requested. 
Lord Cornbury's conduct had rendered them utterly 
averse to a permanent support for the future, and yet 
they were unwilling to quarrel with the new gover- 
nor. The project of providing annually for the sup- 
port of government, however, as it rendered the 
governor and all the other servants of the crown de- 
pendent upon the assembly, would, doubtless, have 
produced a rupture between the several branches of 

• Smith's History of New York, p. 207. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



125 



the legislature, but the very day on which the vote 
passed the house, his lordship died of a disorder con- 
tracted at his first arrival. His lady continued to 
reside at New York long after his death, soliciting 
for the sum voted to her husband, but nothing was 
allowed till several years had transpired. 

When General Hunter, who had been appointed to 
succeed Lord Lovelace, arrived in the colony, he 
brought with him nearly three thousand Germans, 
some of whom settled in New York, and some in 
Pennsylvania. During the disgraceful administra- 
tion of Lord Cornbury, the assembly had obtained 
from Q,ueen Anne permission, in cases of special ap- 
propriations, to appoint their own treasurer. They 
now passed a bill, confiding to this officer the dis- 
bursement of certain sums appropriated for ordinary 
purposes. The council proposed an amendment. 
The house denied the right of that body to amend a 
money bill. Both continuing obstinate, the governor 
prorogued them, and at their next session dissolved 
them. 

In the year 1709, expensive preparations were 
made for an attack upon the French settlements in 
Canada ; but the promised assistance not arriving 
from England, the enterprise was abandoned. In 
1711, however, the project was resumed ; and a fleet 
sailed up the St. Lawrence to attack Quebec, while 
an army of four thousand men, raised by New York, 
New Jersey, and Connecticut, marched to invade 
Canada, by the route of lake Champlain. The fleet, 
shattered by a storm, was compelled to return ; and 
the army, informed of the disasters of the fleet, retired 
without accomplishing the object proposed. 

To defray the expenses of this expedition, the 
newly elected assembly passed several bills, which 
the council persisted in amending. Between these 
two bodies another contest ensued. The represent- 
atives, deriving their authority from the people, con- 
sidered themselves bound to watch over the expendi- 
ture of the money. The council, deriving their au- 
thority from the same source as the governor, were 
desirous of increasing his influence by giving him 
the management of the revenue. During this and a 
subsequent session both continued inflexible. The 
governor, provoked at the persevering determination 
of the representatives, again dissolved the assembly. 
At the ensuing election, which was warmly contested, 
most of the members chosen were opposed to the go- 
vernor. This assembly was dissolved by the death 
of the queen. The next met a similar fate from the 
governor soon after it met, a majority of the represent- 
atives being known to be unfriendly to his views. 
At length, however, the people became weary of con- 



tending ; and most of the members chosen at the 
succeeding election were favourable to the governor, 
and, for several years, the utmost harmony existed 
between the different branches of the legislature. 

General Hunter quitted die province in 1719, and 
his authority devolved on Peter Schuyler, the oldest 
member of the council. The next year, AVilliam 
Burnet, son of the celebrated bishop of that name, 
was appointed governor. " He was," says Smith, 
" a man of sense and polite breeding, a well-read 
scholar, sprightly, and of a social disposition. Being 
devoted to his books, he abstained from all those 
excesses into which his pleasurable relish would 
otherwise have plunged him. He studied the art of 
recommending himself to the people, had nothing of 
the moroseness of a scholar, was gay and conde- 
scending, affected no pomp, but visited every family 
of reputation, and often diverted himself in free con- 
verse with the ladies, by whom he was very much 
admired. No governor before him did so much 
business in chancery. The office of chancellor was 
his delight. He made a tolerable figure in the exer- 
cise of it, though he was no lawyer, and had a foible 
very unsuitable for a judge, I mean, his resolving 
too speedily, for he used to say of himself, ' I act first, 
and think afterwards.' "* Mr. Burnet's long acquaint- 
ance with his predecessor in office gave him an 
excellent opportunity, before his arrival, to obtain 
correct information respecting those by whom he was 
now surrounded ; and as the late governor recom- 
mended all his old friends to the favour of his suc- 
cessor, he made few changes among them. 

Of all the governors of New York, none had more 
just views of Indian affairs, and of the dangers 
arising from the vicinity of the French, than Burnet. 
Turning his attention towards the wilderness, he 
perceived that the French, in order to connect their 
settlements in Canada and Louisiana, to secure to 
themselves the Indian trade, and to confine the 
English to the sea coast, were busily employed in 
erectinsT a chain of forts from the St. Lawrence to the 
Mississippi. He endeavoured to defeat their design, 
by building a trading-house, and afterwards a fort, at 
Oswego, on Lake Ontario. But the French had 
the command of more abundant resources, and appli- 
ed them to the accomplishment of their object with 
great activity and zeal. They launched two vessels 
upon that lake ; and, going fiirther into the wilder- 
ness, erected a fort at Niagara, commanding the 
entrance into it ; they had previously erected Fort 
Frontiffuac, commanding the outlet. The Jesuit 



« History of New York, p. 152. 



126 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Charlevoix doRs no more than justice to Mr. Burnet, 
in declaring that he left no stone unturned to defeat 
the French at Niagara. Besides supplanting his 
favourite trade at Oswego, these operations tended 
to the defection of the Five Nations ; and, in case of 
a rupture, exposed the frontiers of the southern colo- 
nies to the ravages of the French and their allies. 
Mr. Burnet, upon whom these considerations made 
the deepest impression, laid the matter before the 
house, remonstrated against the proceedings to Lon- 
guiel, in Canada, wrote to the ministry in England, 
who complained of them to the French court, and 
met the confederates at Albany, endeavouring to 
convince them of the danger they themselves would 
be in from an aspiring, ambitious neighbour. He 
spoke first about the affair privately to the sachems, 
and afterwards, in the public conference, informed 
them of all the encroachments which the French had 
made upon their fathers, and the ill-usage they had 
met with, according to La Potherie's account, pub- 
lished with the privilege of the French king, at Paris, 
in 1722. He then reminded them of the kind treat- 
ment they had received from the English, who con- 
stantly fed and clothed them, and never attempted 
any act of hostility to their prejudice. This speech 
was extremely well drawn, the thoughts being con- 
ceived in strong figures, particularly expressive and 
agreeable to the Indians. The governor required an 
explicit declaration of their sentiments concerning 
the French transactions at Niagara, and their answer 
was truly categorical. " We speak now in the name 
of all the Six Nations, and come to you howling. 
This is the reason why we howl, that the governor 
of Canada encroaches on our land, and builds there- 
on." After which they entreated him to write to the 
king for succour. Mr. Burnet embraced this favoura- 
ble opportunity to procure from them a deed, surren- 
dering their country to his majesty, to be protected 
for their use, and confirming their grant in 1701, 
concerning which there was only an entry in the 
books of the secretary for Indian aflairs. 

It was an unfortunate circumstance, which tended 
to prevent the execution of Mr. Burnet's vigorous 
designs, that the electors of the colony had become 
dissatisfied at the length of time which had elapsed 
since they had been called on to exercise their func- 
tions. The assembly elected in 1716 had been on 
such good terms with the governor, that he continued 
its existence during the long period of eleven years. 
In the year 1727, however, the clamours of the peo- 
ple induced him to dissolve it ; and, as might be 
expected, that which next met, was composed almost 
exclusively of his opponents. The court of chancery. 



in which he presided, had become exceedingly 
unpopular. It had been instituted by an ordinance 
of the governor and council, without the concurrence 
of the assembly, and some of the decisions had given 
great offence to powerful individuals. The house 
passed resolutions, declaring it "a manifest oppres- 
sion and grievance," and intimating that its decrees 
were void. Mr. Burnet no sooner heard of these 
votes, than he called the members before him, and 
dissolved the assembly. They occasioned, however, 
an ordinance in the spring following, as well to reme 
dy sundry abuses in the practice in chancery, as to 
reduce the fees of that court, " which, on account of 
the popular clamours, were so much diminished," 
says Smith, " that the wheels of the chancery have 
ever since rusted upon their axles, the practice being 
contemned by all gentlemen of eminence in the pro- 
fession." 

Mr. Burnet was soon after appointed governor of 
Massachusetts, and was succeeded at New York by 
Colonel Montgomery, who devoted himself so much 
to his ease that he has left nothing else to distinguish 
his brief rule. Upon his death, in 1731, the supreme 
authority devolved upon Rip Van Dam, the senior 
member of the council. Under his inefficient ad- 
ministration, the French were permitted to erect a 
fort at Crown Point, within the acknowledged boun- 
daries of New York, from which parties of savages 
were often secretly despatched to destroy the English 
settlements. 

In August, 1732, Van Dani was superseded by 
William Cosby. Having been the advocate in par- 
liament of the American colonies, he was at first 
popular, but he soon lost the affection and confidence 
of the people. One of his most unpoptilar acts was 
the prosecution of Zenger, the printer of a newspa- 
per, for publishing an article derogatory to the 
dignity of his majesty's government, bringing him 
to trial, after a severe imprisonment of thirty-five 
weeks from the printing of the offensive articles. 
Andrew Hamilton, an eminent lawyer of Philadel- 
phia, though aged and infirm, learning the distress 
of the prisoner, and the importance of the trial, went 
to New York to plead Zenger's cause, which he did 
so effectually, that the jury brought in the prisoner 
not guilty. The common council of the city of New 
York, for this noble and successful service, presented 
Mr. Hamilton the freedom of their corporation in a 
gold box. 

Governor Cosby was succeeded, in 1736, by 
George Clark. During his administration, the con- 
test which had ended, twenty years before, in the 
victory gained by Governor Hunter over the house 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



12^ 



of representatives, was revived. The colony being 
ill debt, the liouse voted to raise the sum of 6000^. ; 
but, in order to prevent its misappHcation, declared 
that it should be applied to the payment of certain 
specified debts. Offended by this vote, Clark imme- 
diately dissolved the assembly. At the election 
which ensued, the popular party was triumphant. 
In their second session, the house voted an address 
to the lieutenant-governor, in whicli, after stating 
some of the vital principles of free government, and 
referring to recent misapplications of money, they 
say, " We therefore beg leave to be plain witli your 
honour, and hope you will not take it amiss when 
we tell you, that you are not to expect tliat we will 
either raise sums unfit to be raised, or put what we 
shall raise into the power of a governor to misapply, 
if we can prevent it; nor shall we make up any 
other deficiencies than what we conceive are fit and 
just to be paid ; nor continue what support or 
revenue we shall raise for any longer time than one 
year ; nor do we think it convenient to do even that, 
until such laws are passed as we conceive necessary 
for the safety of the inhabitants of this colony, who 
have reposed a trust in us for that only purpose, and 
which we are sure you will think it reasonable we 
should act agreeably to ; and, by the grace of God, 
we shall endeavour not to deceive them." With 
men so resolute in maintaining their rights, Clark 
wisely declined to contend ; and promised his cordial 
co-operation in all measures calculated to promote 
the prosperity of the colony. Harmony did not, 
however, long continue. Clark, in his speech at the 
opening of the ne.x:t session, declared that imless the 
revenue was granted for as long a time as it had been 
granted by former assemblies, his duty to his majesty 
forbade him from assenting to any act for continuing 
the excise, or for paying the colonial bills of credit. 
The house unanimously resolved, that it would not 
pass any bill for the grant of money, unless assu- 
rance should be given that the excise should be 
continued and the bills of credit redeemed. The 
lieutenant-governor immediately ordered the members 
to attend him. He told them that " their proceedings 
were presumptuous, daring, and unprecedented, that 
he could not look upon them without astonishment, 
nor with honour suffer the house to sit any longer;" 
and he accordingly dissolved it. In April, 1740, 
the assembly again met. It had now risen to import- 
ance in the colony ; and the adherence of the repre- 
sentatives, to their determination, not to grant the 
reveniie for more than one year, made annual 
meetings of the assembly necessary. Their attach- 
ment to liberty was construed by the lieutcnant- 
17 



governor into a desire for independence : in a speech 
delivered in 1741, he alludes to " a jealousy which 
for some years had obtained in England, that the 
plantations were not without thoughts of throwing 
off their dependence on the crown." 

George Clinton superseded Clark in the govern- 
ment of the colony in 1743. Like most of his pre- 
decessors he was welcomed with joy ; and one of his 
earliest measures confirmed the favourable accounts 
which had preceded him, of his talents and libe- 
rality. To manifest his confidence in the people, he 
assented to a bill limiting the duration of the present 
and all succeeding assemblies. The house evinced 
its gratitude by adopting the measures he recom- 
mended for the defence of the province against the 
French, who were then at war with England. In 
1745, the savages in alliance with France made 
frequent invasions of the English territories ; and 
their hostilities were continued, with little intermis- 
sion, till the war which terminated the French domi 
nion in Canada. 

In the middle of the seventeenth century, the whole 
colony of New York contained scarcely one hundred 
thousand inhabitants,* not half the number which 
the city of New York alone can now boast. That 
the population would have been much more nume- 
rous at this time, had not the inhabitants been so 
continually exposed to the irruptions of the French 
and their Indian allies, is evident from its rapid 
increase when those unfavourable circumstance's 
ceased to exist. The consideration of this period 
belongs, however, to another department of the work. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



NEW JERSEY. 



The rival settlements of the Swedes and the Dutch 
in New Jersey have been referred to in the preceding 
chapter. It was not till the year 1640, that any 
attempt to colonize this portion of the continent was 
made by the English, and then they were success- 
fully resisted. The Swedes built a fort on the spot 
from which the English had been driven ; and thus 
acquiring the command of the river, claimed and 
exercised authority over all vessels that entered it, 
even those of the Dutch, their late associates. They 
continued in possession of the country on both sides 
of the Delaware until 1655, when the governor of the 
New Netherlands, as has already been related, con- 



* Smilh'.s History of New York, p. 207. 



r28 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



quered all their posts, and transported most of the 
Swedes to Europe. The Dutch, consequently, pos- 
ses-sed themselves of the whole territory of New 
Jersey, New York, and Delaware. 

The settlements in New Jersey shared the fate of 
those on the Hudson, when, in the year 1664, they 
were captured by the English, under Colonel Nichols. 
In the same year, the duke of York conveyed that 
portion of his grant lying between Hudson and 
Delaware rivers to Lord Berkeley and Sir George 
Carteret. This tract was called New Jersey, in 
compliment to Sir George, who had been Governor 
of the island of Jersey, and had held it for the king 
in his contest with the parliament. The two pro- 
prietors formed a constitution for the colouy, securing 
equal privileges and liberty of conscience to all, and 
appointed Philip Carteret governor, to whom, on his 
arrival in 1665, Nichols reluctantly surrendered the 
government. Carteret fixed the seat of government 
at Elizabeth Town, purchased land of the Indians, 
and sent agents into New England to invite settlers 
from that quarter. Recommended by the salubrity 
of its climate, in addition to many other advantages,* 
it is not surprising that New Jersey was soon consi- 
dered a very desirable residence. The proprietaries, 
still buoyed up with the hope of revenue from their 
province, used every exertion to circulate the intelli- 
gence of its advantages, both in Europe and America, 
and vessels from England were freighted with settlers 
and stores to reinforce the numbers and supply the 
necessities of the colony. But the period to which 
they had looked for the fulfilment of their hopes only 
demonstrated their fallacy. The first demand of the 
quit-rents excited general disgust among the colonists, 
who refused to acknowledge the title of the proprie- 
taries, and, in opposition to it, set up titles which they 
had obtained for themselves from the Indians. For 
two years the governor maintained an ineffectual 
struggle to enforce the claims of the proprietaries, till 
at length the popular discontent broke forth in an 
insurrection ; and he was compelled to return to 
England, stripped of his functions, which the colonists 
forthwith conferred on a natural son of Sir George 
Carteret, by whom their pretensions had been abetted. 
It was impossible for the proprietaries to impute blame 
to their governor, or to hesitate to replace him. This 
measure, however, was retarded by the unexpected 
events of the following year, when New York for a 
short period reverted to the dominion of Holland, and 
New Jersey was re-united to the province of New 
Netherlands. 



♦ Chalmers says, " It was in those days accounted by men of 
peculiar dispositions as worthy of the name of paradise, because it 



"When the treaty of London re-established the 
authority of England in New Jersey, the duke of 
York appointed Andros his lieutenant over his terri- 
tories, extending from the western bank of the Con- 
necticut to the farther shore of the Delaware, because 
he deemed his former grant of New Jersey annulled 
by the conquest. Andros took possession of his charge 
in November, 1674; confirming the late proceedings 
of the Dutch, because the law of nations had already 
declared them in force, and continuing the taxes im- 
posed by the conquerors, because they supported his 
power. Lord Berkeley, dissatisfied with an estate 
which brought him neither profit nor honour, assigned 
his pretensions to William Penn and his three asso- 
ciates, who, perceiving the disadvantage of a joint 
proprietorship, divided the province with Carteret, 
and thus the country became partitioned into East 
and West Jersey. The former was released in July, 
1676, by the assignees of Lord Berkeley, to Carteret, 
and he in return conveyed to them the latter, the 
government of which the duke retained as a depen- 
dency of New York, while that of the first was 
resigned to Carteret. These arrangements created a 
confusion of jurisdiction, and an uncertainty of pro- 
perty, which long distracted the people, and at length 
ended in the annihilation of the rule of the proprietors. 

Philip Carteret returned to East Jersey in the 
beginning of 1675, and was now kindly received by 
the inhabitants, because they had felt the rigours of 
conquest, which had not been softened by Andros. 
Having postponed the payment of quit-rents to a 
future day, and published new concessions with re- 
gard to the tenure of lands, tranquillity was perfectly 
restored. Desirous to promote the commercial inte- 
rests of the colony, because he perceived its neighbour 
growing great and rich by trade, Carteret began, in 
1676, to clear out vessels from East Jersey ; but he 
was steadily opposed by Andros, who claimed juris- 
diction over the Jerseys, insisting that conquest by 
the Dutch divested the proprietors of all their rights. 
He forcibly seized, transported to New York, and 
there imprisoned, those magistrates who refused to 
acknowledge his authority. He imposed a duty upon 
all goods imported, and upon the property of all who 
came to settle in the country. 

The inhabitants made repeated and energetic com- 
plaints of this injustice to the duke of York ; and at 
length, wearied with their continual importunity, this 
prince consented to refer the matter to commissioners, 
who ultimately agreed to adhere to the opinion of Sir 
AVilliam Jones. 

had no lawyer.", or physicians, cr parsons." — Politira! Annals 
p. 616. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



129 



The document containing the arguments in sup- 
port of the views of the colonists, was drawn up by 
the celebrated William Penn and others, chiefly 
quakers, and is a fine specimen of the combined 
mildness and firmness in the pursuit of liberty, which 
characterize the proceedings of that sect and their 
associates. " To all prudent men," says the remon- 
strance, " the government of any place is more inviting 
than the soil. For what is good land without good 
laws ? the better the worse. And if we could not as- 
sure people of an easy, and free, and safe government, 
both with respect to their spiritual and worldly prop- 
erty, — that is, an uninterrupted liberty of conscience, 
and an inviolable possession of their civil rights and 
freedoms, by a just and wise government, — a mere 
wilderness would be no encouragement ; for it were 
a madness to leave a free, good, and improved country, 
to plant in a wilderness, and there adventure many 
thousands of pounds to give an absolute title to 
another person to tax us at will and pleasure. We 
humbly say, that we have lost none of our liberty by 
leaving our country ; that the duty imposed upon us 
is without precedent or parallel ; that, had we fore- 
seen it, we should have preferred any other plantation 
in America. Besides, there is no limit to this power : 
since we are, by this precedent, taxed without any 
law, and thereby excluded from our English right of 
assenting to taxes, what security have we of any 
thing we possess ? We can call nothing our own, 
but are tenants at will, not only for the soil, but for 
our personal estates. Such conduct has destroyed 
governments, but never raised one to any true great- 
ness." 

The commissioners pronounced their judgment, in 
conformity with the opinion of Sir W. Jones, " that 
as the grant to Berkeley and Carteret had reserved no 
profit or jurisdiction, the legality of the taxes could 
not be defended." In consequence of this adjudica- 
tion, the duke resigned all his claims on West Jersey, 
and confirmed the province itself in the amplest 
terms to its new proprietaries ; and soon after granted 
a similar release in favour of the representatives of 
Sir George Carteret in East Jersey. The whole of 
New Jersey thus rose to the rank of an almost inde- 
pendent state, maintaining only a federal connexion 
with the Bri+'-jh crown. 

The accession of numerous companies of settlers 
now rapidly promoted the population and prosperity 
of West Jersey. In the year 1681, the first repre- 
sentative assemblv was held : and during its session 

• Though Penn thus became a proprietary of East Jersey, his 
connexion both with its concerns, and mth those of West Jersey, 
was henceforward almost merely nominal. He had now acquired 



were enacted the " Fundamental Constittations," and 
other laws for the preservation of property, and tne 
punishment of criminals. 

Frequent disputes arising between the proprietary 
government of East Jersey and the colonists, the 
trustees of Sir George Carteret, apprehending they 
should derive little emolument from retaining the 
government under their control, offered their rights 
in the province for sale, and accepted the proposals 
of William Penn, to whom, and his associates, East 
Jersey was conveyed.* Among the new proprietors 
was the author of the well-known " Apology ; " and 
his colleagues, by a unanimous vote, conferred on 
him the oflice of governor for life, with the extraor- 
dinary permission to appoint a deputy instead of his 
residing at the scene of his authority. 

The number of proprietors, and the frequent trans- 
fers and subdivisions of shares, introduced such 
confusion in titles to land, and such uncertainty as 
to the rights of government, that, for twenty years 
afterwards, both Jerseys were frequently in a state of 
disturbance and disorder. In 1702, the proprietors, 
weary of contending with each other, and with the 
people, surrendered the right of government to the 
crown. Queen Anne reunited the two divisions, and 
appointed Lord Cornbury governor over the provinces 
of New Jersey and New York. From the period of 
his appointment till his deprivation of office, the his- 
tory of New Jersey consists of little else than a detail 
of his contests with the colonial assemblies ; and 
exhibits the resolution with which they opposed his 
arbitrary conduct, his partial distribution of justice, 
and his fraudulent misapplication of the public mon- 
ey. After repeated complaints, the queen yielded to 
the universal indignation ; and he was superseded, 
in 1709, by Lord Lovelace. 

These provinces continued, for several years, to be 
ruled by the same governor, but each chose a sepa- 
rate assembly. In 1738, the inhabitants, by petition 
to the king, desu-ed that they might, in future, have 
a separate governor ; and their request was granted. 

The distance of New Jersey from Canada, the 
source of most of the Indian wars which afflicted the 
northern colonies, gave it a complete exemption from 
those direful calamities, while the Indian tribes in 
the neighbourhood, which were far from numerous, 
were almost always wOling to cultivate a friendly 
relation with the Europeans. The gravity, simpli- 
city, and courtesy of quaker manners, seem to have 
been particularly acceptable to these savages ; and, 

for himself the province of Pennsylvania, which occupied all his 
interest, and diverted his attention from New Jersey." — Grahame, 
vol. ii. p. 350. 



130 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



added to the careful observation of the principles of 
equity in the proceedings of the colonists, established 
an amicable intercourse to the manifest advantage 
both of themselves and of the natives. 



CHAPTER IX. 

PENNSYLVANIA AND DELAWARE. 

During a considerable period the colony of Dela- 
ware was attached to that of Pennsylvania, without 
even a separate assembly ; and after it acquired that 
privilege, it remained for some time longer under the 
same governor : its history requires, therefore, to be 
blended with that of Pennsylvania, although it was 
settled at a much earlier period. 

It does not appear that the date of the first Euro- 
pean plantation on South River, or the Delaware, can 
now be ascertained with any precision ; some autho- 
rities, however, assert, that a Swedish colony settled 
at Cape Henlopen as early as the year 1627 ; although 
Chalmers is of opinion that, " though various Euro- 
peans may have trafficked in Delaware, their planta- 
tions had not yet embellished her margin, probably in 
the year 1632." Shortly after that time, however, it 
is evident that a Swedish factory existed near the 
confluence of the Delaware on the eastern bank ; for 
we find a governor of the Dutch colony of New Ne- 
therlands making a remonstrance on the subject, in 
which he declares " that the whole South River had 
been in the Dutch possession many years, above and 
below beset with forts, and sealed with their blood."* 
The Swedes, however, did not regard either the asser- 
tions or threats of their rivals, but continued their 
operations, which, through the limited extent of their 
means, did not extend beyond the purchase of some 
comparatively small tracts of land of the Indians. 
Being frequently molested by the Dutch, who claim- 
ed a right to the country, they built forts at Christi- 
na, Lewiston, and Tinicum. The last was their seat 
of government, and there John Printz, their gover- 
nor, erected a mansion, which he named after him- 
self. 

The Dutch, jealous of the progress of the Swedes, 
in the year 1651 built a fort at New Castle. Printz 
considering this place to be within the territories of 
his government, formally protested against the pro- 
ceeding. Risingh, his successor, made a visit, under 
the guise of friendship, to the commander of the fort, 
and being accompanied by thirty men, treacherously 

* Smith's History of New York, p. 4. 



took possession of it while enjoying his hospitality. 
Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch governor of New York, 
was not of a temper to permit an injury, thus com- 
mitted, to pass unavenged. Accompanied by an ar- 
mament, a part of which was furnished for the occa- 
sion by the city of Amsterdam, in Holland, he, in 
1655, returned the visit of the Swedes. He first re- 
duced the fort at New Castle ; then that at Christina 
creek, where Risingh commanded ; and afterwards 
the others. Some of the Swedes, on taking the oath 
of allegiance to Holland, were permitted to remain ; 
the rest were sent to Europe. The settlements on the 
Delaware continued under the control of the Dutch, 
until 1664, when the New Netherlands were conquered 
by the English. They were considered as a part of 
New York, till, in the year 1682, William Penn pur- 
chased of the duke of York the town of New Castle, 
and the country twelve miles around it ; and, by a 
subsequent purchase, obtained the land lying upon 
the Delaware, and between New Castle and Cape 
Heirlopen. These tracts, which constitute the present 
state of Delaware, were called the " Territories," and 
were, for twenty years, governed as a part of Penn- 
sylvania. 

The colony which forms the chief subject of this 
chapter, was founded, in the year 1681, by the cele- 
brated William Penn. A slight sketch of the early 
history of this remarkable man, will enable the reader 
more justly to appreciate his subsequent exertions. 
He was the son of Sir William Penn, a British admi- 
ral, who, under the protectorate of Cromwell, effected 
the conquest of the important island of Jamaica, and 
annexed it to the British empire. After the restora- 
tion of Charles II. he enjoyed high favour at court, 
and naturally entertained ambitious hopes of the ad- 
vancement of his son, whom he had entered as a 
gentleman commoner at Oxford. He was, however, 
doomed to experience a bitter disappointment. Young 
Penn imbibed a strong predilection for quaker senti- 
ments, which he had heard extolled by some itine- 
rating member of that society. He espoused the cause 
with so much warmth, that, with several others, he 
was expelled the university. His father, having in 
vain endeavoured to prevail upon him to abandon his 
principles, at length devised a method of sapping 
what he could not overthrow ; and for this purpose, 
sent his son to travel, with some young men of qua- 
lity, in France. Quakerism and Christianity were 
checked alike, for a time, in the mind of Penn ; but 
after his return, having repaired to Ireland to inspect 
an estate that belonged to his father, he met with the 
same itinerant preacher who had impressed his mind 
so powerfully ten years before. His quaker senli- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



131 



merits were now revived with increased zeal, and 
quickly produced a public and resolute expression of 
his attachment to the tenets of that sect. He could 
not even be persuaded to take off his hat in the pre- 
sence of the king, or of his parent. For this intlexi- 
bility he was abandoned and denounced by his father. 
He then commenced itinerant preacher, and gained 
many proselytes. Though sometimes imprisoned, he 
still persevered ; and such was his integrity and pa- 
tience, that his father became reconciled to him. In 
1668, he published a book, entitled. The Sandy Foun- 
dation Shaken, for which he was imprisoned seven 
mouths. In 1670, he was apprehended for preaching 
in the street, and was tried at the Old Bailey, where 
he pleaded his own cause with the magnanimity of a 
hero. The jury returned a verdict of not guilty. 
On the death of his father he received a plentiful 
estate, but he continued to preach, to write, and to 
be imprisoned as before ; and it was chiefly owing to 
his exertions, in conjunction with those of Barclay 
and Keith, that the fraternity of the Friends was 
formed into order. 

The attention of Penn to colonization was attract- 
ed by his connexion with New Jersey, which has been 
referred to in a former chapter. While he was en- 
gaged in the government of that territory, he received 
information of the country situate to the westward of 
the Delaware, which induced in his mind the desne 
of acquiring an estate in that quarter. He therefore 
presented a petition to Charles II., urging his claim 
for a debt incurred by the crown to his father, and 
soliciting a grant of land to the northward of Mary- 
land, and westward of the Delaware. After a con- 
ference with the duke of York and Lord Baltimore, 
to ascertain that the grant would not interfere with 
any prior claims of theirs, a charter, making convey- 
ance of that territory, was signed and sealed by the 
king. It constituted WiUiam Penn and his heirs true 
and absolute proprietar' .^ of the province of Pennsyl- 
vania, saving to th., crown their allegiance and the 
sovereignty. It gave him, his heirs, and their depu- 
ties, power to make laws, by advice of the freemen, 
and to erect coru-ts of justice for the execution of 
those laws, provided they be not repugnant to the 
laws of England.* 

* The following account of the origin of the name Pennsylvania, 
given by its founder, in a letter dated January 5, 1681, is curious 
and interesting. " This day," says Penn, " after many waitings, 
watcliings, soUcitings, and disputes, in council, my country was 
confinncd to me imder the great seal of England, with large pow- 
ers and pri\Tleges, by the name of Pemisylvania — a name the king 
would give it in honom' of my father. I chose New ^\'ales, being 
a hilly coimtry ; and when the secretary, a Welshman, reftised to 
call it New Wales, I proposed Sylvania, and they added Penn to 
It ; though I much opposed it, and went to the king to have it 



The charter being thus obtained, Penn invited pur- 
chasers by public advertisement. Many single per- 
sons, and some families, chiefly of the denomination 
of quakers, were induced to think of a removal ; and 
a number of merchants and others, forming them- 
selves into a company, purchased twenty thousand 
acres of this land, which was sold at the rate of 
twenty pounds for every thousand acres. In May 
he despatched Markham, a relative, with a few asso- 
ciates, to take possession of the newly granted terri- 
tory ; and in the autumn three ships, with a consider- 
able number of emigrants, sailed for the same desti- 
nation. The philanthropic proprietor sent a letter to 
the Indians, informing them that " the great God had 
been pleased to make him concerned in their part of 
the world, and that the king of the country where he 
lived had given him a great province therein; but 
that he did not desire to enjoy it without their con- 
sent ; that he was a man of peace, and that the peo- 
ple whom he sent were of the same disposition ; and 
if any difference should happen between them, it 
might be adjusted by an equal number of men chosen 
on both sides." The position selected by these emi- 
grants for their abode, was immediately above the 
confluence of the Schuylkill and the Delaware. 

In the following April, Penn published " the frame 
of government for Pennsylvania." The chief inten- 
tion of this famous charter was declared to be, " for 
the support of power in reverence with the people, 
and to secure the people from the abuse of power. 
For, liberty without obedience is confusion, and obe- 
dience without liberty is slavery." Li prosecution of 
these salutary objects, the chief aim of the proprie- 
tary was to establish the supreme power, legislative 
and executive, upon proper principles. The assembly, 
therefore, was directed to consist at first of the whole 
of the freemen, afterwards of two hundred, but never 
to exceed five. A provincial council was established, 
consisting of seventy-two members, to be chosen by 
the freemen ; of these counsellors there was to be an 
annual succession of twenty-four new ones, the same 
number annually going out ; and the governor was 
to preside, invested with a treble vote. Thus com- 
posed, the council was not only invested with the 
whole executive powers, but, as in the Carolinian con- 

sti-uck out. He said 'twas past, and he would take it upon him ; 
nor could twenty guineas move the under-secretary to vary the 
name ; for I feared it should be looked on as a vanity in me, and 
not as a respect in the king to my father, as it really was. Thou 
mavest communicate my gi-ant to my fiiends, and expect shortly my 
jiroposals. Tis a dear and just thing, and mj- God, that has given 
it me through many dithcidties, will, I believe, bless and make it the 
seed of a nation. I shall have a tender care to the government, 
that it be well laid at first." 



132 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



stitutions, with the authority of preparing such bills 
as ought to be presented to the assembly. As a sup- 
jjlement to the frame of government, a body of laws, 
agreed upon in England by the adventurers, was 
published in May, which was intended as a great 
charter;* and Chalmers allows that "it does great 
honour to their wisdom as statesmen, to their morals 
as men, to their spirit as colonists." f 

Of all the evidences of superior wisdom, none can 
be more decisive than entertaining ideas of moral 
truth, or devising plans of practical utility, which, 
though rejected in the times in which the individual 
lives, receive the sanction of future ages. This is 
eminently the case with Bacon and with Locke ; and 
that it is no less so with the founder of Pennsylvania, 
the almost universal approbation of the principles on 
which his penal code was formed, fully attests. That 
system of laws justly claims for him the praise of 
original excellence and enlightened humanity ; its re- 
gulations have been productive of lasting benefit to 
mankind. Only two capital crimes, treason and mur- 
der, were recognized by this code ; and, in aU other 
cases, the reformation of the offender was esteemed a 
duty not less imperative than the punishment of the 
offence. To this end it was enacted, that all prisons 
should be workhouses, where offenders might be re- 
claimed, by discipline and instruction, to habits of in- 
dustry and morality, and political benefit educed from 
the performance of Christian duty. The institutions 
that resulted from this benevolent enterprise, in legis- 
lation, have reflected honour on Pennsylvania, and dif- 
fused their advantages extensively in America and 

• " Among other reoiilations propounded in it, it ivaR declared, 
that the character of freemen of the pro™ice should belong to all 
purchasers or renters of a hundred acres of land ; to all servants 
or bondsmen who, at the ex|)iring of their engagements, should cul- 
tivate the quota of land (fifty acres) allotted to them by law, and 
to all artificers and other inhabitants or residents who should pay 
scot and lot to the government ; that no public tax shoidd be levied 
from the people ' but by a law for that pm-pose made,' and that 
whoever should collect or pay taxes not so sanctioned, should be 
heid a jiubiic enemy of the pi"0\ince, and a betrayer of its liberties ; 
' that ail prisons shall be workhouses ; ' that a thief should restore 
twice the value of his theft, and, in default of other means ado- 
()uate to such restitution, should work as a bondsman in prison for 
the lienefit of the party injured ; that the lands, as well as the ])er- 
sonal projjerty, of a debtor, should be responsible for his obligations, 
exce])t in the case of his having lawful children, for whose use 
two tliirds of the landed estate were appointed to be reserved ; that 
all factors and con-espondents in the pro\Tnce wronging their em- 
ployers, should, in addition to complete restitution, pay a sm-plus 
amounting to a third of the sum they had unjustly detained ; that 
all dramatic entertainments, games of hazard, sports of cruelty, 
and wliatever else might contribute to promote ferocity of temper 
or habits of cUssi|)ation and irrcligion, should be cUscouraged and 
punished ; and ' that all children mthin this ]iro\ince, of the age 
of twelve years, shall be taught some useftil trade or skill, to the 
end none may be idle, but thf poor may work to live, and the rich, 
if they become poor, may not want.' This regulation, so congenial 
to primitive quaker sentiment, and to republiceui spirit and simpli- 



Europe, It is deeply to be regretted, however, that 
no civilized nation has been more slow in its mitiga- 
tion of the cruel and bloody character of a penal 
code derived from a barbarous age, than our own. 

To prevent all future pretence of claim to the pro- 
vince by the duke of York, or his heirs, Penn obtain- 
ed of the duke his deed of release for it ; and, as an 
additional territory, he procured of him also his right 
and interest in that tract of land, which was at first 
called the territories of Pennsylvania, afterwards 
" The three lower counties on Delaware." 

Having completed these arrangements by the month 
of August, Penn embarked for America, accompanied 
by a considerable number of passengers, chiefly of his 
own religious sentiments. He landed at New Castle 
on the 24th of October ; and the very next day the 
people were summoned to the court house, where, 
after possession of the country had been legaUy given 
him, he made a speech to the magistrates and the peo- 
ple, acquainting them with the design of his coming, 
and the nature and end of the government he came 
to establish ; assuring them of liberty of conscience 
and civil freedom, and recommending them to live in 
sobriety and peace. He then proceeded to Upland, 
afterwards called Chester, and there called an assem- 
bly on the 4th of December. This assembly passed 
an act of union, annexing the three lower counties to 
the province ; J and an act of settlement, in reference 
to the frame of government. The Dutch, Swedes, 
and other foreigners, were then naturalized ; and all 
laws agreed on in England were passed in form. He 
selected the site, and marked out the plan, of an ex- 



city, was admirably calculated not less to promote fellow feeling 
than to secure independence. It contributed to preserve a sense of 
the natural equality of mankind, by recalUng to every man's re- 
membrance his original destination to labor ; and while it tended 
thus to abate the pride and insolence of wealth, it operated no less 
beneficially to remedy the decay of fortune, peculiarly incident to 
wealthy settlers in a country where the dearness of aU kinds of 
labour rendered idleness a much more expensive condition than in 
Europe. It was fiirthcr declared, that no persons should be per- 
mitted to hold any office, or to exercise the functions of freemen, 
but ' such as profess faith in Jesus Clii'ist, and are not convicted 
of iU fame, or imsober and dishonest conversation ; ' and that all 
persons acknowledging the one almighty and eternal God to be the 
creator, upholder, and ruler of the world, and professing to be con- 
scientiously engaged to live peaceably and justly iji society, should 
be whoUy exempted from molestation for their more particular 
opinions and practices, and should never at any time be eomjiellcd 
to frequent or maintain any religious ])lace, ministry, or worship 
whatever." — Grahame, vol. ii. p. 402 — 404. 

t Political Annals, p. 642. 

X Until this union with Pennsylvania, these counties, from the 
year 1067, had been holden as an ap])endage to the government of 
New York. Encydo]). Brit. vol. v. p. 719. The want of the royal 
authority for this act, %Tith the o])eration of other causes, produced 
difficulties, which afterwards rendered this union void ; and the 
three lower counties had a separate assembly, though under the 
same governor. Belknap, Biog. vol. ii. p. 412. Franklin, p. IS. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



133 



tensive city, to which he gave the name of Philadel- 
phia, or the city of love. Before the end of the year 
it contained eighty dwellings. 

The colonies in general merit little praise for their 
wisdom and discretion in their conduct with the 
Indians. They were too prone to look on the wild 
man as an inferior being, and set themselves up as 
lords over his rights and property, without remem- 
bering that they were intruders on his soil, or conde- 
scending to meet him, even in the land of his fathers, 
on equal and amicable terms. But the memorable 
interview of Penn with the Indians, on the banks of 
the Delaware, exhibited a diflerent scene ; * the even 
scales of justice, and the mild persuasion of Christian 
love, were the powerful engines with which he 
swayed the barbarian mind, and taught the savage to 
confide in the sincerity of the white man ; and the 
first page in the annals of Pennsylvania is one of the 
brightest in the history of mankind, recording an 
event not more to the credit of the wise and benevo- 
lent legislator through whose agency it happened, 
than honourable to humanity itself. At a spot 
which is now the site of one of the suburbs of Phila- 
delphia, the Indian sachems, at the head of their 
assembled warriors, awaited in arms the approach of 
the quaker deputation. Penn, distinguished from 
his followers only by a sash of blue silk, and holding 
in his hand a roll of parchment that contained the 
confirmation of the treaty, arrived, at the head of an 
unarmed train, carrying various articles of merchan- 
dise, which, on their approach to the sachems, were 
spread on the ground. He addressed the natives 
through an interpreter, assuring them of his friendly 
and peaceable intentions ; and certainly the absence 
of all warlike weapons was a better attestation of his 
sincerity than a thousand oaths. The conditions of 
the proposed purchase were then read ; and he deli- 
vered to the sachems not only the stipulated price, 
but a handsome present of the merchandise which he 
had spread before them. He concluded by present- 
ing the parchment to the sachems, and requesting 
that they would carefully preserve it for three gene- 
rations. The Indians cordially acceded to his propo- 
sitions, and solemnly pledged themselves to live in 



* Tradition tells us, that the treaty of 1682 was held at Shaeka- 
maxon, under the wide-spread branches of the great elm-tree which 
grew near the margin of the Delaware, and which was prostrated 
during a storm m the year 1810. The tnmk measured twenty-four 
feet in circumference, and its age was ascertained to be two hun- 
dred and eighty-three years, having been a hundred and fifty-five 
years old at the time of the treaty. This tree Mr. West has mtro- 
duced mto his celebrated pietiu-e represtntmg the treaty. The first 
deed of the Indians is dated June 23, 1683. — Memou-s of Pennsyl- 
vania Histoi-ical Society, vol. i. pp. 6.5, 82, 96, 97. 

t Penn's letter, containing an account of the climate, products, 



love with William Penn and his chUdien as long as 
the sun and moon should endure. f 

The prudence with which Penn conducted himself 
was strictly consistent with a sincere attachment to 
his own opinions. He evidently appreciated more 
correctly the rights of his fellow-men than his north- 
ern neighboLU-s, the puritan colonists. He believed, 
and acted on the belief, that the Indians had as much 
right to hold the peculiarities of their creed, as he 
had to hold his own religious tenets ; and he never 
gave them unnecessary oflence by treating their sen- 
timents with bitterness, or, what is more keenly felt, 
by contempt. J This prudent conduct, together with 
a still more extraordinary reliance upon the protection 
of Providence in refusing to maintain any armed 
force, althot^h surrounded with the warlike abori- 
gines, was attended by a no less singular exemption 
from evils arising to every other European colony 
without exception, from the neighbourhood of the 
Indian tribes. Whatever animosity the Indians might 
conceive- against the European neighbours of the 
Pennsylvanians, or even against Pennsylvanian colo- 
nists who did not belong to the quaker society, they 
never failed to discriminate the followers of Penn, as 
persons whom it was impossible for them to include 
within the pale of legitimate hostility. This unique 
and interesting fact has, doubtless, availed more than 
all arguments in support of the alleged immorality 
of all kinds of resistance which can result in the 
deprivation of human life. 

Irrespectively of the peculiar talents and character 
of the founder, none of the colonies commenced 
under such favorable auspices as that of Pennsyl- 
vania. The experience of half a century had dis- 
closed the evils to be avoided, and pointed out the 
course to be pursued. The soil being fertile, the 
climate temperate, and the game abundant, the first 
emigrants escaped most of the calamities which 
afflicted the more northern and southern provinces, 
and the increase of population exceeded all former 
example. 

A second assembly was held at Philadelphia, in 
March, 1683. During this session, Penn created a 
second frame of government, to which he readily 

and native inhabitants of the countrj', though too long to insert in 
this work, mil well repay the perusal of the curious. It is to be 
found in Frond's History of Pennsylvania, vol. ii. ch. v. 

t "The following adventure, indicative of his extreme caution 
of gi™g offence, was communicated by Penn himself to Oldmixon. 
He was visiting an Indian sachem, and had retired for the night, 
when a young woman, the sachem's daughter, approaching his bed, 
lay down beside him. Peim was much shocked ; but, unwilling to 
offend by rejecting an intended com])Ument, he lay slill without 
takiu" any notice of her, till she thought proper to return to her 
own couch. Vol. i. p. 398, second edition. A New England pa- 



134 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



procured the assent of the assembly. This frame 
diminished the number of the council and assembly, 
and was in other respects different from the first. It 
was ordained, " that to prevent lawsuits, three arbi- 
trators, to be called peace-makers, should be chosen 
by the county courts, to hear and determine small 
differences between man and man ; that children 
should be taught some useful trade, to the end that 
none might be idle, that the poor might work to live, 
and the rich if they should become poor ; that factors 
wronging their employers should make satisfaction, 
and one third over ; that every thing which excites 
the people to rudeness, cruelty, and irreligion, should 
be discouraged, and severely punished ; * that no one, 
acknowledging one God, and living peaceably in 
society, should be molested for his opinions or his 
practice, or compelled to frequent or maintain any 
ministry whatever." This assembly also established 
various salutary regulations. Abrogating the com- 
mon law with regard to the descent of land, which 
had been introduced by the charter, it enacted, " that 
the estate of the intestate shall be disposed of, one 
third of the personal property absolutely, and one third 
of the lands during life, to the widow, two thirds of 
both among the children, the eldest son having a 
double share." However consonant it might have 
been to feudal principles to give the lands of the feu- 
dary undiminished to him who was first able to 
defend them, this policy was extremely unsuitable to 
colonists who had a wilderness to cultivate ; evidently, 
by giving property to every one, the exertions of all 
■were invigorated. By the promulgation of such 
laws, the growing prosperity of the province was 
promoted ; and to their salutary influence must be 
attributed the qualities of diligence, order, and econo- 
my, for which the Pennsylvanians are so justly cele- 
brated. Within four years from the date of the 
grant to Penn, the province contained twenty settle- 
ments, and Philadelphia two thousand inhabitants. 
Having received information from his agent that 
his presence was necessary in England, Penn departed 
from America in August, 1684, leaving his province 
in profound peace, under the administration of five 
commissioners chosen firom the provincial council. 
The unfortunate James II. ascended the throne soon 
after Penn's arrival. " As he has," said Penn, " been 
my friend, and my father's friend, I feel bound in 
justice to be a friend to him." He adhered to him 

triarch, in such circumstances, would probably have excited the en- 
mity of the whole Indian tribe by his expressions of disgust and 
rej)robation." — Grahame, vol. ii. p. 415. 

* Some of these clauses, it will be perceived, were only re-en- 
actments of the resolutions of the first assembly. 

t Dr. FraiJdin moutions an instance some years after, of a re- 



while seated on the throne ; and for two years after 
he was expelled from his kingdom, the government 
of the province was administered in his name. By 
this display of attachment to the exiled monarch, he 
incurred the displeasure of William III. On vague 
suspicion and unfounded charges, he was four times 
imprisoned. The king took the government of Penn- 
sylvania into his own hands ; and Colonel Fletcher 
was appointed governor of this province, as weU as 
of New York. On the arrival of Colonel Fletcher at 
Philadelphia, the persons in the administration appear 
to have surrendered the government to him, without 
any notice or order to them, either from the crown or 
the proprietary. By the severest scrutiny, however, 
it was rendered apparent, that Penn had not suffered 
personal gratitude to lead him to any serious derelic- 
tion of duty, and he consequently regained the good 
opinion of King William ; and being permitted to 
resume and exercise his rights, he appointed William 
Markham to be his deputy-governor. 

In the year 1696, the assembly having presented a 
remonstrance to Governor Markham, complaining of 
the breach of their chartered privileges, a bill of set- 
tlement, prepared and passed by the assembly, was 
approved by the governor, forming the third frame of 
government in Pennsylvania. A bill for raising 300/., 
professedly for the relief of the distressed Indians 
beyond Albany, but really in compliance with the 
demand of the governor of New York, to aid in the 
prosecution of the war, was passed by the same legis- 
lature.f 

During several years the colony continued in a 
course of prosperity, without any occurrence requiring 
historical record. In the year 1699, Penn revisited 
his Pennsylvanian associates, accompanied by his 
family, with an intention of spending the remainder 
of his life amongst them. Several circumstances now 
existed, which occasioned differences of opinion be- 
tween himself and the legislature ; more particularly 
that prolific source of evil-— negro slavery, and the 
frauds and abuses that disgraced the character of the 
colonists in their traffic with the Indians. With the 
view of providing a remedy for both these evils, he 
presented to the assembly three bills which he had 
himself prepared ; the first, for regulating the morals 
and marriages of the negroes ; the second, for regu- 
lating the trials and punishments of the negroes ; and 
the third, for preventing abuses and frauds upon the 



quisition addressed to the assembly of Pennsylvania for a grant of 
2000/. for the ]nuchase of gunpowder ; to which the assembly re- 
plied, that, consistently with quaker principles, they could not gi-ant 
a farthing for such a pm'pose, but had voted 2000^ for the purchase 
of grain. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



135 



Indians. The assembly distantly negatived the first 
and last of these bills, acceding only to that which 
related to the trial and punishment of their slaves. 
Though disappointed of the more extensive influence, 
which, as a political legislator, he had hoped to exer- 
cise, he was yet able, in his ecclesiastical ministry 
among the quakers, to introduce into their discipline 
regulations and practices relative to the purposes of 
the rejected bills, the spirit of which, at least, was, by 
the example of this powerful sect, forcibly recommend- 
ed to general imitation. But the progress of reform, by 
moral causes, is slow ; the enactment of laws must fol- 
low up and sustain whatever is gained by persuasion. 
The memory is assisted by the written page, while 
we soon forget the voice of entreaty, however strong 
the argument. 

Penn had now determined again to leave America 
and return to England, and he naturally desired to 
have some frame of government finally established 
before his departure. In 1701, he prepared and pre- 
sented one to the assembly, which was accepted. It 
confirmed to them, in conformity with that of 1696, 
the right of originating bills, which, by the charters 
preceding that date, had been the right of the gover- 
nor alone, and of mending or rejecting those which 
might be laid before them. To the governor it gave 
the right of rejecting bills passed by the assembly, of 
appointing his own council, and of exercising the 
whole executive power. 

Immediately after his fourth firame was accepted, 
Penn returned to England ; but he had scarcely ar- 
rived there, when the disputes between the province 
and the territories broke forth with greater bitterness 
than ever ; and in the following year, the separate 
legislature of Delaware was permanently established 
at Newcastle. In addition to the tidings of these pro- 
longed disagreements, and of the final rupture be- 
tween the two settlements, Penn was harassed by 
complaints against the administration of Governor 
Evans ; and having ascertained, by a deliberate ex- 
amination of them, that they were too well founded, 
he appointed in his place Charles Gookin, a gentle- 
man of ancient Irish family, who seemed qualified to 
give satisfaction to the people over whom he was 
sent to preside. Finding his people still in a discon- 
tented state, Penn, now in his sixty-sixth year, for 
the last time addressed the assembly, in a letter re- 
plete with calm solemnity and dignified concern. 
This letter is said to have produced a deep and pow- 
erful impression on the more considerate part of the 
assembly, who now began to feel for the father of 
his country, and to regard with tenderness his vene- 
rable age ; to remember his long labours and to ap- 
18 



predate their own interest in his distinguished 
fame : but it is very doubtful if this change of senti- 
ment was ever known to its illustrious object, who 
was attacked shortly afterwards by a succession of 
apoplectic fits, which impeded, in a great degi-ee, the 
exercise of his memory and understanding, and ulti- 
mately terminated his life. 

It would be injustice to suffer the great founder of 
the Pennsylvanian republic to pass from our view 
without glancing at the excellencies of his character. 
The keenness of foresight, the sagacity and penetra- 
tion of judgment, the fertility in inventing, and clear- 
ness of discernment in applying resources, which the 
events of his life display, are no less remarkable than 
the pure spirit of universal benevolence, which seems 
to have been the governing principle of all his actions, 
as it was the leading tenet in his particular views of 
religion. By steadily adhering to the maxims of 
gospel charity in the establishment of his common- 
wealth, he secured it against many of those violent 
shocks, which at that time threatened the dissolution 
of some of the elder and more robust colonies, espe- 
cially from the hostility of the savages, over whom, by 
pacific measures,kind treatment, probity,and equitable 
dealing, he gained an ascendancy far more complete 
than any exhibition of military force could have ac- 
quired. It is not strictly true, indeed, as asserted by 
some writers, that he was the first of the colonists to 
treat with the savages on an equal footing, and to 
obtain their lands by honourable purchase ; for nu- 
merous instances occur in the history of other colo- 
nies, where the same respect was shown to the pri- 
meval lords of the soil : but although William Penn 
did not first set the example of this moderation, he 
and his followers alone persevered in the practice of 
it, and thus preserved the good will of their savage 
neighbours, while, in other parts of the country, a 
different course of conduct on the part of the colonists 
subjected them to a series of wasteful and vindictive 
wars, which ended only with the extermination of 
some of the most powerful among the aboriginal tribes. 
The same enlightened spirit of benevolence, which 
led Penn to consult his true interest in adopting 
peaceful means of avoiding the enmity of the savages, 
dictated the memorable clause in the code drawn up 
by him for the use of his colony, that " all persona 
living in the province, who confess and acknowledge 
the one almighty and eternal God to be the creator, 
upholder, and ruler of the world, and hold them- 
selves obliged in conscience to live peaceably and 
justly in civil society, shall in no wise be molested 
for their religious persuasion or practice in matters of 
faith and worship." The constant assertion of this 



136 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



golden rule of civil society, and that too by one 
whose life and fortune were devoted to the task of 
gaining proselytes for that peculiar sect of which he 
was so illustrious a member, evinces a liberality of 
feeling rarely equalled in that or any other age. 

The legislatures and governors continuing to act 
on the noble principles and example which their 
founder left- for their imitation, the colony acquired, 
by well-conducted purchases from the Indians, a most 
extensive and unembarrassed territory, and proceeded 
rapidly in its prosperous course. The only circum- 
stance which appears to have created any internal 
disunion worthy of notice, was a dispute between the 
governors and the assembly, on the question of ex- 
empting the land of the proprietaries from the gene- 
ral taxation — a claim which the inhabitants deemed 
very inequitable. In January, 1757, the assembly of 
Pennsylvania voted a bill for granting to his majesty 
the sum of 100,000/. by a tax on all the estates, real 
and personal, and taxables, within the province. On 
submitting it to Governor Denny for his sanction, he 
refused it. " The proprietaries," he observed in his 
message, " are willing their estates should be taxed 
in the manner that appears to them to be reasonable, 
and agreeable to the land-tax acts of parliament in 
our mother country." He stated, that " his majesty's 
service, and the defence of this province, render it 
necessary to raise immediate supplies ; " and earnest- 
ly recommended it to the assembly to frame such a 
bUl as it was in his power to pass, " consistent with 
his honour, and his engagements to the proprietaries." 
The message was regarded as an invasion of the 
rights of the colonists ; and the assembly remonstrated 
with the governor. In that spirited document they 
say, " We have, in the due exercise of our just rights 
by the royal and provincial charters, and the laws of 
this province, and as an English representative body, 
framed this bill consistent with those rights." Hav- 
ing assigned their reasons to sustain the remonstrance, 
they conclude it in these words : " We do therefore, 
in the name of our most gracious sovereign, and in 
behalf of the distressed people we represent, unani- 
mously demand it of the governor as our right, that 
he give his assent to the bill we now present him, 
for granting to his majesty 100,000/. for the defence 
of this province, (and as it is a money-bill, without 
alteration or amendment, any instructions whatsoever 
from the proprietaries notwithstanding,) as he will 
answer to the crown for aU the consequences of his 
refusal at his peril." This declaration produced no 
other effect upon the governor, than that of confirm- 
ing his refusal, and of drawing from him a laboured 
justification, " grounded upon parliamentary usage 



in England, and the supposed hardship of taxing the 
unimproved lands of the proprietaries." The govern- 
ors of Pennsylvania thus adhering to their instruc- 
tions, not to assent to any tax bill that did not ex- 
empt the estates of the proprietaries, the assembly 
of that province deputed the celebrated Benjamin 
Franklin as an agent to London, to petition the 
king for redress. The subject was discussed before 
the privy council; and Mr. Franklin acceded to a 
proposal to enter into engagements that the assess- 
ments should be fair and equitable, a bill for levy- 
ing a general tax, which had previously received 
the governor's assent, though after the agent's depar- 
ture from the province, was stamped with the royal 
approbation. These disputes, by calling the energetic 
mind of Benjamin Franklin into a new field of exer- 
tion, enlarged the sphere of his observation, and fit- 
ted him for those extraordinary services in which he 
acquired his greatest glory by contributing to that of 
his country. 



CHAPTER X. 



MARYLAND. 



The founder of the state of Maryland was Cecil, 
Lord Baltimore. His father had been secretary of 
state to James I., and one of the original associates of 
the Virginia Company. He visited that colony in the 
year 1622, to ascertain if some portion of its rich ter- 
ritory could not be rendered subservient to the inte- 
rests of his family, and at the same time afford a de- 
sirable retreat for persecuted professors of the Romish 
faith, to which he had become a convert. He subse- 
quently prevailed on Charles I. to bestow on him the 
desired grant, and had made considerable preparations 
for carrying his design into effect, when death put an 
end to his projects, which were, however, adopted, 
and zealously prosecuted by his son. On his behalf, 
the king, in June, 1632, executed the charter which 
his father had solicited ; and conferred on the new 
colony the title of Maryland, as a tribute of respect 
to Henrietta Maria, his queen. The new province 
was declared to be separated from Virginia, to which 
its territory had belonged, and subject only to the 
crown of England. Lord Baltimore was created the 
absolute proprietary of it, and was empowered, with 
the assent of the freemen, or their delegates, whom he 
was required to assemble for that purpose, to make 
laws for the province, and to administer them. The 
territory was erected into a palatinate ; and the pro- 
prietary was invested with all the royal rights of the 
palace, as fully as any Bishop of Durham had ever 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



137 



enjoyed ; he was authorized to appoint officers, to re- 
pel invasions, and to suppress rebellions ; what is still 
more remarkable, the charter contained no obligation 
on the proprietary to transmit the acts of assembly 
for confirmation or disallowance by the king ; and 
it also possessed the peculiarity of being the first ex- 
ample of the dismemberment of a colony, and the 
creation of a new one within its limits, by the mere 
act of the crown. 

Having obtained so favourable a charter. Lord Bal- 
timore proceeded to carry its provisions- into execu- 
tion. He appointed his brother, Leonard Calvert, go- 
vernor of the new province, and concurred with him 
in the equipment of vessels, which conveyed a nume- 
rous body of emigrants, chiefly Roman Catholics, and 
many of them gentlemen of rank and fortune. After 
a circuitous voyage, the governor arrived, accompanied 
by his brother George, at Point Comfort, in Virginia, 
in February, 1634. Early in March, he proceeded 
up the bay of Chesapeake to the northward, and en- 
tered the Potomack, up which he sailed twelve 
leagues, and came to an anchor under an island, 
which he named St. Clement. Here he erected a cross, 
and took possession " in the name of the Saviour of 
the world, and of the king of England." Thence he 
went fifteen leagues higher to the Indian town of Po- 
tomack on the Virginia side of the river, now call- 
ed New Marlborough, where he was received in a 
friendly manner. Arriving at the town of Piscata- 
wa, on the Maryland side, he found Henry Fleet, an 
Englishman, who had resided several years among 
the natives, and was held by them in great esteem, 
who was very serviceable as an interpreter. An in- 
terview having been procured with the werowance, or 
prince, Calvert asked him, whether he was willing 
that a settlement should be made in his country; he 
replied, " I will not bid you go, neither Avill I bid you 
stay; but you may use your own discretion." Having 
convinced the natives that his designs were honour- 
able and pacific, the governor now sought a suitable 
station for commencing his colony. He visited a 
creek on the northen side of the Potomack, on which 
he found an Indian village. Here he acquainted the 
prince of the place with his intentions, and by pre- 
sents to him and his principal men, conciliated his 
friendship so much as to obtain permission to reside 
in one part of the town until next harvest, when it 
was agreed that the natives should entirely quit the 
place. Both parties entered into a contract to live to- 
gether in a friendly manner. After Calvert had given 
a satisfactory consideration, the Indians readily yield- 
ed a number of their houses, and retired to the others. 
Thus, on the 27th of March, 1634, the governor took 



peaceable possession of the country of Maryland, and 
gave to the town the name of St. Mary, and to the 
creek, on which it was situate, the name of St. George. 
The desire of rendering justice to the natives by 
giving them a reasonable compensation for their lands, 
is a trait in the character of the first planters, which 
will always do honour to their memory. 

Circumstances favoured the rapid population of the 
colony. The charter granted more ample privileges 
than had ever been conceded to a subject ; the coun- 
try was inviting ; the natives were friendly ; from the 
south churchmen drove puritans, from the north puri- 
tans drove churchmen, into her borders, where all 
were freely received, protected, and cherished. The co- 
lony was soon able to export Indian corn and other pro- 
ducts to New England and Newfoundland, for which 
they received in return dried fish and other provisions 
The Indians also killed many deer and turkies, which 
they sold to the English for knives, beads, and other 
small articles of trafiic, while cattle, swine, and poul- 
try, were procured from Virginia. 

During the first years of the colony, when the free- 
men were few in number, each attended the general 
assembly in person, or authorized some other freeman 
to vote in his stead. The increase of population, 
however, soon rendered itnecessary to adopt a differ- 
ent mode of legislation ; and in 1639 an act was 
passed, constituting a house of assembly, to be com- 
posed of such as should be chosen by the people, of 
such as should be summoned or appointed by the 
proprietor, and of the governor and secretary. These 
were to meet together, and the laws which they should 
frame were to possess the same validity as though the 
proprietors and all the people had concurred in en- 
acting them. The colony was not entirely free from 
internal troubles. In the year 1631, Charles I. had 
granted a license to one William Cleyborne, who was 
described as one of the council, and secretary of state 
of Virginia, " to traffic in those parts of America for 
which there is already no patent granted for sole 
trade." Cleyborne and his associates, with the spirit 
of exclusion so common in those days, attempted to 
monopolize the trade of the Chesapeake ; and with 
this intent, they appear to have planted a small colo- 
ny on the isle of Kent, which commands both the 
shores of Chesapeake Bay, where it washes Annapo- 
lis, the present capital of Maryland. The Virginians 
boasted that the colonists of Kent sent burgesses to 
their assembly, and were subjected to their jurisdic- 
tion before Maryland had a name, and the province 
found abundant cause to regret, that a people had 
taken up their abode within its limits, who paid un- 
willing obedience to its laws. Cleyborne continued 



138 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



to claim Kent Island, and to refuse Submission to the 
jurisdiction of Maryland. Lord Baltimore, however, 
gave orders, in September, 1634, to seize the refrac- 
tory trader, if he did not submit to his government ; 
judging wisely, that subordination would cease, should 
an independent jurisdiction be established in the cen- 
tre of his province. Still continuing to resist, and to 
excite rebellion in others, he was at length indicted, 
and found guilty of murder, piracy, and sedition ; 
but he fled fi-om justice, and his estate was seized, as 
forfeited to those laws which he had formerly con- 
temned as invalid. The afiiictions of this period are 
indicated by a statute of the assembly, which recites, 
" that the province had been wasted by a miserable 
dissension and unhappy war, which had been closed 
by the joyful restitution of a blessed peace." To 
promote the restoration of tranquillity and mutual 
confidence, an act of general pardon and oblivion was 
passed, from the benefits of which only a few leading 
characters were excepted ; and all actions were dis- 
charged for wrongs that might have been perpetrated 
during the revolt. " By a singular reverse of fortune," 
says Chalmers, " Cleyborne lived to command in the 
province whence he was now driven with infamy, to 
feel the pangs of old age when accompanied with 
poverty, to apply to a prince for support, whose bene- 
ficence was not even extended to those who had suf- 
fered for his family and himself"* 

It is a fact, which reflects the greatest credit on 
these early colonists, that fifteen years after they first 
landed, the general assembly of the people passed an 
act, entitled, " An Act concerning Religion," in which 
the great principles of religious toleration and liberty 
are so extensively recognised. The following is an 
extract from the act itself : " Whereas the enforcing 
of the conscience in matters of religion hath frequently 
fallen out to be of dangerous consequence in those 
commonwealths where it hath been practised ; and for 
the more quiet and peaceable government of this 
province, and the better to preserve mutual love and 
unity among the inhabitants, no person or persons 
whatsoever, within this province, or the islands, ports, 
harbours, creeks, or havens thereunto belonging, pro- 
fessing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall from hence- 
forth be any ways troubled, molested, or discounte- 
nanced, for, or in respect of, his or her religion, nor 
in the free exercise thereof, within this province, or 
the islands thereunto belonging, nor any way com- 
pelled to the belief or exercise of any religion against 
his or her consent, so that they be not unfaithful to 
the lord proprietary, or molest or conspire against the 

• Political Annals, p. 211. 



civil government established, or to be established, in 
this province, under him or his heirs."t This law 
was passed by an assembly composed entirely of 
Roman Catholics, and is the more remarkable, as 
being the first legislative act which is recorded to 
have been passed by any government, administered 
by members of the Romish hierarchy, in favour of the 
unlimited toleration of all Christian sects. 

In 1650, the legislative body was divided into two 
branches— the delegates chosen by the people consti- 
tuting the lower house, and the persons summoned 
by the proprietors, the upper house. An act of 
recognition of the undoubted right of Lord Baltimore 
to the proprietaryship of the province was passed in 
the same session. The assembly not only submitted 
to his authority, but obliged its constituents and 
their posterity for ever to defend him and his heirs 
in his royal rights, and besought him to accept this 
act as a testimony of gratitude for the manifold bene- 
fits which the colony had derived from him. In 
prosecution of its patriotic labours, the assembly also 
proceeded to enact laws for the relief of the poor, and 
the encouragement of agriculture and commerce ; 
and a short season of prosperity preceded the calami- 
ties which the province was again to experience 
from the evil genius of Cleyborne, and the interposi- 
tion of the parent state. 

After the parliament had triumphed over the king, 
they appointed commissioners for reducing and govern- 
ing the colonies within the bay of Chesapeake, among 
whom was Cleyborne. The proprietor of Maryland, 
on acknowledging the authority of the parliament, 
was permitted to retain his station, but was unable 
to preserve tranquillity. The distractions of England, 
finding their wiy into the colony, occasioned a civil 
war, which ended in the discomfiture of the Roman 
Catholics. The next assembly, which was entirely 
under the influence of Cleyborne and the victorious 
party, ordained that persons professing the catholic 
religion should not be considered within the protec- 
tion of the laws ; the catholics being thus ungratefully 
persecuted by men whom they had taken to their 
bosom, and in a colony which they had founded. 
Laws unfavourable to the quakers were also enacted ; 
and here, as in England, the upper house was voted 
to be useless. At the restoration, in 1660, Philip 
Calvert was appointed governor, and the ancient 
order of things was restored. The recent usurpations 
were passed over in silence, and buried in a generous 
oblivion ; toleration was re-established, and the in- 
habitants of Maryland once more experienced the 

t Bacon's Laws, 1649, chap, i 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



139 



blessings of a mild government and internal tranquil- 
lity.* General subordination had manifestly the effect 
of quickening the march of prosperity ; industry, 
amply recompensed, was animated and cheerful, and 
closely connected with independence and improvement 
of condition was general respect. To such a degree 
did this arise, that it became common for ruined 
tradesmen and indigent labourers in England to 
repair to this colony for retrieving or improving their 
condition. No emigrants were more successful in 
bettering their condition than female servants ; they 
invariably obtained an immediate and respectable 
establishment in marriage. t 

In 1676, Cecil, Lord Baltimore, the father of the 
province, died. For more than forty years he had 
directed its affairs as proprietor, and displayed in all 
his conduct a benevolent heart and enlightened un- 
derstanding. Although he lived in an age of bigotry, 
he was liberal in his opinions ; and for all his exer- 
tions to contribute to the happiness of his fellow-beings, 
he desired no reward but their gratitude. This 
reward he received. The records of the Maryland 
assembly contain frequent memorials of the respect 
and affection of the people. He was succeeded, as 
proprietor, by his eldest son, Charles, who had for 
several years been governor of the colony, and dis- 
played the same amiable qualities which had rendered 
his father respected and beloved. The closing years 
of the proprietary government were embittered by a 
circumstance similar to that which the institution of 
the colony of Maryland had inflicted on Virginia. 
The grant which had been made by Charles II. to 
the celebrated Penn included the territory of Dela- 
ware, which Lord Baltimore had always considered 
within the limits of his patent. On the arrival of 
William Penn in America, a meeting took place be- 
tween him and Lord Baltimore, in the hope of effect- 
ing an amicable adjustment of the boundaries of their 
respective territorial grants. But the pretensions of 
the parties were so completely incompatible that it 
proved impossible at the time to adjust them in a 
manner satisfactory' to both. Penn ultimately com- 
plained to the English government, and, by his inte- 
rest at court, procured it to be adjudged that the 
debateable territory should be divided into two equal 
parts, one of which was appropriated to himself, and 
the other to Lord Baltimore. This adjudication was 
carried into effect ; and the territory which now 
composes the state of Delaware was thus dismem- 
bered from the provincial limits of Maryland. 

• Chalmers, pp. 224—226, 248. 

t Alsop's Maryland, pp. 15, 16. Grahame's History of the 
United States, vol. ii. p. 34. 



In the year following the revolution of 1688, the 
repose of Maryland was again disturbed. A rumour 
was artfully circulated, that the catholics had leagued 
with the Indians to destroy all the protestants in the 
province. An armed association was immediately 
formed, for the defence of the protestant religion, and 
for asserting the rights of King William and Queen 
Mary. The magistrates attempted to oppose this as- 
sociation by force ; but, meeting with few supporters, 
they were compelled to abdicate the government. 
King William directed those who had assumed the 
supreme authority to exercise it in his name ; and 
for twenty-seven years the crown retained the entire 
control of the province. In 1716, the proprietor was 
restored to his rights ; and he and his descendants 
continued to enjoy them until the commencement of 
the revolution. The people then assumed the govern- 
ment, adopted a constitution, and refused to admit the 
claims of the representatives of Lord Baltimore either 
to jurisdiction or to property. 



CHAPTER XI. 

NORTH AND SOUTH CAROLINA. 

The interesting though calamitous attempts of the 
French protestants, under the brave Admiral Coligny, 
to colonize that part of North America which consti- 
tutes the subject of the present chapter, but which 
was then known under the general denomination of 
Florida, have already been related. Those which 
were made in the reign of Elizabeth by Raleigh and 
Gilhert, have been comprised in the history of Virginia, 
of which colony the territory which now constitutes 
the Carolinas then formed a part. It was not till the 
(year 1630, that Sir Robert Heath, attorney-general of 
Charles I., obtained a grant of a territory stretching 
to the southward of Virginia from the 36th degree of 
north latitude, comprehending Louisiana, by the name 
of Carolina. He appears to have made no settlement, 
and, subsequently, his patent was declared void, the 
conditions on which it had been granted not having 
been fulfilled. Between the years 1640 and 1650, 
persons suffering from religious intolerance in Virgi- 
nia fled beyond her limits, and, without authority 
from any quarter, occupied that portion of North Ca- 
rolina north of Albemarle Sound. Tliey found the 
winters mild, and the soil fertile ; and as their cattle 
and swine procured their own support in the woods, 
and multiplied rapidly, with little labour they lived in 
the enjoyment of comparative abundance. Their 
number annually augmented : but they acknowledged 



140 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



no superior upon earth, and obeyed no laws but tliose 
of God and nature. Several families from Massa- 
chusetts also migrated to Carolina, and settled about 
Cape Fear ; but as the lands where they fixed them- 
selves were not equally productive with those they 
had relinquished, and as the waters did not afford the 
same advantages of fishery, they for some years ex- 
perienced the complicated miseries of want ; and the 
general court of Massachusetts, with an attention and 
humanity which do it honour, directed a general con- 
tribution for their relief.* 

The final settlement of this country originated with 
the earl of Clarendon, and other courtiers of Charles 
II. On their application for a charter, he granted 
them all the lands lying between the 31st and 36th 
degrees of north latitude ; and he constituted them 
absolute lords and proprietors of that tract of country, 
reserving to himself and his successors the sovereign 
dominion. The charter empowered them to enact 
and publish any laws which they should judge ne- 
cessary, with the assent, advice, and approbation of 
the freemen of the colony ; to erect courts of judica- 
ture, and appoint civil judges, magistrates, and 
officers ; to erect forts, castles, cities, and towns ; to 
make war, and, in cases of necessity, to exercise mar- 
tial law ; to build harbours, make ports, and enjoy 
customs and subsidies, imposed with the consent of 
the freemen, on goods loaded and unloaded. One of 
the provisions of this charter deserves particular no- 
tice. The king authorized the proprietors to allow 
the inhabitants of the province such indulgences and 
dispensations in religious affairs, as they, in their dis- 
cretion, should think proper and reasonable : and no 
person, to whom such liberty should be granted, was 
to be molested, punished, or called in question, for any 
differences in speculative opinions with respect to re 
ligion, provided he disturbed not the civil order and< 
peace of the community. The reason assigned in 
the charter for such a dispensing power is, " that it 
might happen thaf several of the inhabitants could 
not, in their private opinions, conform to the exercise 
of religion according to the liturgy and ceremonies of 
the church of England."t The privy council, con- 
sidering the present condition of Carolina, decided 
that all former grants were now void, because they 
had never been executed. 

Animated by this decision, the proprietors held their 

* Chalmers, p. 516. 

t Mem. de I'Amerique, vol. iv. p. 554 — 585, -where is a copy of 
the charter, in English and French, dated March 24th, 1662 — April 
1th, 1663. The charter slates, that the applicants, " excited by a 
laudable and pious zeal for the propasfation of the gospel, beg a 
certain country in the parts of America not yet cultivated and 
planted, and only inhabited by some barbarous people, who have no 



first meeting in May, 1663, to agree on measures for 
the transporting of colonists, and for the payment or 
various expenses ; and they now published proposals 
to all who would plant in Carolina. Among other 
privileges, it was decided, that the emigrants present 
to the proprietaries thirteen persons, in order that 
they may appoint a governor and a council of six 
for three years ; that an assembly, composed of the 
governor, the council, and the delegates of the freemen, 
should be called as soon as the circumstances of the 
colony would allow, with power to make laws, pro 
vided they were not contrary to the laws of England, 
nor of any validity after the publication of the dis- 
sent of the proprietaries ; that every one should en- 
joy the most perfect freedom in religion ; that, during 
five years, every freeman should be allowed one hun- 
dred acres of land, and fifty for every servant, paying 
one halfpenny only an acre ; and that the same free- 
dom from customs which had been allowed by the 
royal charter, should be allowed to every one. The 
settlers on Albemarle Sound were, on certain condi- 
tions, allowed to retain their lands. A government 
was organized over them, at the head of which a Mr. 
Urummond was placed. With the regulations im- 
posed they were dissatisfied, and they revolted ; but 
their grievances were redressed, and, in 1668, they re- 
turned to their allegiance. Notwithstanding the high 
professions of the proprietaries, not the slightest at- 
tempt was made to provide for the spiritual instruc- 
tion of the colonists, or the conversion of the Indians ; 
and the colony continued for a series of years with- 
out any form of public worship. 

Having taken the command of the infant settle- 
ment at Albemarle, the proprietaries directed a survey 
of the coast to the southward, and projected the esta- 
blishment of a new colony in Clarendon country, 
which had been recently abandoned by the emigrants 
from New England. In furtherance of this object, 
they conferred on John Yeamans, a respectable planter 
of Barbadoes, the appointment of commander-in-chief 
of Clarendon country. In the autumn, he conducted 
from Barbadoes a body of emigrants, who landed on 
the southern bank of Cape Fear. He cultivated the 
good will of the natives, and insured a seven years 
peace. The planters, in opening the forest to make 
room for the operations of tillage, " necessarily pre- 
pared timber for the uses of the cooper and builder. 



knowledge of God." The applicants, besides the earl of Claren- 
don, were George dnke of Albemarle, William Lord Craven, John 
Lord Berkeley, Anthony Lord Ashley, Sir George Carteret, Sir 
William Berkeley, and Sir John Colleton. The grant included the 
territories of what afterwards constituted North Carolina, South 
Carolina, and Georgia. 



i\ 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



141 



■which they transmitted to the island whence they had 
emigrated, as the first subject of a feeble commerce, 
that kindled the spark of industry which soon gave 
animation to the whole."* Another settlement was 
also projected to the southward of Cape Remain, 
which received the name of Carteret, and was placed 
under a separate governor. " The policy which the 
proprietaries were thus pursuing, in the establishment 
of a variety of separate and independent colonies in 
Carolina, each of which had its own distinct assem- 
bly, customs, and laws, supplied them at a fiiture pe- 
riod with ample cause of regret, and contributed to 
the prolonged feebleness and distractions by which 
this province was unhappily distinguished. "t 

By the surveys which had been made under their 
direction, the proprietors had now ascertained, that 
several tracts of land not included in the terms of 
their previous grant, would form a very desirable ac- 
cession ; they therefore solicited, and obtained from 
the king, a second charter. It recited and confirmed 
the former grant, with the additional territory. Ca- 
rolina was declared independent of any other pro- 
vince, but subject immediately to the crown of Eng- 
land ; and the inhabitants were never to be compelled 
to answer in other dominions of the crown, except- 
ing within the realm. The limits of the territory 
are thus defined : " All that province, territory, or 
tract of ground, situate within our dominions of Ame- 
rica, extending north and eastward as far as the north 
end of Carahtuke River, or gullet, upon a straight 
westerly line, to Wyanoake Creek, which lies within 
or about the degrees of 36 and 30 minutes northern 
latitude, and so west, in a direct line as far as the 
South Seas ; and south and westward as far as the 
degrees of 29 inclusive northern latitude, and so 
west, in a direct line, as far as the South Seas, to- 
gether with all and singular ports, harbours, bays, 
rivers, and islets, belonging to the province or terri- 
tory aforesaid."! According to the limits fixed in this 
charter, St. Augustine, as well as the whole of what 
was afterwards Georgia, fell within the English do- 
minions ; but the Spaniards alleged, that this grant 
was an invasion of their rights, and never admitted 
the limits of this charter at any subsequent treaty. 

Both the charters of Carolina were granted while 
Clarendon retained the chancellorship of Great Bri- 
tain ; and it is somewhat curious to observe this 
zealous advocate for the prerogatives of the crown 
making no hesitation to place the great seal to 



• Chalmers, b. i. p. 520, 521. Ypamens was directed " to malre j 
every thing easy to the people of New England, from which the 
greatest emigrations are expected, as the southern colonies are 
already drained." ' 



charters which transferred the very highest of them 
almost absolutely to himself and his associates. Not 
less instructive is it to contemplate this renowned 
champion and his colleagues recommending a line of 
ecclesiastical policy in their own colony diametrically 
opposite to that which, as the " confidential advisers" 
of his majesty, they adopted and promoted in the 
parent state. If bigotry must exist, it is more to be 
respected, though it be more injurious, when it does 
not bend to feelings of self-interest. 

Agreeably to the powers with which the proprietors 
were invested by their charter, they began to frame a 
system of laws for the government of their colony ; 
in which arduous task they availed themselves of the 
assistance of the illustrious John Locke. A model of 
government, consisting of no less than a hundred and 
twenty articles, was framed by this learned philoso- 
pher, which they agreed to establish, and to the care- 
ful observance of it, to bind themselves and their 
heirs for ever. As this constitution allies a name so 
justly celebrated with the history of Carolina, and is 
in itself a singular and ingenious piece of legislation, 
a brief abstract of it is both interesting and important. 
" The eldest of the eight proprietors was always to be 
palatine, and at his decease was to be succeeded by 
the eldest of the seven survivors. This palatine was 
to sit as president of the palatine's court, of which 
he arfd three more of the proprietors made a quorum, 
and had the management and execution of all the 
powers of their charter. This palatine's court was 
to stand in room of the king, and give their assent or 
dissent to all laws made by the legislature of the 
colony. The palatine was to have power to nomi- 
nate and appoint the governor, who, after obtaining 
the royal approbation, became his representative in 
Carolina. Each of the seven proprietors was to have 
the privilege of appointing a deputy, to sit as his 
representative in parliament, and to act agreeable to 
his instructions. Besides a governor, two other 
branches, somewhat similar to the old Saxon consti- 
tution, were to be established, an upper and lower 
house of assembly, which three branches were to be 
called a parliament, and to constitute the legislature 
of the country. The parliament was to be chosen 
every two years. No act of the legislature was to 
have any force unless ratified in open parliament 
during the same session, and even then to continue 
no longer in force than the next biennial parliament, 
unless in the meau time it be ratified by the hands 



t Grahame, vol. ii. p. 88. 

t Memoires de I'Ameriqtie, vol. iv. p. 586—617; where this 
charier, in English and French, is inserted entire, h is dated 13 
-24 Juin, 16f6. 



142 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



and seals of the palatine and three proprietors. The 
upper house was to consist of the seven deputies, 
seven of the oldest landgraves and caziques, and 
seven chosen by the assembly. As in the other pro- 
vinces, the lower house was to be composed of the 
representatives from the different counties and towns. 
Several officers were also to be appointed, such as an 
admiral, a secretary, a chief-justice, a surveyor, a 
treasurer, a marshal, and register ; and besides these, 
each county was to have a sheriff and four justices 
of the peace. Three classes of nobility were to be 
established, called barons, caziques, and landgraves ; 
the first to possess twelve, the second twenty-four, and 
the third forty-eight thousand acres of land, and their 
possessions were to be unalienable. Military officers 
were also to be nominated, and all inhabitants from 
sixteen to sixty years of age, as in the times of feudal 
government, when summoned by the governor and 
grand council, were to appear under arms, and, in 
time of war, to take the field. With respect to 
religion, three terms of communion were fixed ; 
first, to believe that there is a God ; secondly, 
that he is to be worshipped ; and thirdly, that it is 
lawful, and the duty of every man when called upon 
by those in authority, to bear witness to the truth : 
without acknowledging which, no man was to be per- 
mitted to be a freeman, or to have any estate or ha- 
bitation in Carolina. But persecution for observing 
different modes and ways of worship was expressly 
forbid, and every man was to be left full liberty of 
conscience, and might worship God in that manner 
vhich he in his private judgment thought most con- 
formable to the divine will and revealed word. Every 
freeman of Carolina was declared to possess absolute 
power and authority over his negro slaves, of what 
opinion or religion soever;"* 

It must be admitted, that Locke manifests his usual 
intellectual ability and energy in this composition ; 
but his system proved in effect useless and impracti- 
cable. t Several attempts were afterwards made to 
amend these constitutions, but all to little purpose; 
the inhabitants, sensible how little they were applica- 

* The world has, since the days of Mr. Locke, been taught to exclaim 
with surprise, on reading his constitution for Carolina ; but this sur- 
prise ceases, when we consider the age in whicli the philosopher lived. 
He truly had no precedent before him, to support him in making a 
republican government, which he is blamed for not making. Virginia 
then was a royal colony, and of course was not a model ; and the 
settlements on the shores of the Atlantic, in New England, had 
not then risen to much notoriety in England. The pilgrims, who 
increased very slowly, had been in the country but forty-seven years, 
and those who settled the Province of Massachusetts Bay, but thirty- 
seven, when Locke drew up this form of government ; therefore there 
was nftthing to be derived from this country, at that time, to assist 
him. The ancient models of Greece and Rome were not suited to a 
people that he knew must necessarily be, for ages, widely scattered 
over the soil. The example of republican government, as it was call- 



ble to their circumstances, never, either themselves or 
by their representatives in assembly, gave their assent 
to them as a whole, and therefore they failed to obtain 
the force of fundamental laws in the colony. What 
regulations the people found applicable and useful 
they adopted, at the request of their governors ; but 
they observed them on account of their own propriety 
and necessity, rather than as a code imposed on them 
by British politicians. 

It is obvious that the Carolinian constitution was 
an experiment in political science, an attempt to plant 
an aristocratic scion in the American soil. That 
such an attempt should have been made by men ac- 
customed to set a high value on distinctions of rank, 
is not surprising ; but it is still less surprising, that, 
under the circumstances of the case, it should have 
been utterly abortive. This result may be ascribed 
in part to the civil, rather than the military character 
of the North American settlements ; in part to the de- 
gree of knowledge and civilization possessed by the 
colonists at the commencement of their social institu- 
tions ; in part to the actual equality to which the con- 
dition of the transatlantic wilderness reduced the 
whole body of its occupants ; and in part to the sub- 
stantial independence acquired by the successful cul- 
tivators of the soil, who were, almost from the first,, 
in a situation to deride, as they afterwards found 
themselves able effectually to resist, the pretensions of 
distant lords. 

Notwithstanding these constitiitions and legal pre- 
parations, several years elapsed before the proprietors 
of Carolina made any serious efforts towards its set- 
tlement. In 1667, they fitted out a ship, gave the 
command of it to Captain William Sayle, and sent 
him out to bring them some account of the coast. 
His report to his employers, as might naturally be ex- 
pected, was favourable. He praised their possessions, 
and encouraged them to engage with vigour in the 
execution of their project. His observations respect- 
ing the Bahama islands, which he had visited, in- 
duced them to apply to the king for a grant of them, 
and Charles bestowed on them by patent all those 

ed, under Cromwell, had not much in it to the taste of Mr. Locke, who 
saw no small degree of tyranny in the garb of freedom. Why do polit- 
ical writers dwell upon the absurdity of palatines, barons, &c. &c., pro- 
vided for in tile constitution from the pen of the profound metaphysi- 
cian, and make no commentaries on the great and noble feature of this 
constitution, religious liberty ? — a feature which had no prototype in 
tlie iiistory of nations ; a principle without which there can be no 
tVeedom It is but a trifle to have the privilege of choosing men as 
rulers, if we cannot worship God as we please. Mr. Locke had seen 
the evils of a hierarchy on the one hand, and of a regular body of 
dissenters on the other. He, therefore, with a depth of philosophy 
wonderful in his age, or any age that had passed, struck one bold 
blow to sever church and state, or religious creeds from political em- 
ployments. — Am. Editor. 



w 



/ 




-^■ 



M"^^ 



■^ ^ 









m 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



143 



islands lyin? between tlie 22d and 27th degrees of 
north latitude. Nothing then remained but to make 
preparations for sending, a colony to Carolina. Two 
ships were procured, on board of which a number of 
adventurers embarked, with provisions, arms, and 
utensils requisite for building and cultivation. Sayle 
was appointed the first governor, and received a com- 
mission, bearing date .July 26, 1669. The expenses 
of this first embarcation amounted to 12,000/., a 
proof that the proprietojs entertained no small hopes 
with respect to their palatinate. The number of men, 
however, must have been by no means adequate to 
the undertaking, especially considering the nmltitude 
of savages that ranged through that extensive wilder- 
ness. In what place Governor Sayle first landed is 
uncertain ; but he was dissatisfied with his first situa- 
tion, and, moving to the southward, took possession 
of a neck of land between Ashley and Cooper rivers, 
where he laid out a town, which, in honour of the king 
then reigning, he called Charleston ; but dying soon 
after. Sir John Yeamans, who had for several years 
been governor at Clarendon, was appointed to succeed 
him. This new settlement attracted many inhabit- 
ants from that at Clarendon, and ultimately entirely 
exhausted it. Being at a great distance from Albe- 
marle, the proprietors established a separate govern- 
ment over it, and hence arose the distinctive appella- 
tions of North and South Carolina. The distress 
which attended the first efforts of the colonists was 
aggravated by the intrigues and assaults of the Span- 
iards at Fort Augustine. They sent emissaries among 
the settlers at Ashley river, in the hope of moving 
them to revolt ; they encouraged indentured servants 
to abandon their masters, and fly to the Spanish ter- 
ritory; and they laboured so successfully to instil into 
the savage tribes the most unfavourable notions of 
British heretics, that these deluded Indians took up 
arms to extirpate a race who had never injured them, 
but who desired to cultivate friendly relations with 
them. So much discontent and insubordination was 
produced by the calamities the colonies suffered, that 
it led to an insurrection, headed by Culpepper, one of 
the provincial officers ; but it was easily suppressed 
by the governor. The Spanish garrison at Augustine 
receiving intelligence of their dissensions, a party 
advanced from that fortress under arms, as far as the 
island of St. Helena, to dislodge or destroy the set- 
tlers ; but fifty volunteers, under the command of 
Colonel Godfrey, marching against them, they eva- 
cuated the island, and retreated to their fort. During 
the governorship of Sir John Yeamans, the colony 
received a considerable addition from the Dutch 
settlement of Nova Belgia. After its conquest by Sir 
19 



Robert Car, many of the Dutch colonists determined 
to remove. The proprietors of Carolina oflered them 
lands and encouragement in their palatinate, and sent 
vessels to transport a number of their families to 
Charleston. Stephen Bull, surveyor-general of the 
colony, received instructions to mark out lands on the 
south-west side of Ashley River for their accommoda- 
tion ; and a town was commenced, which was called 
James Town. The industry of the settlers sur- 
mounted incredible hardships, and their success in- 
duced many of their countrymen to follow them to 
the western world, and extend themselves over the 
adjacent country. 

The Carolinian colonists were for several years 
dependant on the proprietaries in England for consi- 
derable supplies of provisions and stores, and were 
by them liberally assisted to the extent of several 
thousand pounds ; but the proprietaries finding, instead 
of any indications of repayment with a corresponding 
profit, only demands for further supplies, became 
disheartened and disgusted with a result so contrary 
to their sanguine expectations ; and a mutual dis- 
satisfaction commenced, which embittered all their 
fiiture intercourse, although it afforded instruction to 
the colonists which was very beneficial, as it led them 
to depend solely on their own resources. The pro- 
prietaries ascribed their disappointment, in a great 
measure, to the mismanagement of Sir John Yeamans, 
who, early in this year, was compelled by the state of 
his health to resign his situation as governor, a relief 
that was ineffectual for the desired purpose, as he did 
not long survive. The factions and confusion in 
which the colony was shortly after involved, have 
rendered the annals of this period extremely per- 
plexing, and have much obscured the connexion of 
events. When Yeamans abdicated his office, the 
council appointed Joseph West as his successor : and 
on this occasion the palatine thought proper to con- 
firm the popular choice, which v.'as amply justified 
by the prudence of his administration. 

The affairs of the northern colony must now oc- 
cupy a portion of our attention. Tlie fundamental 
constitations, which have already been described, 
were received by the colonists with disgust and dis- 
union. Their promulgation produced no other effect 
than to excite the most inveterate jealousy of the de- 
signs of the proprietaries ; till, in process of time, a 
refractory spirit took possession of the minds of the 
people, and was at length exasperated into sentiments 
as hostile to subordination, es the policy of the pro- 
prietaries was repugnant to liberty. From this pe- 
riod the history of the northern province, for a series 
of years, is involved in such confusion and contra- 



144 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



diction, that it is impossible to render it interesting, 
and difBcult to nialce it even intelligible. Miller, a 
person of some consideration, was accused of sedi- 
tion ; but being acquitted, he proceeded to England 
to complain to the proprietaries of the treatment he 
had undergone. Eastchurch, a man whose address 
and abilities had raised him to the dignity of speaker 
of the assembly, was deputed to represent to the pro- 
prietaries the existing state of the province. The 
proprietaries, conceiving a favourable opinion of 
Eastchurch, appointed him governor of Albemarle ; 
and disapproving the treatment that Miller had re- 
ceived, gave him the office of secretary. The com- 
missioners of the customs appointed Miller, at the same 
time, the first collector of these duties in the province. 
These officers departed to take possession of their re- 
spective offices ; but Eastchurch, finding an opportu- 
nity of making a wealthy marriage in the West In- 
dies, thought it prudent to remain there till his object 
was accomplished, and despatched his companion 
Yvrith directions to govern the colony as president till 
he himself should arrive. He found the colony at 
Albemarle to consist of a few inconsiderable planta- 
tions, dispersed over the north-eastern bank of Albe- 
marle River, and divided into four districts. In at- 
tempting to reform some abuses, he rendered himself 
obnoxious ; and an insurrection broke out at Albe- 
marle in December. The insurgents, conducted 
chiefly by Culpepper, imprisoned the president and 
seven proprietary deputies ; seized the royal revenue ; 
established courts of justice ; appointed officers ; call- 
ed a parliament ; and, for a considerable period, ex- 
ercised all the authority of an independent state. 
After two years of successful revolt, the insurgents, 
apprehensive of an invasion from Virginia, despatched 
Culpepper and Holden to England, to offer submis- 
sion to (he proprietaries, on condition of their past 
proceedings being ratified. The unfortunate Miller 
and his associate, who had languished in imprison- 
ment, having found means to escape, appeared in 
England at the same time, and filled the court with 
accusations against their persecutors. Culpepper was, 
however, protected by Lord Shaftesbury, and was 
about to return, when he Avas impeached, by the com- 
missioners of the customs, of the crimes of acting as 
collector without their authority, and of embezzling 
the kinsf's revenue. It was in vain for him to ac- 
knowledge tlie facts and to beg for mercy. His 
powerful accusers insisted that no favour might be 
shown him unless he refunded the duties which he 
had wrongfully seized, and he was tried in the court 
of king's-bench, on an indictment of high treason 
committed without the realm. Though five witnesses 



fully proved those circumstances which constituted 
the crime, yet Shaftesbury, who was then in the 
zenith of his popularity, appearing in his behalf, the 
jury acquitted him. The acquittal of Culpepper de- 
termined the proprietors to adopt an entirely concilia- 
tory system ; and to govern, in future, according to 
that portion of obedience which the colonists should 
be disposed to yield them. In prosecution of this 
determination, the proprietaries resolved to send 
thither Seth Sothel, who had lately purchased Lord 
Clarendon's share of the province, that, by his au- 
thority, he might reduce the late distractions to or- 
der. They were, however, still doomed to disap- 
pointment- — his conduct, far from restoring quiet and 
contentment, only increased the previous disorders. 
He proved one of the most corrupt and rapacious of 
colonial governors, plundering the innocent, and ac- 
cepting bribes from felons. Six years the inhabitants 
endured his injustice and oppression ; they then 
seized him, with a view of sending him to England 
for trial: but, at his request, he was detained and 
tried by the assembly, who banished him from the 
colony. 

To return to the afiairs of the southern colony, 
now under the administration of Joseph West. The 
situation of Old Charleston being found inconvenient, 
the inhabitants, in 16S0, removed to Oyster Point, 
where a new city was laid out, to which the name of 
the other was given. In the same year commenced 
a war with the Westoes, a powerful tribe of Indians, 
which threatened great injury to the colony ; peace, 
however, was soon restored. Governor West was 
superseded by Sir Richard Kirle, an Irish gentleman, 
who died six months after his arrival in the coun- 
try. After his decease, Colonel Robert Q,uarry was 
chosen his successor. During the time of his go- 
vernment, a number of pirates put into Charleston, 
and purchased provisions with their Spanish gold 
and silver. Those public robbers, instead of being 
taken and tried by the laws of England, were treated 
with great civility and friendship, in violation of the 
laws of nations. Whether the governor was ignorant 
of the treaty made with Spain, by which England 
had withdrawn her former toleration from these plun- 
derers of the Spanish dominions, or whether he was 
afraid to bring them to trial from the notorious cou- 
rage of their companions in the West Indies, we have 
not sufficient authority to affirm ; but one thing is cer- 
tain, that Charles II., for several years after the res- 
toration, winkedat their depredations, and many of them 
performed such valiant actions, as, in a good cause, 
would have justly merited honours and rewards; he 
even knighted Henry Morgan, a Welshman, who had 



HISTOKY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



145 



plundered Porto Belle and Panama, and carried off 
lare^e treasures from them. For several years so 
formidable was this body of plunderers in the West 
Indies, that they struck a terror into every quarter 
of the Spanish dominions. Their gold and silver, 
which they lavishly spent in the colony, insured to 
them a kind reception among the Carolinians, who 
opened their ports to them freely, and furnished them 
with necessaries. They could purchase the favour of 
the governor, and the friendship of the people, for 
what they deemed a trifling consideration. Leaving 
their gold and silver behind them for clothes, arms, 
ammunition, and provisions, they embarked in quest 
of more. However, the proprietors, having intelli- 
gence of the encouragement given to pirates by Go- 
vernor Q,uarry, dismissed him from the office he held ; 
and, in 1685, Landgrave Joseph Morton was appoint- 
ed to the government of the colony. 

During the reign of King James II. the difficulty 
under which the people of Britain laboured, and 
the troubles which they apprehended, added much 
strength to the colonies. The imsuccessful or unfor- 
tunate part of mankind are easily induced to emi- 
grate ; while the oppressed and persecuted are driven 
from their country, however closely their afiections 
may cleave to it. Such manifest attempts were 
made by this prince against what the nation highly 
revered, that many protestants deserted it, preferring 
the hardships of the first state of colonization abroad 
to oppression at home. America gained considerable 
and valuable accessions also from the revocation of 
the edict of Nantz, when the flames of persecution 
broke out in France, and drove many of its best sub- 
jects from that kingdom. Of the advantage which 
the colonies reaped from this impolitic measure of 
France, Carolina had a large share. Many of the 
protestant refugees, having purchased lands from the 
proprietors, embarked with their families for that 
colony, and proved some of its best and most indus- 
trious inhabitants. 

Though Governor Morton was possessed of a con- 
siderable share of wisdom, and was connected with 
several respectable families in the colony, yet so 
inconsistent were his instructions from England with 
the prevailing views and interests of the people, that 
he was unable, without great difficulty, to execute 
the duties of his trust. Some of his council differed 
widely from him in opinion with respect to public 
measures, and claimed greater indulgences for the 
people than he had authority to grant. Hence two 
parties arose in the colony ; one in support of the 
prerosrative and authority of the proprietors, the other 
in defence of the liberties of the people. The former 



contended that the laws and regulations received from 
England respecting government ought to be strictly 
and implicitly observed : the latter kept in view their 
local circumstances, and maintained that the freemen 
of the colony were under obligations to observe them 
only so far as they were consistent with the interest 
of individuals and the prosperity of the settlement. 
In this situation of affairs, no governor could long 
support his power among a number of bold adven- 
turers, who improved every hour for advancing their 
interest, and could bear no restraints which had the 
least tendency to defeat their favourite views and 
designs; whenever he attempted to interpose his 
feeble authority, they insulted his person and com- 
plained of his administration, till, at length, he was 
removed from office. 

Finding it prudent to change their governor when 
he became obnoxious to the people, the proprietors 
appointed James Colleton to supersede Morton. To 
give him the greater weight, he was created a land- 
grave of the colony, to which dignity forty-eight 
thousand acres of land were unalienably annexed ; 
but, to his mortification, he soon found, that the pro- 
prietary government had acquired but little firmness 
and stability ; and, by his imprudence and rigour, it 
fell into still greater contempt. Having called an 
assembly of the representatives in the end of the year 
16S6, he proposed to make some new regulations re- 
specting the government of the colony. After exa- 
mining the fundamental constitutions, and finding the 
people disposed to make many objections to them, he 
thought proper to nominate a committee, to consider 
wherein they were improper or defective, and to make 
such alterations and amendments in them as they 
judged might be conducive to the welfare of the 
country. Accordingly, a new code of laws was 
framed, consisting of many articles differing consi- 
derably from the former, which they denominated 
standing laws, transmitting them to England for the 
approbation of the proprietors, who, however, reject- 
ed them, and insisted on the observance of the fun- 
damental constitutions ; while the people treated both 
with equal indifference and neglect. 

At this early period a dissatisfaction with the pro- 
prietary government appeared, and began to gain 
ground among the people. A dispute having arisen 
between the governor and the house of assembly 
about the tenures of lands and the payment of quit- 
rents, Colleton determined to exert his authority, 
in compelling the people to pay up their arrears of 
quit-rents, which, though very trifling and inconside- 
rable, were burdensome, as not one acre out of a 
thousand of these lands for which quit-rents were 



146 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



demanded yielded them any profit. The interest of 
the proprietors and that of the people being thus 
placed in opposition to each other, the more rigo- 
rously the governor exerted his authority, the more 
turbulent and seditious the people became. At last 
they proceeded to avowed usurpation ; they issued 
writs in their own name, and held assemljlies in op- 
position to the governor and the authority of the 
proprietors, and the community was turned into a 
scene of confusion, every man acting as he thought 
proper, without any regard to legal authority, and in 
contempt of the governor and other officers of the 
proprietors. Colleton, mortified at the loss of power, 
and alarmed at the bold and seditious spirit of the 
people, was not a little perplexed what step to take 
in order to recall them to the obedience of legal au- 
thority. One expedient was suggested, which he and 
. his council flattered themselves might be productive 
of the desired effect — to proclaim martial law, and try 
to maintain by force of arms the proprietary jurisdic- 
tion. Accordingly, without letting the people into 
his secret design, he caused the militia to be drawn 
up, as if some danger from the Spaniards or Indians 
had threatened the country, and publicly proclaimed 
martial law at their head. This served only to 
exasperate the people the more. The members of the 
assembly met, and taking this measure under their 
deliberation, resolved that it was an encroachment 
upon their liberties, and an unwarrantable exertion 
of power, at a time when the colony was in no dan- 
ger from any foreign enemy. The governor, however, 
insisted on the articles of war, and tried to carry 
martial law into execution ; but the disaffection was 
too general to admit of such a remedy. In the year 
1690, at a meeting of the representatives, a bill was 
brought in and passed, for disabling Landgrave 
James Colleton from holding any office, or exercising 
any authority, civil or military, within the province ; 
and he was informed, that, in a limited time, he must 
depart from the colony. 

During these public commotions, Seth Sothel, one 
of the proprietors, having, as already stated, been 
driven from North Carolina, appeared suddenly at 
Charleston, and, aided by a powerful faction, assumed 
the reins of government. At first the people gladly 
acknowledged his authority, while the current of their 
enmity ran against Colleton ; especially as he stood 
forth as an active and leading man in opposition to 
that governor, and ratified the law for his exclusion 
and banishment ; but they afterwards found him void 
of every prmciple of honour, and even of honesty. 
Such was the insatiable avarice of this man, that 
every restraint of common justice and equity was 



trampled upon by him ; and oppression, such as 
usually attends the exaltation of vulgar and ambitious 
scramblers for power, extended her rod of iron over 
the distracted colony. The fair traders from Barba- 
does and Bermuda were seized as pirates by order of 
this popular governor, and confined until such fees 
as he was pleased to exact were paid him ; bribes 
from felons and traitors were accepted to favour their 
escape from the hands of justice ; and plantations were 
forcibly taken possession of, upon pretences the most 
frivolous and unjust. At length, the people, weary 
of his grievous impositions and extortions, agreed to 
take him by force, and ship him off' for England. 
He then evinced the meanness of spirit generally as- 
sociated with a disposition to tyranny, and humbly 
begged liberty to remain in the country, promising to 
submit his conduct to the trial of the assembly at 
their first meeting. When the assembly met, thirteen 
different charges were brought against him, and all 
supported by the strongest evidence ; upon which, 
being found guilty, they compelled him to abjure tlie 
government and country for ever. 

The revolution of 1688 excited little attention in 
either of the Carolinas, which were but slightly af- 
fected by the changes which the empire underwent. 
It was from the proprietaries alone that they could 
expect the interposition of a superior power to arrest 
or repair the misrule, oppression, and calamity, that 
had so long composed the chief part of the history, 
both of the northern and southern settlements. In 
the hope of accomplishing this desirable object, the 
proprietaries, on the deposition of Sothel, intrusted 
the government of the whole of their settlements to 
Colonel Philip Ludwell, a man of sense and humanity- 
who possessed considerable experience of colonial 
affairs. He coiiunenced his administration in a man, 
ner that gave general satisfaction, and seemed to have 
completely allayed the prevailing ferments of the 
people. But this tranquillity was of short duration : 
the minds of men had been too long and too violently 
agitated to subside at once into a settled composure ; 
and a circumstance that at first promised to produce 
the happiest effects on the prosperity of the province, 
proved the immediate occasion of the revival of pub- 
lic turbulence. The proprietors, having observed the 
good conduct of the French protestants, directed the 
governor to permit them to elect representatives, a 
privilege \vhich they had never yet exercised. The 
English episcopalians, unwilling that any of their 
hereditary enemies, those, namely, who did not belong 
to their church, should be associated with themselves 
in the rights of freemen, were exasperated, and op- 
posed the concession with great clamour and zeal. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



147 



Excited by a spirit of oppositicm, they proposed to 
enforce with respect to them the laws of England 
against foreigners, insisting that they could not 
legally possess any real estate in the colony. They 
also declared that their marriages, being solemnized 
by French ministers, were void, and that the children 
could not inherit the property of their fathers. By 
the display of a spirit so illiberal and unchristian, 
these strangers were alarmed and discouraged ; but, 
being countenanced by the governor, they remained 
in the colony, and, for the present, withdrew their 
claim to the riglit of suffrage. 

In the midst of these disputes, and with the hope 
of appeasing them, the proprietaries at length deter- 
mined to surrender to the general dislike of the 
people the " fundamental constitutions." They ac- 
cordingly enacted the following resolution : " That, 
as the people have declared they would rather be 
governed by the powers granted by the charter, 
without regard to the fundamental constitutions, it 
will be for their quiet, and the protection of the well- 
disposed, to grant their request." Thus perished the 
legislative labours of John Locke. Their abolition 
was unregretted by any party, for they had neither 
insured obedience to the government, nor afforded 
happiness to the people. 

Ludwell had been superseded in his office by 
Thomas Smith, an eminent planter, and an upright 
and popular magistrate. His short administration 
was signalized by an occurrence that produced last- 
ing and extensive effects on the prosperity of Carolina. 
A vessel from Madagascar, on her homeward voyage 
to Britain, happening to touch at Charleston, the 
captain presented the governor with a bag of seed 
rice, which he said he had seen growing in eastern 
countries, where it was deemed excellent food, and 
yielded a prodigious increase. The governor divided 
it between several of his friends, who found the result 
to exceed their most sanguine e.xpectations. From 
this circumstance Carolina dates the rise of her staple 
commodity, the chief support of her people, and the 
main source of her opulence. 

Notwithstanding the prudent administration of 
Smith, the colony still remained in a confused and 
turbulent state. Complaints from every quarter were 
made to the governor, who was neither able to quiet 
the minds of the people nor to afford them the relief 
they wanted. At length he wrote to the proprietors, 
and frankly told them, that he despaired of ever 
uniting the people in interest and affection ; that he, 
and many more, weary of the fluctuating state of 
public affairs, had resolved to leave the province ; 
and that he was convinced nothing would bring the 



settlers to a state of tranquillity and harmony, unless 
they sent out one of the proprietors with full jiower 
to redress grievances, and settle differences prevailing, 
and likely to prevail more, in their colony. The 
proprietors, astonished at the discontented spirit of 
tlie people, yet, anxious to prevent the settlement 
from being ruined, resolved to try the remedy Land- 
grave Smith had suggested ; and they accordingly 
solicited John Archdale, a man of considerable know- 
ledge and discretion, a quaker, and a proprietor, to 
accept the office. Great trust was reposed in him, and 
much was expected from his abilities. He succeeded 
in restoring order, but found tlie antipathy against 
the unfortunate French exiles too great to be encoun- 
tered with any hope of success, until softened by lime 
and their amiable deportment. These produced the 
effects which he anticipated ; and subsequently they 
were admitted by the general assembly to all the 
risfhts of citizens and freemen. It was not the inten- 
tion of Archdale to remain longer in Carolina than 
was necessary for the adjustment of the existing con- 
troversies ; and having effected this object in a degree 
that had surpassed the expectations of all parties, he 
returned to England in the close of the year 1696, 
loaded with the grateful benedictions of a people to 
whose peace and prosperity he had been so highly 
instrumental. 

To Archdale had been confided the power of nomi- 
nating his successor ; and he conferred the office on 
Joseph Blake, nephew of the English admiral, a man 
of virtue, prudence, and moderation, acceptable to the 
people, and a proprietary of the province, who go- 
v^erned the colony wisely and happily for a period of 
four years. He appears to have made the most lau- 
dable endeavours to promote the religious instruction 
of the people, and to facilitate the exercise of worship 
to all denominations of Christian professors. Though 
himself a dissenter, he caused a bill to be introduced 
into the assembly for settling a perpetual provision 
of 150/. a year, with a house and other advantages, 
on the episcopal minister of tliat city. The person 
who then occupied this ministerial situation having 
gained universal regard by his piety and prudence, 
and the dissenters in the house acquiescing in the 
measure from regard to this individual, the bill was 
passed into a law. " Those who think that the dis- 
senters acted amiss," says Grahame, " and stretched 
their liberality beyond the proper confines of this 
virtue, in thus promoting the national establishment 
of a church from which they dissented, will regard 
the persecution they soon after sustained from the 
episcopal party as a merited retribution for their 
practical negation of dissenting principles. Those 



148 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



who judge more leniently an error (if it be such) 
which there is httle reason to suppose will be ever 
frequent in the world, will regret and condemn the 
ungrateful return which the dissenters experienced 
from a party for whose advantage they had incurred 
so great a sacrifice."* 

Blake died in the year 1700, and with him ended 
the interval of tranquillity which had orignated with 
the government of Archdale. Under the rule of his 
successor, James Moore, the colony was agitated by 
religious disputes. Lord Granville, one of the pro- 
prietors, a bigoted churchman, in conjunction with 
the governor, resolved to effect, if possible, the estab- 
lishment of episcopacy. They were well aware that 
a majority of the people were dissenters, and that by 
art and intrigue only could their design be accom- 
plished. Moore, who was avaricious and venal, 
became the tool of Granville. He interfered in the 
elections, and, by bribing the voters, succeeded in 
procuring a majority in the assembly who would be 
subservient to his wishes. A law was passed estab- 
lishing the episcopal religion, and excluding dissenters 
from a seat in the assembly. It was laid before the 
proprietors, without whose sanction it could not pos- 
sess permanent validity. Archdale, who had returned 
to England, opposed it with ability and spirit. He 
insisted that good faith, policy, interest, and even 
piety, concurred to dictate its rejection. But Lord 
Granville declared himself in favour of it, and it 
received confirmation. The dissenters thus saw 
themselves at once deprived of those privileges for 
which they had abandoned their native country, and 
encountered the dangers and hardships of the ocean 
and a wilderness. Some prepared to leave the colony 
and settle in Pennsylvania. Others proposed that a 
remonstrance against the law should first be presented 
to the house of lords, and this measure was adopted. 
The lords expressed, by a vote, their disapprobation 
of the law, and, tipon their solicitation, Queen Anne 
declared it void. Soon after Lord Granville died, 
and, controlled by more liberal councils, the colony 
again enjoyed the blessings of domestic tranquillity. 

In 1702, a rupture having taken place in Europe 
between England and Spain, the attention of the 
colony was directed to a different object, which 
aflx)rded Governor Moore an opportunity of exercising 
his military talents, and a prospect of enriching him- 
self by Spanish plunder or Indian captives. He 
proposed to the assemlily an expedition against the 
Spanish settlement at Augustine. Many applauded 
the proposal, hut men of cool reflection were averse 



History of the United States, vol. ii. p. 168. 



from rushing into any hazardous enterprise. A great 
majority of the assembly, however, declared for the 
expedition, and a sum of two thousand pounds 
sterling was voted for the service of the war. Six 
hundred Indians were engaged, who, being fond of 
warlike exploits, gladly accepted of arms and ammu- 
nition offered them for their aid and assistance. Six 
hundred provincial militia were raised, and schooners 
and merchant ships were impressed for transports 
to carry the forces. Port Royal was fixed upon as 
the place of general rendezvous, and there, in Sep- 
tember, the governor, at the head of his warriors, 
embarked in an expedition as rash and fool-hardy on 
one side, as it was unprovoked on the other. In the 
plan of operations, it had been agreed that Colonel 
Daniel, who was an officer of spirit, should go by 
the inland passage with a party of militia and Indians, 
and make a descent on the town from the land, wliile 
the governor with the main body should proceed by 
sea, and block up the harbour. Colonel Daniel lost 
no time, but advanced against the town, and entered 
and plundered it before the governor got forward to 
his assistance ; but the Spaniards having laid up pro- 
visions for four months in the castle, on his approach 
they retired to it, with all their money and most 
valuable effects. Upon the arrival of Governor 
Moore, the place was invested with a force against 
which the Spaniards could not appear, and they 
therefore kept themselves shut up in their strong-hold. 
The governor finding it impossible to dislodge them 
without such artillery as are necessary to a siege, 
despatched a sloop to Jamaica, on purpose to bring 
cannon, bombs, and mortars, for attacking the castle ; 
and Colonel Daniel embarked and sailed with the 
greatest expedition to bring them. During his ab- 
sence two Spanish ships, the one of twenty-two g^uns 
and the other of sixteen, appeared off" the mouth of the 
harbour, and struck such a panic into the governor, 
that he instantly raised the siege, abandoned his ships, 
and made a precipitate retreat to Carolina by land ; 
in consequence of which, the Spaniards in the garri- 
son were not only relieved, but the ships, provisions, 
and ammunition, belonging to the Carolinians, fell 
also into their hands. Colonel Daniel, on his return, 
standing in for the harbour of Augustine, to his sur- 
prise, found the seige raised, and made a narrow 
escape from the enemy. 

U])on his return to Carolina, as might naturally 
have been expected, many severe reflections were 
thrown out against the governor. The expedition 
entailed a debt of six thousand pounds sterling on a 
poor colony, which, at that period, was a grievous 
burden. A bill was passed by the assembly for 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



149 



stamping bills of credit to answer the public expense, 
which were to be sunk iu three years by a duty laid 
upon liquors, skins, and furs. This was the first 
paper money issued in Carolina, and, for five or six 
years after the emission, it passed in tlie country at 
the same value and rate with the sterling money of 
England ; but as the quantity was subsequently 
augmented, the value decreased in proportion. 

Governor Moore resolved to retrieve his character 
in a new field of enterprise. Exasperated by the 
insults and injuries which the Apalachian Indians 
were instigated by the Spaniards to commit, he deter- 
mined by one vigorous effort to break their power. 
At the head of a strong detachment of the colonial 
militia, attended by a body of Indian allies, he marched 
into the hostile settlements, defeated the enemy with 
the loss of eight hundred men, and compelled the 
whole district of Apalachia to submit to the English 
government. To render his conquest permanent, he 
transplanted fourteen hundred of the Apalachian In- 
dians to the territory which is now denominated 
Georgia ; a measure which appears to have paved 
the way to the subsequent settlement of the English 
in that part of the countiy. In 1706, the Spaniards 
from Florida, aided also by the French, made an attack 
on Carolina. Nathaniel Johnson, who had succeeded 
Moore as governor, having received intimation of their 
approach, erected fortifications, and made arrange- 
ments to obtain, on short warning, the assistance of 
the militia. When the enemy's fleet appeared before 
Charleston, the whole strength of the colony was 
summoned to defend it ; and these vigorous demon- 
strations insured its safety. Satisfied with the de- 
struction of a few detached buildings, the enemy 
retired, leaving one of their ships, and ninety men, in 
possession of the Carolinians. 

The northern colony continued to receive acces- 
sions to its strength from several of the European 
states. In 1707, a company of French protestants 
arrived, and seated themselves on th-e river Trent, a 
branch of the Neuse ; and three years afterwards a 
large number of palatines, fleeing from religious per- 
secution in Germany, sought refuge in the same part 
of the province. To each of these bodies of emigrants 
the proprietors granted a hundred acres of land. On 
their newly acquired possessions they were living in 
peace, in the enjoyment of liberty of conscience, and 
iu the prospect of competence and ease, when sud- 
denly a terrible calamity fell upon them. The Tus- 
carora and Coree Indians, smarting under recent 
aggressions, and dreading total extinction from the 
encroachment of these strangers, with characteristic 
secrecy, plotted their entire destruction. Sending 



their families to one of their fortified towns, twelve 
hundred bowmen sallied forth, and in the same night 
attacked, in separate parties, the nearest settlements 
of the palatines. Men, women, and children, were 
indiscriminately butchered. The savages, with the 
swiftness and ferocity of wolves, ran from village to 
village. Before them was the repose of innocence ; 
behind, the sleep of death. A few escaping alarmed 
the settlements more remote, and hastened to South 
Carolina for assistance. Governor Craven imme- 
diately despatched to the aid of the sister colony 
nearly a thousand men, under the command of Colo- 
nel Barnwell. Hideous was the wilderness through 
which Colonel Barnwell had to march, and the utmost 
expedition was requisite. There was no road through 
the woods upon which either horses or carriages could 
pass ; and his army had all manner of hardships and 
dangers to encounter, from the climate, the wilder- 
ness, and the enemy. In spite of every difficulty, 
however, Barnwell advanced against them, and being 
much better supplied with arms and ammunition than 
his enemy, he did great execution among them, kill- 
ing in the first battle three hundred Indians, and 
taking about one hundred prisoners. The Tusca- 
roras then retreated to their town, fortified within a 
wooden breastwork ; but there Barnwell surrounded 
them, and forced them to sue for peace ; and some 
of his men being wounded, and others having suf- 
fered greatly by constant watching, and much hunger 
and fatigue, the savages the more easily obtained 
their request. After having killed, wounded, or 
captured nearly a thousand Tuscaroras, Barnwell 
returned to South Carolina. The peace was, however, 
of short duration, and upon the recommencement of 
hostilities, assistance was again solicited from the 
southern colony. Colonel James Moore, an active 
young officer, was immediately despatched, with forty 
white men and eight hundred friendly Indians. He 
found the enemy in a fort near Cotechny river; and 
after a siege, which continued more than a week, the 
fort was ^aken, and eight hundred Indians made 
prisoners. The Tuscaroras, disheartened by this 
defeat, migrated, in 1713, to the north, and joined the 
celebrated confederacy, denominated the Five Nations. 
The others sued for peace, and afterwards continued 
friendly. 

The northern colony had scarcely recovered fron) 
the scourge of Indian war, when the southern was 
exposed to the same calamity. All the tribes from 
Florida to Cape Fear, had been for some time en- 
o-aged in a conspiracy to extirpate the whites. On 
the day before the Yamassees began their bloody opera- 
tions. Captain Nairn and some of the traders observ- 



160 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



ing an uncommon gloom on their savage counte- 
nances, and apparently great agitations of spirit, which 
to them prognosticated approaching mischief, went 
to their chief men, begging to know the cause of 
their uneasiness, and promising if any injury had been 
done them, to give them satisfaction. The chiefs 
replied, they had no complaints to make against any 
one, but intended to go a-hunting early the next 
morning. Captain Nairn accordingly went to sleep, 
and the traders retired to their huts, and passed the 
night in seeming friendship and tranquillity. But 
next morning at day-break, the 15th day of April, all 
were alarmed with the cries of war. The leaders 
were all out under arms, calling upon their followers, 
and proclaiming aloud designs of vengeance. The 
young men, burning with fury and passion, flew to 
their arms, and in a few hours, massacred above 
ninety persons inPocotaligo town and the neighbour- 
ing plantations ; and many more must have fallen a 
sacrifice on Port Royal island, had they not provi- 
dentially been warned of their danger. Mr. Burrows, 
a captain of the militia, after receiving two wounds, 
by swimming one mile and running ten, escaped to 
Port Royal, and alarmed the town. A vessel hap- 
pening fortunately to be in the harbour, the inhabi- 
tants, in great hurry, repaired on board, and sailed 
for Charleston ; a few families of planters on that is- 
land, not having timely notice, fell into the barbarous 
hands of the Indians, and of them some were mur- 
dered, and others made prisoners of war. 

While the Yainassees, with whom the Creeks and 
Apalachians had joined, were advancing against the 
southern frontiers, and spreading desolation and 
slaughter through the province, the colonists on the 
northern borders also found the Indians among their 
settlements in formidable parties. The Carolinians 
Jiad foolishly entertained hopes of the friendship of 
the Congarees, the Catawbas, and Gherokees ; but 
they soon found that they had also joined in the con- 
spiracy, and declared for war. It was computed that 
the southern division of the enemy consisted of above 
six thousand bowmen, and the northern of between 
six hundred and a thousand. In the muster-roll at 
Charleston, there were no more than one thousand 
two hnnderd men fit to bear arms, but as the town had 
several forts into which the inhabitants might retreat. 
Governor Craven resolved to march with this small 
force into the woods against the enemy. He pro- 
claimed martial law, and laid an embargo on all ships, 
to prevent either men or provisions from leaving the 
country. He obtained an act of assembly, empower- 
ing him to impress men, and seize arms, ammunition, 
and stores, wherever they were to be found, to arm 



such trusty negroes as might be serviceable at a junc- 
ture so critical, and to prosecute the war with the 
utmost vigour. Being no stranger to the ferocious 
temper of his enemies, and their horrid cruelty to 
prisoners, the governor advanced against them by 
slow and cautious steps, always keeping the strictest 
guard round his army. He knew well under what 
advantages they fought among their native thickets, 
and the various wiles and stratagems they made use 
of in conducting their wars ; and therefore he was 
watchful above all things against surprises, which 
might throw his followers into disorder, and defeat the 
end of his enterprise. The fate of the whole pro- 
vince depended on the success of his arms, and his 
men had no other alternative but to conquer or die a 
painful death. As he advanced, the straggling par- 
ties fled before him, until he reached Saltcatchers, 
where they had pitched their great camp. Here a 
sharp and bloody battle ensued from behind trees 
and bushes, the Indians whooping, hallooing, and giv- 
ing way one while, and then again and again return- 
ing with double fury to the charge. But the govern- 
or, notwithstanding their superior number, and their 
terrible shrieks, kept the provincials close at their 
heels, and drove them before him like a flock of 
wolves. He expelled them from their settlement at 
Indian River, pursued them over the Savannah, and 
entirely freed the province of this formidable tribe of 
savages. What number of the army was killed does 
not appear ; but in the whole war nearly four hun- 
dred unfortunate inhabitants of Carolina fell a prey 
to Indian cruelty, property of great value was de- 
stroyed, and a large debt contracted. 

The proprietors, though earnestly solicited, refus- 
ed to afford any relief, or to pay any portion of the 
debt. The assembly, therefore, determined to remu- 
nerate the colony, by disposing of the land from 
which the Indians had been driven. The terms of- 
fered were so favourable, that five hundred Irishmen 
immediately came over, and planted themselves on 
the frontiers. The proprietors, most unwisely as 
well as unjustly, refused to sanction the proceedings 
of the assembly, and deprived these emigrants of their 
lands. Reduced to extreme poverty, some perished 
from want, while others resorted to the northern colo- 
nies ; and thus a strong barrier between the old set- 
tlements and the savages was removed, and the coun- 
try again exposed to their incursions. The people 
were exasperated, and longed for a change of mas- 
ters ; and the corrupt and oppressive conduct of 
Trott, the chief justice, and Rhett, the receiver-gene- 
ral, increased the discontent. Of the former, the go- 
vernor and council complained to the proprietors, and 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



15J 



solicited his recall ; but, instead of removincT him, 
they thanked him for his services, and removed tire 
governor and council. With the governor next ap- 
pointed, though a man generally beloved, the assem- 
bly refused to have any concern or intercourse. They 
drew up articles of impeachment against Trott, ac- 
cusing him of corruption and gross misconduct, and 
sent an agent to England, to maintain their accusa- 
tion before the proprietors ; but hewas still continued 
in office. 

The patience of the people now became exhausted, 
and they waited only for a favourable opportunity to 
throw off their oppressive yoke. In 1719, at a gene- 
ral review of the militia at Charleston, occasioned by 
a threatened invasion of the colony from Florida, the 
officers and soldiers bound themselves by a solemn 
compact, to support each other in resisting the tyran- 
ny of the proprietors ; and the assembly, which was 
then in session, requested Governor Johnson to con- 
sent to administer the government in the name of the 
king ; but he refused, and dissolved the assembly by 
proclamation. The members immediately met as a 
convention, and elected Colonel James Moore their 
governor.* He was a bold man, and exceedingly 
well qualified for a popular leather in a turbulent sea- 
son. He accepted the appointment, and assisted by 
the convention, and supported by the people, adminis- 
tered the affairs of the colony. The representatives 
of the people took a dislike to the name of a conven- 
tion, voted themselves an assembly, and assumed the 
power of appointing all public officers. In place of 

* The declaration of this convention was as follows: " Whereas 
the proprietors of this province have of late assumed to themselves 
an arbitrary and illegal power, of repealins; such laws as the ge- 
neral assembly of this settlement have thought fit to make for the 
preservation and defence thereof, and acted in many other things 
contrary lo the laws of England, and the charter to thern and us, 
freemen, granted; whereby we are deprived of those measures we 
had taken for the defence of the settlement, being the south-west 
frontier of his majesty's territories in America, and thereby left 
naked to the attacks of our inveterate enemies and next door neigh- 
bours, the Spaniards, froin whom, through the Divine Providence, 
we have had a miraculous deliverance, and dailj- expect to be in- 
vaded by them, according to the repeated advices we have from time 
•o time received from several places : and whereas, pursuant to the 
instructions and authorities to us given, and trust in us reposed by 
the inhabitants of this settlement, and in execution of the resolu- 
tions by us made, we did in due forin apply ourselves in a whole 
body, by an address, to the Honourable Robert Johnson, appointed 
governor of this province by the lords proprietors, and. desired hiin, 
in the name of the inhabitants of this province, to take upon him 
the government of the same, and in behalf of his majesty the king 
of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, until his majesty's pleasure 
had been known, which the said governor refusing to do, exclusive 
of the pretended power of the lords proprietors over the settle- 
ment, has put us under the necessity of applj'ing to some other per- 
son, to take upon him, as governor, the administration of all the 
affairs, civil and military, within the settlement, in the name and for 
the service of his most sacred majesty, as well as making treaties, 
alliances, and leagues, with any nation of the Indians, until his 
majesty's pleasure herein be further known : and whereas James 

20 



Trott, they made Richard Allein chief justice. Ano- 
ther person was appointed provincial secretary, in 
the room of Charles Hart. But Rhett, by becoming 
obsequious to the humours of the revolutionists, se- 
cured the same office he held from the proprietors. Co- 
lonel Barnwell Avas chosen agent for the province, 
and embarked for England, with iiastructions and 
orders to apply only to the king, to lay a statement of 
their public proceedings before him, praying him to 
take the province under his immediate care and pro- 
tection. The fortifications at Charleston they ordered 
to be immediately repaired, and Rhett was nomina- 
ted inspector-general of the repairs. To their new 
governor they voted two tltousand five hundred 
pounds, and to their chief justice eight hundred 
pounds, current money, as yearly salaries. To (heir 
agent in England one thousand pounds sterling was 
transmitted ; tuid to defray those and the other expen- 
ses of government, a law was passed for laying a tax 
on lands and negroes, to raise thirty thousand pounds, 
Carolina money, for the service of the current year. 
In short, this popular assembly imposed such burdens 
on their constituents, as under the proprietary go- 
vernment would have been deemed intolerable griev- 
ances. When, however, they began to levy those 
heavy taxes. Governor Johnson and some of his par- 
ty refused to pay, giving for reason, that the act was 
not made by lawful authority. On account of his 
particular circumstances, Mr. Johnson was exempted ; 
but they resolved to compel every other person to sub- 
mit to their jurisdiction, and yield implicit obedience 



Moore, a person well affected to his present majesty, and also zeal- 
ous for the interest of the settlement, now in a sinking condition, 
has been prevailed v/ith, pursuant to such our application, to take 
upon him, in the king's name, and for the king's sevvici;! and safety 
of the settlement, the above-mentioned charge and trust : we 
therefore, whose Jiames are hereunto subscribed, the representatives 
and delegates of his majesty's liege people, and free-born subjects 
of the said settlement, now met in convention at Charleston, in 
their names, and in behalf of his sacred majesty, George, by the 
grace of God, kiug of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, in con- 
sideration of bis fiirnier and many great services, having great con- 
fidence in his firm loyally to our most gracious kiug, George, as 
well as in his couducl, courage, aud other great abilities, do here- 
by declare the s:iid James Moore his majesty's governor of this set- 
tlement, invested with all the powers and authorities belonging and 
appertaining to any of his majesty's governors in America, till his 
majesty's pleasure herein shall be further known. And we do here- 
by, for ourselves, in the name and on the behalf of the inhabitants 
of" 'the S'lid settlement, as their representatives and delegates, pro- 
mise and oblige ourselves most solemnly to obey, maintain, assist, 
and support the said James Moore, in the administration of all 
affiiirs, civil and military, within this settlement, as well as in the 
execution of all his functions aforesaid, as governor for his sacred 
majesty, King fiecirge. Aud further, we do expect and command, 
that all oiricers, hnth civil and military, within the settlement, do 
pay him all duty and obedience as his majesty's governor, as they 
shall answer to the contrary at tlieir utmost peril. Given under 
our hand, at the convention, this 21st day of December, 1719." — 
History of South Carolina, vol. i. p. 276 — 278. 



152 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



to their laws. They forcibly seized the effects or 
negroes of such as refused, sold them by public auc- 
tion, and applied the money for the payment of their 
taxes. Thus, in spite of all opposition, they estab- 
lished themselves in the full possession of gcSvern- 
ment, both in their legislatiA^e and executive capaci- 
ties. 

The agent for Carolina at length procui'ed a hear- 



» About this period an incident occurred, which, as it eminently 
illustrates the nature, extent, anil folly of religious enthusiasm, (as 
distinct from the sincere fervour of a rational faith as it is from 
the cold formality of pharisaism, or the desolating mania of skep- 
ticism,) should not be passed unnoticed, especially as the spread of 
knowledge has not, in our own age, prevented similar disgraceful 
and blasphemous follies from procuring disciples and advocates. 
Perhaps some individuals, who have been accustomed to confound 
the yet too limited exertions of an evangelical benevolence with 
the folly of enthusiasm, may learn the immense breadth of a distinc- 
tion, which it is not to the honour of their rational powers so long 
to have overlooked. 

" The family of Dulartres, consisting of four sons and four 
daughters, were descendants of French refugees, who came into 
Carolina after the revocation of the edict of Nantz. They lived 
in Orange-quarter, and, though in low circumstances, alwaj-s main- 
tained an honest character, and were esteemed by their neighbours, 
persons of blameless and irreproachable lives. But at this time a 
strolling Moravian preacher happening to come to that quarter 
where they lived, insinuated himself into their family, .and partly 
by conversation, and partly by the writings of Jacob Behmen, 
which he put into their hands, filled their heads with wild and fan- 
tastic ideas. Unhappily for ihe poor family, those strange notions 
gained ground on them, insomuch that in one year they began to 
withdraw themselves from the ordinances of public worship, and 
all conversation with the world around them, and strongly to ima- 
gine they were the only family upon earth who had the knowledge 
of the true God, and whom he vouchsafed to instruct, either by the 
immediate impulses of his Spirit, or by signs and tokens from hea- 
ven. At length it came to open visions and revelation. God raised 
up a prophet among them, like unto Moses, to whom he taught them 
to hearken. This prophet was Peter Rombert, who had married 
the eldest daughter of the family when a widow. To this man the 
Author and Governor of the world deigned to reveal, in the plain- 
est manner, that the wickedness of man was .again so great in the 
world, that, as in the days of Noah, he was determined to destroy 
all men from off the face of it, except one family whom he would 
save for raising up a godly seed upon earth. This revelation Peter 
Rombert was sure of, and felt it as plain as the wind blowing on 
his body, and the rest of the family, with equal confidence and pre- 
sumption, firmly believed it. 

" A few days after this, God was pleased to reveal himself a 
second time to the prophet, saying, Put away the woman whom thou 
hast for thy wife, and when I have destroyed this wicked generation, 
I will raise up her first husband from the dead, and they shall be man 
and wife as before, and go thou and take to wife her youngest sis- 
ter, who is a virgin, so shall the chosen family be restored entire, 
and the holy seed preserved pure and undefiled in it. At first the 
father, when he heard of this revelation, was staggered at so e.x- 
traordinary a command from heaven ; but the prophet assured him 
that God would give him a sign, which accordingly happened ; 
upon which the old man took his youngest daughter by the hand, 
and gave her to the wise prophet immediately for his wife. Thus, 
for some time, they continued in acts of incest and adultery, until 
that period which made the fatal discovery, and introduced the 
bloody scene of blind fanaticism and madness. 

" Those deluded wretches were so far possessed with the false 
conceit of their own righteousness and holiness, and of the horrid 
wickedness of all others, that they refused obedience to the civil 
magistrate, and all laws and ordinances of men. Upon pretence 
that God commanded them to bear no arms, they not only refused 
o comply with the militia law, but also the laws for repairing the 



ing from the lords of the regency and council in Eng- 
land, the king being at that time in Hanover; who 
gave it as their opinion, that tlie proprietors had for- 
feited their charter, and ordered the attorney-general 
to take out a scire facias aga.mst it. In consequence 
of this decision, in September^ 1720, they appointed 
General Francis Nicholson provisional governor of 
the province, with a commission from the king.* 

highways. After long forbearance, Mr. Simmons, a worthy ma- 
gistrate, and the officer of the mililia in that quailer, found it ne- 
cessary to issue his warrants for levying ihe penalty of the laws 
upon them. But by this lime Judilh Dutartre, the wife of the pro- 
phet obtained by revelation, proving wilh child, another warrant 
was i.ssued for bringing her before ihe justice lo be examined, and 
bound over lo the general sessions, in consequence of a law of the 
province, framed for preventing bastardy. The conslable having 
received his warrants, and being jealous of meeting with no good 
usage in the execution of his office, prevailed on two or three of 
his neighbours to go along with him. The family observing the 
constable coming, and being apprised of his errand, consulted iheir 
prophet, who soon told them that God commanded them to arm and 
defend themselves against persecution, and their substance against 
the robberies of ungodly men, a.ssuring ihem at the same lime thai 
no weapon formed against them should prosper. Accordingly they 
did so, and laying hold of their arms, fired on the constable and 
his followers, and drove them out of their plantation. Such beha- 
viour was not to be tolerated, and therefore. Captain Simm.ons ga- 
thered a party of militia, and went to protect the constable in the 
execution of his office. When the deluded family saw (he justice 
and his parly approaching, they shut themselves up in their hon.se, 
and firing from it like furies, shot Captain Simmons dead on the 
spot, and wounded .several of his party. The militia returned the 
fire, killed one woman within the house, and afterwards forcibly 
entering it, took the rest prisoners, six in number, and brought 
them lo Charleston. At the court of general sessions, held in Sep- 
tember, 1724, three of them were brought to trial, lound guilty, 
and condemned. Alas ! miserable creatures, what amazing infa- 
tuation pos.sessed them I They pretended they had the Spirit oi 
God leading Ihem to all truth, they knew it, and felt it; but this 
spirit, instead of influencing them to obedience, purity, and peace, 
commanded them to comtnit rebellion, incest, and murder. 'What 
is slill more astonishing, the principal persons among them, I mean 
the prophet, the father of the family, and Michael Boneau, never 
were convinced of their delusion, but persisted in it until their last 
breath. During their trial, they appeared altogether unconcerned 
and .secure, affiiming that God was on their side, and therefore, 
they feared not what man could do unto them. They freely told 
the incestuous story in open court, in all its circumstances and ag- 
gravations, with a good countenance, and very readily confessed 
the facts respecting their rebellion and murder, with which they 
.stood charged, but pleaded their authority from God in vindication 
of themselves, and insisted they had done nothing in either case but 
by his express command. As u is commonly the duly of clergy- 
men to visit persons under sentence of death, l)oth to convince them 
of their error and danger, and prepare them for death by bringing 
them to a penitent disposition, Alexander Garden, the episcopal 
minister of Charleston, to whom we are indebted for this account, 
attended these condemned persons with great diligence and concern^ 
What they had affirmed in the court of justice, they repeated and 
confessed to him in like manner in the prison. When he began 
to reason with them, and to explain the heinous nature of their 
crimes,. they treated him with disdain. Their motto was, Answer 
him not a word ; who is he that shall presume to teach ihem, who 
had Ihe Spirit of God speaking inwardly to their souls. In all they 
had done, they said they had obeyed the voice of God, and were 
now about to .suffer martyrdom for his religion. But God had as- 
sured them, that he would either work a deliverance for ihem, oi 
raise them up from the dead on the third day. These things the 
three men continued confidently to believe, and notwithstanding 
all the means used to convince them of their mistake, persisted 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



153 



Several years afterwards, seven of the proprietors sold 
to the king their claim to the soil and rents, and all 
of them assigned to him their right of jurisdiction. 
The government of both Carolinas was subsequently- 
administered in each colony by a governor and coun- 
cil appointed by the crown, and by assemblies chosen 
by the people. 

After the purchase of the province, the first ob- 
ject of the royal concern was, to establish the peace 
of the colony on the most firm and permanent foun- 
dation ; and to attain this object, treaties of union 
and alliance with Indian nations were deemed essen- 
tially necessary. For this purpose Sir Alexander 
Gumming was appointed, and sent out to conclude a 
treaty of alliance with the Cherokees, at this time a 
warlike and formidable nation of savages, occupying 
the lands about tlie river of Savannah, and extend- 
ing to the Apalacliia-n mountains. About the begin- 
ing of the year 1730, Sir Alexander arrived in Caro- 
lina, and made preparations for his journey to the dis- 
tant hills. After a conference with the chiefs, they 
consented to acknowledge King George as their so- 
vereign, and several of them repaired to England, as 
a deputation, to do homage to the British king. We 
shall not pretend to describe their feelings on behold- 
ing the metropolis of Great Britain, or their amaze- 



in the same belief until the moment they expired. At their execu- 
tion they lold the spectators, with seeming triumph, they should 
soon see them a2;ain, for the}' were certain they sliould rise from 
the dead on the third day. With respect to the other three, 
the daughter Judiih being with child, was not tried, and the two 
son?, David and John Dutartre, about eighteen and twenty years of 
age, having been also tried and condemned, continued sullen and 
reserved, in hopes of seeing those that were execuled rise from the 
dead, but being disappointed, they became, or at least seemed to 
become, sensible of their error, and were both pardoned. Yet, not 
long afterwards, one of them relapsed into the same snare, and 
murdered an innocent person, without either provocation or pre- 
vious quarrel, and for no other reason, as he confessed, but that 
God had commanded him so to do. Being a second time brought 
to trial, he was found guilty of murder, and condemned. Mr. Gar- 
den attended him again under the second sentence, and, he acknow- 
ledged, with great appearance of success. No man could appear 
more deeply sensible of his error and delusion, or could die a more 
sincere and hearty penitent on account of his horrid crimes. With 
great attention he listened to Mr. Garden, while he explained to 
him the terms of pardon and salvation proposed in the gospel, and 
seemed to die in the humble hopes of mercy, through the all-suffi- 
cient merits of a Redeemer. 

" Thus ended that tragical scene of fanaticism, in which seven 
persons lost their lives, — one was killed, two were murdered, and 
four executed for the murders. A signal and melancholy instance 
of the weakness and frailty of human nature, and to what giddv 
heights of extravagance and madness an inflamed imagination will 
carry unfortunate mortals." — History of Carolina, vol. i. p 302 — 
307. 

• " This treaty, that it might be easier understood, was drawn 
up in language as similar as possible to that of I he Indians, which 
at this time was very little known in En?land, and given to them, 
certified and approved bv Sir Alexander Gumming. In answer to 
which, Skijagustah, in the name of the rest, made a speech to the 
following effec'.: — ' We are come hither from a mountainous place, 
where nothing but darkness is to be found — but we are now in a 



ment at the extent of the city, the number of the peo- 
ple, and the splendour of the army and court. Being 
admitted into the presence of the king, they, in tlie 
name' of their nation, promised to continue for ever 
his majesty's faithful and obedient subjects. A trea- 
ty was drawn up, and signed by the secretary to tlie 
lords commissioners of trade and plantations on one 
side, and by the six chiefs on the other.* 

The Cherokees, however barbarous, were a free 
and independent people ; and this method of obtain- 
ing a»share of their lands by the general consent, was 
fair and honourable in itself, and most agreeable to 
the general principles of equity, and the English 
constitution. An agreement was made with them, in 
consequence of which the king could not only give a 
just title to Indian lands ; but, by Indians becoming 
his voluntary subjects, the colonists obtained peace- 
able possession. The Cherokees held abundance of 
territory from nature, and could spare a share of it 
with little injury to themselves ; but reason and jus- 
tice required that it be obtained by their free consent. 
By such treaties mutual presents were made, mutual 
obligations were established, and, for the performance 
of the conditions required, the honour and faith of 
both parties were pledged. Even to men in a bar- 
barous state, such policy was the most agreeable, as 

place where there is light. — There was a person in our country — 
he gave us a yellow token of warlike honour, which is left with 
Moytoy, of Telliquo— and as warriors we received it. — He came 
to us like a warrior from you. — A man he is;— his talk is upright 
— and the token he left preserves his memory among us. — We look 
upon you as if the great king were present ;— we lo e you as re- 
presenting the great king; — we shall die in the same way of think- 
ing. — The crown of our nation is different from that which the 
great King George wears, and from that we saw in the tower. — 
But to us it is all one. — The chain of friendship shall be carried to 
our people. — We look upon the great King George as the sun, and 
as our father, and upon ourselves as his children.— For though we 
are red, and vou are while, yet our hands and hearts are joined 
together.— When we shall have acquainted our people T,-ith what 
we have seen, our children from generation to generation will 
always remember it. — In war we shall always be one with you. 
The enemies of the great king shall be our enemies;— his people 
and ours shall be one, and shall die together.— We came hither 
naked and poor as the worms of the earth, but you have every 
Ihing,— and we that have nothing must love you, and will never 
break' the chain of friendship which is between us.— Here stands 
the governor of Carolina, whom we know.— This small rope we 
show you is all that we have to bind our slaves wiih, and ii may 
be broken.— But you have iron chains for yours.— However, if we 
catch your slaves, we will hind them as well as we can, and deliver 
them to our friends, and lake no pay for il.— We have looked round 
for the person that was in our counlry— he is not here;— however, 
we must say he talked uprightly lo us, and we shall never forget 
l,jra._Your while people may very safely build houses near us;— 
we shall hurl nolhing that belongs to them, for we are children of 
one father, the great king, and shall live and die together.' Then 
laying down his feathers upon the table, he added, ' This is our 
wav of talking, which is ihe same thing lo us as your tellers in the 
book are to you ; and lo you, beloved men, we deliver these feathers 
in confirmation of all we have said. ' "—History of South Carolina, 
vol. ii. p. 9, 10. 



154 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



will afterwards clearly appear ; for the Cherokees, in 
consequence of- this treaty, for many years remained 
in a state of perfect friendship and peace with the 
colonists, who followed their various employments in 
the neighbourhood of those Indians without the least 
terror or molestation. 

As a natural consequence of its domestic security, 
the credit of the province in England increased. The 
merchants of London, Bristol, and Liverpool, turned 
their eyes to Carolina, as a new and promising chan- 
nel of trade, and established houses in Charleston for 
conducting their business with the greater ease and 
success. Hitherto, howev^er, small progress in culti- 
vation had been made, and the face of the country 
appeared like a desert, with little spots here and there 
cleared, scarcely discernible amidst the immense 
forest. Ciiarlestou, at this time, consisted of between 
five and six hundred liouses, mostly built of timber, 
and neither well constructed nor comfortable ; but 
from this period the province improved in building 
as well as in agriculture ; many ingenious artificers 
and tradesmen of different kinds found encouragement 
in it, and introduced a taste for brick buildings, and 
more neat and pleasant habitations. In process of 
time, as the colony increased in numbers, the face of 
the country changed, and the planters made a rapid 
progress towards wealth and independence. At this 
period, for the relief of poor and indigent people of 
Great Britain and Ireland, and for the security of the 
southern frontier of Carolina, the settlement of a new 
colony between the rivers Alatamaha and Savannah 
was projected in England. 

The Carolinas now attracted general attention, and 
their population was increased by accessions from 
several of the states of Europe. Encouraged by the 
assurances and the arrangements of their countryman, 
John Peter Pury, a native of Neufchatel, in Switzer- 
land, one hundred and seventy persons emigrated 
with him to this province, and not long after they 
were joined by two hundred more. The governor, 
according to agreement, allotted forty thousand acres 
of land for the use of the Swiss settlement on the 
north-east side of Savannah river ; and a town was 
marked out for their accommodation, which he called 
Purisburgh, from the name of the principal promoter 
of the settlement. These settlers, however, felt very 
severely the change of climate, to which many of 
their lives fell a sacrifice ; and for some years the 
survivors deeply regretted the voluntary banishment 
to which they had subjected themselves. In the 
same year, according to a plan tliat had been recently 
adopted in England for the more speedy population 
and settlement of Carolina, eleven townships were 



I marked out on the sides of rivers, in square plats, 
I each consisting of twenty thousand acres. Two of 
I these townships were laid out on the Alatamaha ; 
two on the Savannah ; two on the Santee ; one on 
the Pedee ; one on the "VVacamaw ; one on the 
VVateree ; and one on Black River. The lands in 
these townships were divided into shares of fifty 
acres for each man, woman, and child, who shoidd 
come over to occupy and improve them. In 173T, 
multitudes of labourers and husbandmen in Ireland 
unable to procure a comfortable subsistence for their 
families in their native land, embarked for Carolina. 
The first colony of Irish, receiving a grant of lands 
near Santee River, formed a settlement, which was 
called Williamsburgh. 

In 1738, an alarming insurrection of the negroes 
occurred in the southern colony. A number of them 
assembled at Stono, and surprised and killed two men 
who had charge of a warehouse, from which they 
took guns and ammunition. They then chose a 
captain, and, with drums beating and colours flying, 
marched south-westward. They burned every house 
on their way, killed all the whites they could find, 
and compelled other negroes to join them. Governor 
Bull, who was returning to Charleston from the 
southward, accidentally met them, hastened out of 
their way, and spread an alarm. Tlie news soon 
reached Wiltown, where, fortunately, a large congre- 
gation were attending divine service. The men 
having, according to a law of the province, brought 
tlieir arms to the place of worship, marched instantly 
in quest of the negroes, who, by this time, had become 
formidable, and spread terror and desolation around 
them, having killed about twenty of the whites. 
While, in an open field, they were carousing and 
dancino', with frantic exultation at their late success, 
they were suddenly attacked ; some were killed, and 
the remainder took to flight, but most of them were 
taken and tried. Those who had been compelled to 
join the conspirators were pardoned ; bat the leaders 
and principal instigators suffered death. Under ap- 
prehensions resulting, probably, from this rebellion, 
the legislature of South Carolina passed an act, that 
whoever shall teach, or cause any slave or .slaves to 
be taught to write, or shall use or employ any slave 
as a scribe in any manner of writing whatsoever, 
shall, for isvery such offence, forfeit the sum of one 
hundred pounds.* 

From this period until the era of the revolution, no 
important event occurred in these colonies. They 
were sometimes distressed by Indian wars ; but the 

» Grimke's Public Laws of South Carolina. The fin« waa lo 
be " current money." 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



155 



number of inhabitants, and the means of subsistence 
and comfort, were constantly increasing. Among 
other sources of weaUh, tiie cultivation of the Indigo 
plant deserves particular notice. Some seed imported 
from the West Indies was sown as an experiment ; 
and it was so entirely successful, that several planters 
turned their immediate attention to its culture, and 
studied the art of extracting the dye. At tlie port of 
Charleston, during the year 1744, two hundred and 
thirty vessels were loaded, and fifteen hundred seamen 
were employed in the trade of Carolina. 

The Carolinas were frequently exposed to the in- 
jurious effects of war from the French and Spaniards, 
as well as from some of the Indian tribes ; but after 
the treaty of Paris, the progress of these colonies was 
no longer retarded from that cause. The asse^nbly 
of South Carolina, taking advantage of the peaceful 
state of the colony to encourage emigration, appro- 
priated a large fnnd for bounties to foreign protestants, 
and such industrious poor people of Great Britain 
and Ireland as should resort to the province within 
three years, and settle on the inland parts. Two 
townships, each containing forty-eight thousand acres, 
were laid out ; one on the river Savannah, called 
Mecklenburgh, and the other on the waters of Santee 
at Long Cane, called Londonderry. Not long after, 
the colony received a considerable accession from 
Germany, the occasion of which was peculiar. Be- 
tween five and six hundred poor Germans, seduced 
into England by deceitful promises, were commise- 
rated by the citizens of London, who provided for 
their relief. The king expressing a desire of trans- 
porting them to Carolina, two ships were furnished 
for their accommodation, and provisions for their 
voyage, and a hundred and fifty stand of arms were 
ordered from the Tower, and given them by the king. 
On their arrival, in April, at Charleston, the assembly 
of the province voted five hundred pounds sterling to 
be distributed among them ; one of the two townships 
was allotted to them, and divided in the most equita- 
ble manner into siflall tracts, for the convenience of 
each family; and all possible assistance was given 
toward their speedy and comfortable settlement. Caro- 
lina also received at this time more than two hundred 
settlers from France. The province furnished them 
with the means of conveyance to Long Cane, where 
Vacant lands -were laid out for their use, to which 
they gave the name of New Bordeaux, after the capi- 
tal of the province from which most of them had 
emigrated. Besides foreign protestants, several per- 
sons emigrated from England and Scotland, and 
great multitudes from Ireland, and settled in Carolina. 
An accession was also derived from the northern 



colonies, from which, in the space of one year, above 
a thonsand families removed thither. To these ad- 
venturers, lands in small tracts were allotted on the 
frontiers, by which means the back settlements soon 
became the most populous part of the province, while 
the whole felt the important benefits resulting from 
such accessions to its population. 



CHAPTER XII. 

GEORGIA. 

The last of the colonies commenced previous to 
the war of independence was Georgia. It originated 
in the desire of the government to strengthen the 
southern frontier of the British dominions in America 
against the encroachments of the Spaniards ; and at 
the same time to aflbrd an opportunity for emigration 
to a number of families in indigent circumstances. 
With these views, a company of wealthy, influential, 
and benevolent persons, was formed in England, who 
did not hesitate to embark a considerable sum in the 
promotion of their humane design. Having obtained 
a patent from George 11. , conferring on them the 
requisite powers, they enacted, among other regula- 
tions, that the lands should neither be sold nor devised 
by tire owners, but should descend to the male children 
only ; they prohibited the use of rum in tht3 colony, 
and strictly interdicted the importation of negroes : 
but none of these regulations remained long in force. 

The trustees lost no time in the prosecution of their 
design. In November, James Oglethorpe, one of their 
number, embarked at Gravesend for Georgia, with 
one hundred and sixteen persons, destined for settle- 
ment in the country. In the following January he 
arrived at Charleston, where he was treated with 
hospitality and respect by the governor and council 
of South Carolina, and received great encouragement 
and assistance. Having explored the cotmtry, he fixed 
on a high spot of ground, in the vicinity of an Indian 
town on the Savannah, called Yamacraw, as the most 
convenient and healthy situation. The new town, 
after the Indian name of the river which ran by it, 
was called Savannah. A fort having been completed, 
and the colony put in a state of safety, the next object 
of Og-lethorpe's attention was to treat with the Indians 
for a" share of their possessions. The territory was 
principally occupied by the Upper and Lower Creeks, 
who were computed to amount to about twenty-five 
thousand, including women and children ; and these 
tribes, according- to a treaty formerly made with 
Governor Nicholson, laid claim to the lands lying 



i.:g 



HISTORY OF THE UNITPID STATES. 



south-west of Savannah river. The tribe of Indians 
ut Yamacraw was inconsiderable. It appeared, tliere- 
fore, of the highest consequence to procure the Iriend- 
sliip, not of that tribe only, but of the more formidable 
Creeks. By the assistance of an Indian woman, who 
had married a trader from Carolina, and who could 
speak both the English and Creek languages, Ogle- 
thorpe summoned a general meeting of the chiefs to 
hold a congress with lijm at Savannah, in order to 
procure their consent to the peaceable settlement of 
his colony. Being assembled, he represented to them 
the great power, wisdom, and wealth of the English ; 
and the advantages that would accrue to the Indian 
tribes from a coimexion with this nation ; and ex- 
pressed his hope, that, as they had plenty of lands, 
they would freely resign a share of them to his peo- 
ple, who, for their benefit and instruction, had come 
to settle among them. After he had distributed pre- 
sents among the Indians, an agreement was made ; 
and Tomochichi, in the name of the Creek warriors, 
made a speech to him. Among other observations, 
he said, " Here is a little present," and then gave him 
a buffalo's skin, painted on the inside with the head 
and feathers of an eagle, and desired him to accept it, 
" because the eagle signified speed, and the buffalo, 
strength. The English," he proceeded, "are as swift 
as the bird, and as strong as the beast ; since, like the 
first, they fly from the utmost parts of the earth over 
vast sea?, and, like the second, nothing can withstand 
them. The feathers of the eagle are soft, and signify 
love ; the buffalo's skin warm, and signifies protec- 
tion ; he hoped, therefore, that they would love and 
protect their little families." 

Having concluded this treaty of friendship with the 
natives, and placed his colony in the best posture of 
defence, Oglethorpe returned to England, carrying 
with him Tomochichi, his queen, and several other 
Indians. On their arrival in London, these Indian 
chiefs were introduced to his majesty ; and during the 
whole time they were in England, nothing was neglect- 
ed that might serve to engage their affections, and fill 
them with just notions of the greatness and power of 
the British nation. The nobility, curious to see them, 
and observe their manners, entertained them magni- 
ficently at their tables. Wherever they went, multi- 
tudes flocked around them, shaking hands with the 
rude warriors of the forest, giving them little presents, 
and treating them with every mark of friendship and 
civility. Twenty pounds a-week were allowed them 
by the crown while they remained in England, and 
when they returned, it was computed tliey carried 
with them presents to the value of fom- hundred poimds. 
After staying four months, and seeing the grandeur 



of the English sovereign, they were carried to 
Gravesend in one of his majesty's carriages, where 
they embarked for Georgia, highly pleased with the 
generosity of the nation, and promising eternal fideli- 
ty to its interest. This generous and kind method of 
treating barbarians was better policy than overawing 
them by force, and was attended, as might have been 
expected, with the happiest consequences. 

During the following year, five or six hundred poor 
persons arrived, and to each a portion of the wilder- 
ness was assigned. But it was soon found that these 
emigrants, who were the refuse of cities, and had 
been rendered poor by idleness, and irresolute by 
poverty, were not fitted to fell the mighty forests of 
Georgia. A race more hardy and enterprising was 
necessary. The trustees, therefore, offered to receive 
those who had not by persecution or poverty been 
rendered objects of compassion, and to grant to all 
who should repair to the colony fifty acres of land. 
In consequence of this offer, more than four hundred 
persons from Germany, Scotland, and Switzerland, 
embarked for the colony in the year 1735. To the 
Highlanders, a township was allotted on the river 
Alatamaha, which was then considered as the bound- 
ary between the British and Spanish territories. 
Here they built a fort, which they called Darien ; 
and a town, which they called New Inverness. In 
February, 1736, Oglethorpe arrived with two ships, 
which had on board three hundred passengers. More 
than half of these were Germans, who, with others 
of their countrymen who followed them, settled a 
town on Savannah, which they called Ebenezer. 

The celebrated John Wesley made a visit to Geor- 
sria during tliis year, for the purpose of preaching to 
the colonists, and converting the Indians. Among 
the former he made some friends, but, it would ap- 
pear, more enemies. He was accused of diverting 
the people from labour, of fomenting divisions, of 
claiming and exercising' high and unwarranted ec- 
clesiastical authority. Thirteen indictments for al- 
leged offenciis were preferred against him ; but before 
the time of trial arrived he returned to England, 
where, as is well known, he pttrsued a successful 
and distinguished career of piety und usefulness. 

It was about this time that Oglethorpe took effect- 
tive measures to fortify the colony. A fort was erec- 
ted on the banks of the Savannah river ; another on 
an island near the mouth of the river Alatamaha, 
where a town, called Frederica, was regularly laid 
out and built ; and ten miles nearer the sea, on Cum- 
berland island, was raised a battery, commanding the- 
entrance into Jekyl sound, through which all ships 
of force must pass to reach Frederica. The Spa- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



157 



niards, taking umbrage at these fortifications of the 
English, sent from Havannah a commissioner, who, 
in a conference with Oglethorpe, demanded that he 
and his people should immediately evacuate the terri- 
tories to tiie southward of St. Helena sound, as belong- 
ing to the king of Spain. Oglethorpe having endea- 
voured in vain to convince the commissioner of the 
erroneousness of this claim, and the conference break- 
ing up without any agreement, he embarked with all 
possible expedition for England. 

On this occasion Oglethorpe was appointed general 
and commander-in-chief of all his majesty's forces in 
South Carolina and Georgia, and was sent out from 
England with a regiment of six hundred men for the 
protection of the southern frontiers of the British do- 
minions in America. Daring his absence, the Spaniards 
had made several attempts to seduce the Creeks, who 
were mucli attached to Oglethorpe ; and, at the time 
of his arrival, some of the Creek chiefs were at St. 
Augustine. When they returned, they found an in- 
vitation from General Oglethorpe to all the chieftains 
to meet him at Frederica. A number of the head war- 
riors immediately set out to meet him at the place 
appointed ; where the general thanked them for their 
fidelity, made them many valuable presents, and re- 
newed with them the treaty of friendship and alliance. 
Tlie Spaniards, however, hesitated at the employment 
of no means to prevent the establishment of British 
colonies on their northern frontier. Finding oppor- 
tunity to corrupt an English soldier who had been in 
the Spanish service, a mutiny through his influence 
was excited in Oglethorpe's camp, and a daring attempt 
was made to assassinate the general ; but his life was 
preserved in an extraordinary manner, and the princi- 
pal conspirators were shot. 

About this time the indefatigable George Whitefield 
arrived in the colony. He had already become con- 
spicuous, in England by his ardent piety, his extra- 
ordinary eloquence, and liis active zeal. He came to 
Georgia for the benevolent purpose of establishing an 
orphan-house, where poor children might be fed, 
clothed, and educated in the knowledge of Christianity. 
In tlie prosecution of this purpose he often crossed the 
Atlantic, and traversed Great Britain and America, so- 
liciting aid from the pious and charitable. Wherever 
he went, he preached with sincerity and fervour, and 
with such success, as to found a sect, which soon be- 
came both numerous and respectable. His orphan- 
house did not flourish during his life, and after his 
death was entirely abandoned. Although his pro- 
ceedings and character would fotm very interesting 
topics, they do not come properly within the sphere 
of this history ; and their principal incidents, as con- 



nected, with America, have been noticed in a preceding 
chapter. 

In the year 1740, the trustees rendered an account 
of their administration. At that time nearly two 
thousand five hundred emigrants had arrived in the 
colony ; of whom more than filteen hundred were 
indigent Englishmen, or persecuted protestants. The 
benefactions from government and from individuals 
had been nearly half a million of dollars ; and it was 
computed that, for every person transported and 
maintained by the trustees, more than three hundred 
dollars had been expended. The hopes which the 
trustees had cherished, that the colony would be pros- 
perous, and the objects of their benevolence happy, 
were far from realized. Such was the character of 
the greater part of the settlers and the nature of the 
restrictions imposed, that the plantations languished, 
and continued to require the contributions of the 
charitable. In the mean time events were preparing 
a rupture in Europe, and a war between England 
and Spain appeared inevitable. The plenipotentiaries, 
appointed for settling the boundi.ries between Georgia 
and Florida, and other differences and misunderstand- 
ings subsisting between the two crowns, had met at 
Pardo in convention, where preliminary articles were 
drawn up ; but the conference ended to the satisfac- 
tion of neither party. The merchants had lost all 
patience under their sufferings, and became clamorous 
for letters of reprisal, which at length they obtained ; 
all officers of the navy and army were ortlercd to 
their stations, and, with the unanimous voice of the 
nation, war was declared against Spain on the 23d 
of October, 1739. As soon as intelligence of the 
declaration of war reached Georgia, General Ogle- 
thorpe passed over to Florida with four hundred 
select men of his regiment, and a considerable party 
of Indians ; and a few days after, he marched with his 
whole force, consisting of above two thousand men, 
regulars, provincials, and Indians, to Fort Moosa, 
within two miles of St. Augustine. The Spanish 
garrison, evacuating the fort on his approach, and 
retiring- into the town, put themselves in a posture of 
defence ; and the general, soon discovering that an 
attempt to take the castle by storm would be pre- 
sumptuous, changed his plan of operations, and 
resolved, with the assistance of the ships of war which 
were lying at anchor off Augustine bar, to turn the 
sieg-e into a blockade. Having made the necessary 
dispositions, he summoned the Spanish go\-ernor to a 
surrender; but, secure in his strong-hold, he sent him 
for answer, that he would be glad to shake bands 
with him in his castle. Indignant at this reply, the 
general opened his batteries against the castle, and at 



158 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



the same time threw a number of shells in the town. 
Tlie fire was returned with equal spirit from the 
Spanish fort, and from six half-galleys in the harbotir ; 
but the distance was so great that the cannonade, 
though it continued several days, did little execution 
on either side. It appears that, notwithstanding the 
blockade, the Spanish garrison contrived to admit a 
reinforcement of seven hundred men, and a large 
supply of provisions. All prospect of starving the 
enemy being lost, the army began to despair of forcing 
the place to surrender. The Carolina troops, enfee- 
bled by the lieat of the climate, dispirited by sickness, 
and fatigued by fruitless eiforts, marched away in 
large bodies. The naval commander, in considera- 
tion of the shortness of his provisions, and ofthe near 
approach of the usual season of hurricanes, judged it 
imprudent to hazard his fleet longer on that coast. 
The general himself was sick of a fever, and his 
regiment was worn out with fatigue, and disabled bjr 
sickness. These combined disasters rendered it ne- 
cessary to abandon the enterprise ; and Oglethorpe, 
with extreme sorrow and regret, returned to Frede- 
rica. 

Alter a lapse of two years, the Spaniards prepared 
to retaliate by the invasion of Georgia, intending, if 
successful, to subjugate the Carolinas and Virginia. 
On receiving information of their approach. General 
Oglethorpe .solicited assistance from South Carolina : 
but the inhabitants of that colony, entertaining a 
strong prejudice against him, and terrified by the 
danger which threatened themselves, determined to 
provide only for their own safety, though without 
avowing their intention. General Oglethorpe, how- 
over, njade preparations for a vigorous defence, ye 
assembled seven hiuidred men, exclusive of a body 
of Indians, fixed his head-quarters at Frederica, on 
the island of St. Simon, and, with this small band, 
determined to encounter whatever force might be 
brought against him. It was his utmost hope that 
he might be able to resist the enemy until a rein- 
forcement should arrive from Carolina, which he daily 
and anxiously expected. On the last day of June, 
the Spanish fleet, consisting of thirty-two sail, and 
having on board more than three thousand men, 
came to anchor off" St. Simon's Bay. Notwithstand- 
ing all the resistance which General Oglethorpe 
could oppose, they sailed up the river Alatamaha, 
landed upon the island, and there erected fortifica- 
tions. Convinced that his small force, if divided, 
must be entirely inefficient, Oglethorpe assembled the 
whole of it at Frederica. One portion he employed 
in strengthening his fortifications ; the Highlanders 
and Indians ranging night and day through the 



woods, often attacked the outposts of the enemy. The 
toil of the troops was incessant ; and the long delay 
of the expected succours, still unexpectedly withheld 
by South Carolina, caused the most gloomy and 
depressing apprehensions. Oglethorpe, at length, 
learning, by an English prisoner who escaped from 
the Simnish camp, that a diff'erence subsisted between 
the troops from Cuba and those from St. Augustine, 
so as to occasion a separate encampment, resoh'-ed to 
attack the enemy while thus divided. Taking advan- 
tage of his knowledge of the woods, he marched out 
in the night with three hundred chosen men, the 
Highland company, and some rangers, with the inten- 
tion of surprising the enemy. Having advanced 
within two miles of the Spanish camp, he halted his 
troops, and went forward himself with a select corps 
to reconnoitre the enemy's situation. While he was 
endeavouring cautiously to conceal his approach, a 
French soldier of his party discharged his musket, 
and ran into the Spanish lines. Thus betra^^cd, he 
hastened his return to Frederica, and endeavoured to 
effect by stratagem what could not be achieved by 
surprise. Apprehensive that the deserter would dis- 
cover to the enemy his weakness, he wrote to him a 
letter, desiring him to acquaint the Spaniards with 
the defenceless state of Frederica, and the ease with 
which his small garrison might be cut to pieces. He 
pressed him to bring forward the Spaniards to an 
attack ; but, if he could not prevail thus far, to use 
all his art and influence to persuade them to stay at 
least three days more at Fort Simon ; for within that 
time, according to advices he had just received from 
Carolina, he should have a reinforcement of two 
thousand land forces, with six British ships of war. 
The letter concluded with a caution to the deserter 
against dropping the least hint of Admiral Vernon's 
meditated attack upon St. Augustine, and with an 
assurance that for his service he should be amply re- 
warded by the British king. Oglethorpe gave it to a 
Spanish prisoner, who, for a small reward, together 
with his liberty, promised to deliver it to the French 
deserter. On his arrival at the Spanish camp, 
however, he gave the letter, as Oglethorpe expected, 
to the commander-in-chief, who instantly put the 
deserter in irons. This letter perplexed and con- 
founded the Spaniards ; some suspecting it to be a 
stratagem to prevent an attack on Frederica, and 
others believing it to contain serious instructions to 
direct the conduct of a spy. While the Spanish 
officers were deliberating what measures to adopt, 
an incident, not within the calculation of military 
skill, or the control of human power, decided their 
counsels. Three ships of force, which the governor 



HISTORY OF THE UWITED STATES. 



159 



of South Carolina had sent out to Oglethorpe's aid, ap- 
peared at this juncture off the coast. The agreement of 
this discovery with the contents of the letter convinced 
the Spanish commander of its real intention. The whole 
army, seized with an instant panic, set fire to the fort, and 
precipitately embarked, leaving several cannon, with a 
quantity of provisions and military stores ; and thus, in the 
moment of threatened conquest, was the infant colony 
providentially saved. 

Thus was Georgia, with trifling loss, delivered from the 
most imminent danger. General Oglethorpe not only re- 
trieved, but established his reputation. From the Caro- 
linians, grateful for their preservation, and from the gov- 
ernors of most of the northern colonies, he received cor- 
dial congratulations upon his address and good fortune. 
But, on an impeachment brought forward before this in- 
vasion, Oulethorpe still felt himself bound in honour to re- 
turn to England, where, on trial, the charge \\as adjudged 
to be false, malicious, and groundless, and its author dis- 
missed his majesty's service. Tlie character of this able 
general now appeared in its true light ; and his contem- 
poraries acknowledged, v\hat impartial history records, that 

** " George Wiiltofield, an eloquent itinerant preacher, was born in 
Gloucester, Enffland. December 16, 1714. After having made some 
progress in classical learning, he was obliged to assist his mother, who 
kept an inn, in her business ; but at the age of eighteen, he entered 
one of Ihe colleges at Oxford. Here he became acquainted with 
Messrs. John and Charles Wesley, whose piety was ardent and singu- 
lar, like his own. From the strict rules and methods of life which 
these young men followed, they were called Metliodists, and they 
were the founders of the sect thus denominated. Mr. Whitefield's 
benevolent zeal led him to visit the poor, and even to search out the 
miserable objects in the jails, not only to diminish their wants, but 
that he might impart to them the consolations and hopes of the gos- 
pel. He took orders, being ordained by the bishop, June 20, 1736, and 
preached his first sermon in the church at Gloucester. When a com- 
plaint was afterwards entered with the bishop, that by this sermon lie 
drove fifteen persons mad, the worthy prelate only expressed a wish, 
that the madness might not be forgotten before the next Sunday. Af- 
ter preaching at various places, he was induced, by a letter from Mr. 
Wesley, who was in Georgia, to embark for America. He arrived at 
Savannalr May 7, 173S. After labouring in this place with unwearied 
fidelity for several months to promote the interests of religion, he 
embarked for England on the sixth of September. He was ordained 
priest, at Oxford, hy Bishop Benson, January 14, 1731*. In November 
he again arrived in .America, and he travelled through the middle and 
Boutiiern colonies, dispensing the gospel to immense multitudes. In 
September, 1740, he arrived at Rhode Island from Savannah, having 
been invited by the ministers of Boston, and he preached in different 
parts of New England. At the end of October, he went to New York, 
and he soon returned to Georgia. He was much occupied in the es- 
tablishment of an orphan house near Savannah. In January, 1741, 
he s.iiled for England. He arrived again in America in October, 
1741, and he now spent between three and four years in this country. 
In March, 1748, he went to the' Bermudas, and in July he reached 
London. When he commenced his career in England, the religion 
of'the heart was much neglected, in the care to defend the outworks 
of Christianity against the assaults of infidels. If these assailants were 
repulsed, still the ingenious disquisitions of the day carried no terror 
into the enemy's camp ; and the over-anxious attempts to conciliate 
unhnmbled reason, rather than to reduce the unholy heart to the 
obedience of the cross, could not fail to encourage the opposers of the 
truth. Mr. Whitefield, while aware of the necessity of enlightening 
the mind, knew also that there was much theological learning which 
had little influence upon the life. He therefore chose to content him- 
self with preaching the plain and important doctrines of the gospel. 
These he presented so distinctly to the view, and enforced by such 
awful considerations, and with such energy and unexampled eloquence, 
that, through the divine agency, (without wliich he knew that his 

21 



to him Carolina was indebted for her safety and lepose, 
as well as Georgia for her existence and protection. Af- 
ter this period, General Oglethorpe never returned to the 
province of Georgia, but upon all occasions discovered in 
England an uncommon zeal for its prosperity and im- 
provement. From its first settlement, the colony had 
hitherto been under a military government, executed by 
the general and such officers as he thought proper to 
nominate and appoint ; but now the trustees established a 
kind of civil government, and committed the charge of it to 
a president and four assistants, who were to act agreeably 
to the instructions they should receive from thein, and to be 
accountable to that corporation for their public conduct. 

Great occasions brino forth great men. There was 
not one of the colonies that cannot claim several men of 
distinguished talents and virtues in their early history. 
They sometimes incurred the displeasure of those who 
were incapable of comprehending the extensive views of 
the pioneers in the great cause of freedom ; \Jal time has 
swept away the clouds which gathered around them, and 
left their reputations in the clearness of day. Not only 
Oglethorpe, but AVhitefield * was a distinguislied friend to 

labours would be utterly in vain.) he was the means of impaiting the 
pure principles and the elevated hopes of religion to thousands, bo.h 
in Great Britain and America. No preacher ever hau such astonish- 
ing power over the passions of his auditory, or was attended by such 
multitudes as he sometimes addressed in the fields. In the early pe- 
riods of his life, he was guilty, in some instaijces, of uiicharitablcniss 
and indiscretion ; but he afterwards had the magnanimity to confess 
his fault. He was, in reality, a man of a very liberal and catholic 
spirit, for he had little attachment to forms, and embraced all who 
loved the Lord Jesus in sincerity. His life was spent in most disin- 
terested and benevolent exertion. The following lines will show the 
opinion which was formed of his character by the evangi licai poel 
Cowper : — 

' He loved the world, that hated him ; the tear 
That dropped upon his Bible was sincere : 
Assailed by scandal and the tongue of strife. 
His only answer was, a blameless life, — 
And he that forged, and he that threw, the dart. 
Had each a brother's interest in his heart. 
Paul's love of Christ and steadiness unbribed. 
Were copied close in him, and well transcribed : 
He folloived Paul — his zeal a kindred flame. 
His apostolic charity the same ; 
Like him, crossed cheerfully tempestuous seas. 
Forsaking country, kindred, friends, and ease ; 
Like him he laboured, and, like him, content 
To bear it. suffered shame where'er he went. 
Blush, Calumny I and write upon his tomb. 
If honest Eulogy can spare thee room. 
Thy deep repentance of thy thousand lies. 
Which, aimed at him, have pierced th' offended skies 
And say. Blot out my sin, confessed, deplored. 
Against thine image iii thy saint, O Lord '. ' 
" Mr, Whitefield's letters, sermons, and controversial and other tracts, 
with an account of his Ufe, were published in seven volumes, 8vo 

1771 " 

The eloquence of Whitefield was of a high order. His voice was 
strong, clear, and perfectly under command. His st}le was marked 
with great simplicity; yet he made, in the language of dramatic criti- 
cism, as many points as he ronid in his discourses, such as would 
secure the attention of his audience. He was figurative ; but his 
images all reflected nature with such accuracy, thai the humbluft 
capacity caught his meaning, and felt the efl'ects of his illustrations. 
It was not the humble alone, who were pleased with his preaching. 
Many of the learned became his followers, and united in blazoning his 
fame. He was incessant in his labours to enlighten and direct Uie 



J 60 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Geoigia. Whitefield, in his way, was as remarkable a 
personage as any of the founders of the colonies. 

Oglethorpe, at the breaking out of the revolutionary 
w:rr, \\ as ofiered the command of the English army in 
America, after the return of General Gage. Ogle- 
thorpe was then a major-general in the service. He 
offered to accept the command, if he was authorized to as- 
sure the colonies that justice should be done them ; but 
the command was given to Sir William Howe. General 
Oglethorpe died August, 1785, having seen the independ- 
ence of the United States, at the great age of ninety- 
seven : probably at his death he was the oldest field olhcer 
in Europe. He enjoyed, while living, the reputation of 
being one of the most humane soldiers that ever bore arms. 

In the year 1749, the colony was exposed to great 
danger from a quarter as unexpected as it was singu- 



niiniis of his liearers. Frequently he preached three sermons a day 
for weeks together, and this wliile he was hibourinff under an asth- 
matic alfectioB. Franklin speaks of the wonderful etieety of liis voice 
while preaching in the open air. Of the effects of his eloquence, the 
late learned and pious Lt. Governor Samuel Phillips, of Andover, 
Massachusetts, used to relate the fuUowing anecdote : — Mr. Phillips's 
(grandfather was a rigid Presb^'terian preacher, and opposed to White- 
Reld's course ; 'but, wishing to know if there was any truth in the 
stories of the effects produced by his eloquence, sent his son and his 
grandson to hear the orator. They reached the assemblv, who were 
listening to Whitefield, without any partialities for .the preacher. The 
two critics, in the bustle of the crovvd, had been separated ; and each, 
looking around fi>r the other, when the sermon grew pathetic, found 
that their eyes met streaming with tears. 

If Whitefield had many enemies, he had more friends, Pome of them 
of Ihe first order of InteHect. On one of his excursions through New 
York, New Jersey, and New Entjland, he was accompanied by the 
Kev. Aaron Burr, then, or soon afterwards, president of Nassau Hall, 
the college at Princeton, New Jersey. Mr. Burr was one of the most 
learned and eloquent men of the age, and deservedly popular with all 
classes of people. He was mild and gentle in his preaching, which 
furmed a fine contrast to the whirlwind of Whitefield's eloquence. It 
was a common saying in New England, that " Whitefield should first 
break the stubborn heart, and Burr should follow to heal the anguish 
fif the penitent sufferer ! " Burr had a clear, sweet voice, and modu- 
lated it with great felicity ; but it had not sufficient compass for field- 
preaching, which he never attempted ; but Wliitefield's voice was 
filled for the open field by its volume and extent. 

Much has been said against field-preaching in this country, and 
tliere can be no doubt that many evils flow from it, and Mr. Whitefield 
iias been charged with having first set the example. It is a fact, that 
cannot be denied, that he was the first who commenced this Druidical 
form of worship in the open air in later times ; but he was sustained 
bv primitive examples. The apostles had but few other places to 
teach their religion. The temples of the heathen gods were shut 
against them. They were obliged to use mountains and vales as 
temples where to teach their doctrines ; for they did not erect 
edifices for public woiship for ages. The first temple dedicated to 
Christian worship, was built at Tyre, on the site where once stood a 
heathen temple. The forms and ceremonies used at this consecration, 
contained all, and more, than are used in such services at the present 
dav. If field-preachintr should be discouraged in populous places, 
there being a sufBcient number of churclies and public edifices for all 
religious purposes, it la not so in a new country. In thinly-populated 
places, it is of great advantage to the community to become acquaint- 
ed with each other ; and it is much better for them to meet under 
religious sanctions than political excitements. In political meetings 
tiiere is often drinking, carousing, and gambling; but in these reli- 
gious meetings, there is no such thing. . These camp-meetings are gen- 
erally conducted with decorum and modesty, and no evils take place, ex- 
cept now and then a trifling violation of the English language, which 
does but little injury, and gives but little offence. These assemblies are 
social anc: affectionate. As they are attended by both sexes, there is a 
eoftenmg n^ manners by this intercourse ; and many judicious matches 
are made, which serve to bring distant settlers to be friends and kin- 
dred to each other. In the hours which are not devoted to spiritual 
concerns, the public welfare is discusaed, particularly those branches 



lar. During the whole of his administration , Gene- 
ral Oglethorpe had, from motives of policy, treated an 
Indian, or rather half-breed woman, called Mary Mus- 
grove, afterwards Mary Bosomworth, with particular 
kindness and generosity. Finding that she had 
great influence among the Creeks, and understood 
their language, he made use of her as an interpreter? 
in order the more easily to form treaties of alliance 
with them ; allowing her, for her services, one hun- 
dred pounds sterling a year. Thomas Bosomworth, 
who was chaplain to Oglethorpe's regiment, had mar- 
ried this woman, accepted a tract of land from the 
crown, and settled in the province. Being unsuc- 
cessful in most of his speculations, he had recourse 
to one of an extraordinary kind. He persuaded his 
wife to assert herself to be the elder sister to I\Iala- 

of it which relate to schools and religious societies — and all is done in a 
Christian temper, for the ground, in their view, on which they stand, 
is holy. I am no fanatic, but I do not hesitate to confess, that I liave 
spent many pleasant and instructive days in frontier camp-meetings, 
and feel it an incumbent duty to disabuse those who know them only 
by unfavourable report, and have therefore condemned them ; and 
have also been desirous of vindicating the fame of the great fatlier of 
field-preaching in America. He has not done any injury to morals by 
his example. 

It would be unfair to judge of Whitefield's mental strength or elo- 
quence by the sermons that pass as his. Thc}' were taken by inex- 
perienced reporters, in short-hand, and then moulded to suit some 
tasteless fanatic. No man could have produced such effects as he is 
known to have done, by such sentiments and language as are found in 
these spurious sermons. There are some splendid passages still lin- 
gering in the memory of the aged, that are entirely unlike the discon- 
nected and tasteless style in which these sermons are published. It 
is a slander upon a great man's fame, to change the thoughts that 
breathe, and words (hat burn^ to jejune and vulgnr language, and to 
make him talk with crudity and ignorance, who shook the nations 
by his eloquence. 

It is now more than sixty-four years since his death ; yet there are 
those, in various parts of the United States, still living, who date their 
first serious impressions from his eloquent sermons, and who have 
now a very vivid recollection of his person, manner, and voice. — Mr. 
Whitefield died at Newburyporl, in the county of Essex, and common- 
wealth of Massachusetts, in September, 1770, and was buried in a tomb 
under the pulpit of the first Presbyterian church in that town. The 
pastor of that church, the Reverend Jonathan Parsons, soon followed 
ills friend to another life, and, by his request, was laid by his side. 
The Reverend Mr. Prince, an interesting, pious, blind preacher, wlten 
dying, made the same request, and his remains were deposited *thcn» 
also. The tomb was then closed with a wall of brick, the Reverend 
John Murray, the successor of Mr. Parsons, expressing his wish to be 
placed in a common burying-ground. Here the ashes of the great 
field orator slumbered, without any monument to bear his name or 
record his deeds, until a few years since, when an opulent individ- 
ual of that town, "William Bartlett, Esq., caused n 1 eautilul marble 
monument to be erected in the church under which Whitefield was 
buried, sacred t"^ the memory of the Christian orator and pious divine. 

These monuments, cold philosophv may sav, are nothing to tlie 
dead. If that be true, they still teacli the living many useful lesion?. 
It is from history that we draw the information th^tt we possess, and 
the wisdom which is the guide of life ; and what is history but the 
records of the deeds of men who have departed fmni tliis scene nf :■%- 
tion, having finished their labours .^ The wise, as well as the rustic, 
require memorials to quicken the heart, and to lend Ih - mind In tin* 
contemplation of a future stale. An elegant monunient, with just 
inscriptions, proves the state of the arts and oT letters at the tiuu' it 
was erected, — and with letters and the arts is connecte i, in no small 
degree, the happiness of man. In the excess of niodern philanthr''py, 
it is often said, that money expended in building monuments to the 
dead, had served a better purpose, had it been given tn the poor. 
He serves man best, who honestly employs him innst. The lulinnr 
requisite to erect a monument, is diffused through a hundred iiands, 
and benefits the induetrioua labourer, and cherishes the genius v.ho 
plans and ^vec the finiehing touchee of art to the work. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STAGES. 



161 



tclie, the Indian chief, and to have descended, by a 
maternal Hne, from an Indian king, who held from 
nature the whole territory of the Creeks ; and there- 
fore to possess a right to them, superior not only to 
that of the trustees, but also to that of the king. Ac- 
cordingly, Mary assumed the title of an independent 
empress, disavowing all subjection or allegiance to 
the king- of Great Britain, otherwise than by way of 
treaty or alliance, such as one independent sovereign 
might voluntarily enter into with another ; a meeting 
of all the Creeks was summoned, to whom Mary made 
a long speech, in which she set forth the justice of 
her claim, and the great injury she and her beloved 
subjects had sustained by the loss of their territories, 
and urged them to a defence of their rights by force 
of arms. The Indians were fired with rage at the 
idea of such indignity, and to a jnan pledged them- 
selves to stand by her to the last drop of their blood 
in defence of her royal person and their lands ; in 
consequence of which, queen Mary, escorted by a 
large body of her savage subjects, set out for Savan- 
nah, to demand from the president and council a 
formal acknowledgment of her rights in the province. 
A messenger was despatched, to notify to the presi- 
dent the royal family's approach, to say that Mary 
had assumed her right and title of sovereignty over 
the whole territories of the upper and lower Creeks, 
and to demand that all the lands south of Sai^annah 
river should be relinquished without loss of time ; 
adding, that she was the hereditary and rightful queen 
of both nations, and could command the whole force 
of her tribe, and, in case of refusal, she had deter- 
mined to extirpate the whole settlement. President 
Stephens and his council, alarmed at her high preten- 
sions and bold threats, and sensible of her influence 
with the Indians, from her having been made a wo- 
man of consequence as an interpreter, were not a 
little embarrassed what steps to take for the public 
safety ; they thought it best to use soft and healing 
measures, until an opportunity might offer of private- 
ly laying hold of her and shipping her off" to England. 



• The speech of the president at one of these conferences gives 
a very clear statement of the affair: — "Friends and brothers: 
When Mr. Oglethorpe and his people first arrived in Georgia, they 
found Mary, then the wife of John Musgrove, living in a small hut 
at Yamacraw; he had a license from the governor of South Caro- 
lina to trade with the Indians ; she then appeared to be in a poor 
ragged condition, and was neglected and despised by the Creeks; 
but General Oglethorpe, finding that she could speak both the 
English and Creek languages, employed her as an interpreter, 
richly clothed her, and made her a woman of the consequence she 
now appears ; the people of Georgia always respected her, until 
she married Bosomworth, but from that time she has proved a liar 
and a deceiver. In fact, she was no relation of Malatche, but the 
daughter of an Indian woman of no note, by a white man : Gene- 
ral Oglethorpe did not treat with her for the lands of Georgia, for 



In the mean time, the militia were ordered to hold 
themselves in readiness to march to Savannah, at the 
shortest notice. The town was put in the best possi- 
ble state of defence, but its whole force amounted to 
only one hundred and seventy men able to bear arms; 
a messenger was sent to Mary, while she was yet 
several miles distant from Savannah, at the head of 
her mighty host, to know whether she was serious in 
such wild pretensions, and to try the influence of per- 
suasion to induce her to dismiss her followers, and 
drop her audacious design ; but finding her inflexible 
and resolute, the president resolved to put on a bold 
countenance, and receive the savages with firmness. 
Several interviews between the magistrates and the 
Indian chiefs took place on this strange occurrence, 
and the president* and council were flattering them- 
selves with the idea of an amicable compromise of 
all the existing difiiculties, and rejoicing in the re-es- 
tablishinent of friendly intercourse with the Creeks, 
when Marj;-, excited with liquor, and disappointed in 
her royal views, rushed in amongst them like a fury, 
told the president that these were her people, that he 
had no business with them, and that he should soon 
be convinced of it to his cost. The president calmly 
advised her to retire to her lodgings, and forbear to 
poison the minds of the Indians, adding, that he would 
otherwise order her into close confinement ; upon 
which, turning about to Malatche, in great rage, she 
repeated, with some ill-natured comments, what the 
president had said ; Malatche started from his seat, 
laid hold of his arms, calling upon the rest to fol- 
low his example, and dared any man to touch the 
queen. The whole house wari filled in a moment 
with tumult and uproar ; every Indian having his 
tomahawk in his hand, the president and council ex- 
pected nothing but instant death. During this confu- 
sion. Captain Jones, who commanded the guard, very 
seasonably interposed, and ordered the Indians im- 
mediately to surrender their arms, endeavouring, how- 
ever, not merely to overawe them, but using prudence 
to avoid comine: to extremities : with reluctance the 



she had none; but with the old and wise leaders of the Creek na- 
tion, who voluntarily surrendered their territories to the king; the 
Indians at that time having much waste land, which was useless to 
themselves, parted with a share of it to their friends, and were glad 
that white people had settled among them, to supply their wants. 
He told them that the present discontents of the Creeks had been 
artfully infused into them by Mary, at the instigation of her hus- 
band; that he demanded a third part of the royal bounty, in order 
to rob the naked Indians of their rights ; that he had quarrelled 
with the president and council of Georgia, for refusing to answer 
his exorbitant demands, and therefore had filled the heads of the 
Indians with wild' fancies and groundless jealousies, in order to 
ferment mischief, and induce them to break their alliance with 
their best friends, who alone were able to supply their wants, anj 
defend tbem against their enemies." 



1G2 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Indians submitted, and Mary was conveyed to a pri- 
vate room, where a guard was placed over her, and 
all further communication with the Indians denied 
her, during their stay in Savannah. Ultimately the 
soi-disaut queen was compelled to abandon her pre- 
tensions, and the Indians were induced to depart, to 
the great joy of the inhabitants, who had been so 
long harassed by their turbulent visit. 

The prosperity of the colony had been much 
retarded by the wars to which it had been subject, 
and by the mistaken though well-intentioned man- 
agement of the trustees, who, embarrassing it by too 
much regulation, discouraged the emigrants, and 
checked its growth. Finding that the province lan- 
guished under their care, and weary of the com- 
plaints of the people, in the year 1752 they surren- 
dered their charter to the king, and it was made 
a royal government ; in consequence of which, his 



majesty appointed John Reynolds, an officer of the 
navy, governor of the province, and a legislature 
similar to that of the other royal governments in 
America. Great had been the expense which the 
mother country had already incurred, besides pri- 
vate benefactions, for supporting this colony ; and 
small had been the returns yet made by it. The 
vestiges of cultivation were scarcely perceptible in 
the forest, and in England all commerce with it was 
neglected and despised. At this time the whole ex- 
ports of Georgia did not amount to ten thousand 
pounds per annum. Though the people were now 
favoured with the same liberties and privileges en- 
joyed by their neighbours under the royal care, yet 
several years more elapsed before the value of the 
lands in Georgia was known, and that spirit of in- 
dustry broke out in.it, which afterwards diffused its 
happy influence over the country. 



l%t^^ 




CHAPTER I. 

FRENCH AND INDIAN WARS, A. D. 175G — 1763. 

The formation and progress of all the colonies 
ivliich constituted the North American republic at 
the era of its independence, have now been traced up 
to the middle of the eighteenth century. From that 
period circumstances tended rapidly to promote that 
federation which eventually effected the independence 
of the colonies, and laid the basis of their future 
prosperity ; indeed, in the prosecution of the French 
war, which commenced in 1756, the energies of the 
colonies were so united in the attainment of one 
common object, that the generalization of their 
political history from that period is not only render- 
ed preferable, but almost inevitable. 

Before entering on the narrative of the war which 
was commenced by the French with the intention of 
limiting the English colonies in America to the vi- 
cinity of the sea coast, but which terminated in the 
transfer of by far the most extensive and valuable of 
their colonies to their rival, it is desirable to give a 
brief outline of the rise of the Gallic settlements, and 
of the relative position of the territories of the two 
nations previous to the commencement of hos- 
tilities. 

The early discoveries of Cartier had turned the 
eyes of France towards the St. Lawrence and the 
neighbouring territory, and established her claim to 
it, according to that peculiar code by which Euro- 
peans have deemed it proper to apportion among 
themselves the rest of mankind. Although Canada 
had scarcely any measure of the smiling and luxu- 
riant aspect of Florida, or even of Virginia, yet it 
opened into regions of vast extent ; and the tracing 
to distant fountains the sea-like abyss of its waters, 
presented more than common attraction to curiosity 
and adventure. The first who undertook to colo- 
nize these northern regions, was a Breton, named De 
la Roche. He obtained from Henry IV. a patent of 



the same extensive character as those granted in 
England to Gilbert and Raleigh. But so little sym- 
pathy did the nation exhibit in his views, that he 
was obliged to draw upon the jails for a great pro- 
portion of the sailors, and his effort proved an entire 
failure. 

A more vigorous attempt was made by De 
Monts ; but Champlain, his successor, must be re- 
garded as the real founder of Canada, or New France. 
He built and fortified Q-uebec, and having brought 
the adjacent country into a tolerable state of cultiva- 
tion, he proceeded to explore the vast wilderness by 
which he was surrounded. The southern bank, 
both of the river and lakes, was found occupied by 
two powerful people, the Algonquins and the Hurons, 
who were engaged in deadly and almost ceaseless 
warfare with the Iroquois, a still fiercer and more 
warlike tribe, occupying all the southern shore of 
the St. Lawrence, and of Lakes Erie and Ontario. 
To promote his subjects of discovery and of interior 
intercourse, Champlain determined to take an active 
part with the two former. The Iroquois allied 
themselves with the English, to whom they rendered 
most valuable, though sometimes fierce and revolting, 
assistance in their contest with their rivals. By 
arduous and persevering labours, Champlain was 
enabled to form an accurate idea of the extent and 
situation of Canada, which seemed to afibrd almost 
indefinite scope both for trade and settlement. The 
company under whose direction the aflairs of Canada 
were placed, however, did not second the ardour of 
Champlain, and his interest at court procured the 
abrogation of their charter. From its ashes rose one 
on a much grander scale, and which aimod to con- 
vert New France into a colony of the first magnitude ; 
but unfortunately for these projectors, the English, 
animated by that hostile feeling which was inspired 
by the persecution of the protestants, not only drove 
the French completely out of Acadia, but besieged and 
took Quebec, so that this boasted colony seemed forever 



164 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



lost to the mother country ; but the court of London, 
strong-ly inclined for peace with France, agreed, on 
the 29th of March. 1632, to a convention, by which 
her .sovereignty was reinstated both in Acadia and 
Quebec. 

For fifty years the attention of government was 
rather directed to the consolidation and internal im- 
provement of the colony, than to exploring the ex- 
pan.se of interior America. The Count de Frontignac 
was, however, possessed of a more enterprising spirit. 
He extended the range of settlement to the shores of 
Liake Ontario, built there .the fort that bears his 
name, and opened an intercourse with the tribes 
who roam over the boundless plains westward of 
the Alleghany. Here he learned that afar along the 
western plain there rolled a river so mighty, that 
even the hitherto unequalled stream of the St. Law- 
rence could not come into competition with it. This 
river poured its stupendous current not in any of the 
directions hitherto recognised in the streams of 
America, but towards some distant ocean, that lay 
far in the south and the west. In the existing dark- 
ness as to the boundaries and details of the continent, 
it was concluded that this could only be the Mer 
Vermeio, or Gulf of California, by which it was 
hoped that the long-sought-for passage might be 
found to the golden regions of India. The strongest 
motives, therefore, impelled the coiuit to strain every 
effort for its discovery. Frontignac found no want of 
bold and fitting instruments. M. .Tolyet undertook, 
with two little Indian bark canoes, and three men in 
each, to explore these luiknown secrets of the great 
interior America. The expedition proceeded first 
throujyh the already explored lakes of Erie and 
Michigan, till they reached the north-western ex- 
tremity of the latter. Two Miamis undertook to be 
their guides up the Fox River, and to see them 
embarked on the Wiscousan, which fell into the 
Mississippi. The voyage down the Wiscousan, was 
easy and prosperous, and they saw it with exultation 
openina: into that grand stream of which they were 
in search, the broad Mississippi, descending from its 
distant northern fountains to the unknown southern 
sea in which it was to terminate. The enterprising 
voyagers prosecuted their journey, impeded only by 
occasional intercourse with the native tribes inhabit- 
ing the banks of the Mississippi, which were general- 
ly friendly ; in a few days they heard from the 
right a mighty roar of waters, and saw trees and 
floating islands rushing down into the channel. 
This was the influx of the great Missouri from its 
distant source in the Rocky or Chippewayan Moun- 
tains, after a longer course, and with a larger body 



of water than the Mississippi itself; but it was 
a subject of regret that the channel, which 
before was clear and gentle, became now trou- 
bled, muddy, and rapid. At length they came 
to the Arkansas, at the mouth of the great river 
Arkansaw. Here they were informed, not with 
strict accuracy, that they were within five days' sail 
of the sea. On comparing this statement with their 
actual position, they became convinced that the 
Mississippi emptied itself into the gulf of Mexico, 
not as they had expected and hoped into the sea 
of California. Considering, therefore, that by pro- 
ceeding downwards they might fall into the hands 
of Spaniards, they determined to return to Canada. 

Subsequently La Salle, pursuing the same course, 
reached the Gulf of Mexico. He then returned to 
France, and procured tlie command of an expe- 
dition to effect a settlement at the mouths of the 
Mississippi ; but sailing too far westward, he missed 
his object, and while endeavouring to penetrate 
to the Mississippi by land, was basely assassinated by 
some of his own men ; and, of the whole colony, all 
perished except seven, who finally reached Canada. 
In 1699, a more successful attempt was made by 
Mr. D'Ibberville, who entered the Mississippi, and 
laid the- foundation of the first French colony in 
Lower Louisiana. The place chosen for a settle- 
ment was near the mouth of the river Perdido. 
a very injudicious choice, from the unhealthiness 
of the climate and the barrenness of the soil. From 
these circumstances, together with the improper 
management of the royal governors, and the profli- 
gate character of many of the settlers, the progress of 
the colony was very slow. In the year 1717, the city 
of New Orleans was founded. The most romantic 
and extravagant accounts of the country were now 
published. It was represented as aboimding in the 
precious metals, and as combining all the delights 
of the most favoured spots on earth. Thousands of 
emigrants were allured by these descriptions, most of 
whom perished miserably from sickness and want 
of food. Agriculture had made little progress, and 
the disposition of the majority of the settlers led them 
rather to assimilate their habits to those of the 
savages, than to pursue a regular course of industry. 
About the year 1730, its affairs began to wear a 
prosperous aspect ; the settlements were gradually 
extended up the Mississippi, and the productions of 
the country were exported to some profit. 

Being in possession of the inland seas of Canada, 
as they are justly termed, and of the mouths of the 
grand receiver of most of the principal rivers of North 
America, the French conceived the bold idea of 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



165 



uniting their northern and southern possessions by a 
chain of forts along the banks of the Ohio and Missis- 
sippi; and by that means also to confine the English 
colonists to the eastern side of tlie AUeghanies. In 
their northern colonies their military strength was 
considerable ; Q,uebec and Montreal were strongly 
fortified; and at other points, Louisburg, Cape Breton, 
and the forts of Lake Champlain, Niagara, Crown 
Point, Frontignac, Ticonderoga, and several others, 
defended the frontiers. They had also erected a 
considerable fort at the junction of the Alleghany 
with the Monongahela, then called Du Glucsne, but 
now forming the site of Pittsburgh, the Birmingham 
of America. The various scenes of hostility which, 
with different success, were almost perpetually occur- 
ring between the rival colonists, have, in a previous 
chapter, been related to the period when, for a short 
time, they were terminated by the peace of Aix la 
Chapelle. It remains now to record the events of the 
war which terminated the dominion of France in the 
northern, and by far most valuable, portion of her 
territories in America. 

The grants of territory from the English crown 
were many of them from the coast of the Atlantic, 
westward to the Pacific Ocean. It is evident, there- 
fore, that the plans of the French, in extending their 
forts and their claims from north to sonth, directly 
crossed the path of the English colonists, and must 
be viewed by them with a spirit of opposition and a 
determination to resist. They naturally felt their 
vast superiority in point of numbers, their colonies 
containins: at this time upwards of a million inhabit- 
ants, while the population of Canada, Louisiana, and 
all the intermediate stations, scarcely exceeded fifty 
thousand. The immediate occasion of the interrup- 
tion of the peace, which had endured only five years, 
was the alleged intrusion of the Ohio company, an 
association of influential men from England and 
Virginia, who had obtained a grant of six hundred 
thousand acres of land in the vicinity of the river 
whose title they assumed, embracing a portion of 
territory the French deemed to be within the limits 
8f their dominion. From these grants of lands to 
the Ohio company, the governor of Canada appre- 
hended, that the English were pursuing a scheme 
which misj-ht deprive the French of the advantages 
arising from the trade with the Twightees, and cut off 
the communication between Canada and Louisiana.* 
He had written to the governors of New York and 



• M. Du Cluesne, who succeeded M. de la Ga]lissionere in tlie 
government of Canada, having received instructions to take pos- 
session of the countries on the Ohio for the crovra of France, in 
Ihe bej^inning of 1753 ordered the Sieur de St. Pierre, with a de- 



Pennsylvania, acquainting them that the English 
traders ha'd encroached on the French territories by 
trading with their Indians, and that, if they did not 
desist, he should be obliged to seize them wherever 
found. This menace did not divert the Ohio com- 
pany from prosecuting its design of surveying the 
country as far as the falls in Ohio River. While the 
survey was proceeding, a French party seized three 
British traders, and carried them to Presqn' Isle, on 
Lake Erie, where a strong fort was then erecting. 
The British, alarmed at this capture, retired to the 
Indian towns for shelter : and the Twightees, resent- 
ing the violence done to their allies, assembled, to the 
number of five or six hundred, scoured the woods, 
and findintr three French traders, sent them to Penn- 
sylvania. The French, determined to persist, built 
a second fort, about fifteen miles south of the former, 
on one of the branches of the Ohio ; and another at 
the confluence of the Ohio, and Wabash ; and thus 
completed their long projected communication be- 
tween the mouth of the Mississippi and the river St. 
Lawrence. 

The Ohio company complaining loudly of these 
aggressions on the country which had been granted 
to them as part of the territory of Virginia, Robert 
Dinwiddle, lieutenant-governor of that colony, consi- 
dering the encroachment as an invasion of liis 
province, judged it his duty to demand, in the name 
of the king, that the French should desist from the 
prosecution of designs, which he considered as a 
violation of the treaties subsisting between the two 
crowns. This service, it was foreseen, would be 
rendered very fatiguing and hazardous, by the exten- 
sive tract of country, almost entirely unexplored, 
through which an envoy must pass, as well as by the 
hostile dispositions of some of the Indian inhabitants, 
and the doubtful attachment of others. Uninviting, 
however, and even formidable, as it was, George 
Washington, then in his twenty-second year, hesitated 
not to engage in it. Attended by one person only, 
he set out from Williamsburg on the 31st of October. 
The season was uncommonly severe, and the length 
of his journey was above four hundred miles, two 
hundred of which lay through a trackless desert, 
inhabited by Indians. On the 12th of December he 
arrived at a French fort, the head-quarters of M. 
Lagarjiier de St. Pierre, commanding officer on the 
Ohio, to whom he delivered the letter of Governor 
Dinwiddle. The chief officers retired to hold a 



tachment, to lake post on the river Aux Ba;ufs, and there lo remain 
until he received farther orders. St. Pierre took post tliere ac 
cordingly, and erected a fort for its securit}'. Of this, Mr. Din- 
widdie, lieutenant-governor of Virginia, had early intelligence. 



lf)8 



HISTORY OF THE UNITKD STATES. 



council of war ; and Washington seized that oppor- 
tunity of taking the dimensions of the fort, and 
making every possible observation. The answer of 
St. Pierre stated, that he had taken possession of 
the country by direction of the governor-general of 
Canada ; that he would transmit Governor Dinwid- 
die's letter to him; and that to his orders he should 
yield implicit obedience. 

This reply not being satisfactory tn the governor, 
preparations were made in Virginia to maintain by 
force the rights of the British crown. Troops, con- 
stituting a regiment, were raised, the command of 
which, on the death of the colonel first appointed, 
was given to Mr. Washington. At the head of about 
four hundred men, he advanced early in the spring 
into the territory in dispute. On his route he met, 
attacked, and defeated, a French party, under the 
command of one Dijonville, who approached him 
in a maimer indicating hostile intentions. He pro- 
ceeded towards the fort Du Quesne, sitliate at the 
junction of the Alleghany and Monongahela. From 
this fort De Villier, at the head of nine hundred men, 
inarched out to attack him. Hearing of the approach 
of this party, Colonel Washington halted, and hastily 
erected some imperfect works, by means of which he 
hoped to prolong his defence until the arrival of rein- 
forcements. He was closely besieged by De Villier. 
hut making an obstinate defence, was offered the 
most honourable terms of capitulation, which hs ac- 
cepted, and returned with his regiment to Virginia. 

The proceedings of the French in America excited 
a strong interest in the minds of the British govern- 
ment ; and deeming war inevitable, orders were sent 
to the governors of the several colonies to repel force 
by force, and to dislodge the French from their posts 
on the Ohio. These orders were accompanied with 
a recommendation to form a union of the colonies 
for more effective defence. Delegates had already 
been appointed to meet at Albany, for the purpose of 
conferring with the Five Nations ; and Governor 
Shirley recommended that the subject of union should 
also be discussed at the convention. The commis- 
sioners from Massachusetts had ample powers to co- 
operate in the formation of a plan ; those from Mary- 
land were instructed to observe what others did ; 
and those from New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Con- 
necticut, Pennsylvania, and New York, had no in- 
structions at all on the subject. As soon, however, 
as the friendship of the Indians was thought to be 
secured by a distribution of presents, the delegates ap- 
pointed a committee to devise some scheme for the 
proposed confederation ; and the committee recom- 
mended the adoption of a government analogous to 



that of the individual colonies. There was to be a 
grand council, composed of deputies from the several 
provinces, and a president-general, appointed by the 
crown, with the power of negativing the acts of 
the council. The Connecticut delegates, however, 
dissented from this plan, because it placed too prepon- 
derating a power in the hands of the crown. It was 
rejected by the British ministry for the very opposite 
reason ; they suggested, however, that the several 
governors, with one or two of their counsellors, should 
meet and adopt such measures as the common safety 
might demand. BiU this scheme was defeated by a 
provision, that they might draw upon the British trea- 
sury for all necessary sums, which parliament would 
undertake to repay by imposing a general tax upon 
the colonies. The Massachusetts assembly sent spe- 
cial instructions to its agent in London to oppose most 
strenuously any measure which had for its object the 
establishment of taxes on the colonies, under what- 
ever plea of utility; and Franklin, to whom the go- 
vernor of Virginia had sent the proposition of the 
British minister, states most distinctly in his letter in 
reply, the reasons which would ever prevent the Ame- 
ricans from consenting to such a proposal. He ob- 
serves, that it would inspire universal discontent 
among the Americans to attempt the imposition of 
taxes by a parliament where they were not represent- 
ed, a point of which neither the colonies nor the Bri- 
tish government ever lost sight, from this period till 
the contest it originated terminated in the entire se- 
paration of the former from its dependence on the 
British crown. 

Early in the spring of 17.5.5, the British govern- 
ment despatched General Braddock to America, with 
a respectable force to expel the French, and keep 
possession of the territory ; and preparations having 
been made by France to despatch a reinforcement to 
her armies in Canada, Admiral Boscawen Avas order- 
ed to endeavour to intercept the French fleet before 
it should enter the gulf of St. Lawrence. In April, 
General Braddock met the governors of the several 
provinces to confer upon the plan of the ensuing 
campaign. Three expeditions were resolved upon ; 
one against Dn duesne, to be commanded by Gene- 
ral Braddock ; one against forts Niagara and Frontig- 
nac, to be commanded by Governor Shirley ; and one 
against Crown Point, to he commanded by General 
Johnson. This last originated with Massachusetts, 
and was to be executed by colonial troops raised m 
New England and New York. • 

While preparations were making for these expedi- 
tions, another, which had been previously concerted, 
was carried on against the French forts in Nova Sco- 



II 




II 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



167 



tia. This province was settled by the French, but 
was ceded to the Enghsh by the treaty of Utrecht. Its 
boundaries not having been defined, the French con- 
tinued to occupy a portion of the territory claimed by 
the English, and had built forts for their defence. 
To gain possession of these was the object of the expe- 
dition. About two thousand militia, commanded by 
Colonel Winslow, embarked at Boston ; and being 
joined on their passage by three hundred regulars, ar- 
rived in April at the place of their destination. The 
forts were invested, the resistance made was trifling 
and inefiectual, and in a short time the English gain- 
ed entire possession of the province, according to 
their own definition of its boundaries. Three only of 
their men were killed. 

As soon as the convention of governors was dis- 
solved. General Braddock proceeded to the post at 
Well's Creek, whence the army commenced its march 
about the middle of June. Their progress was 
very much retarded by the necessity of cutting a road ; 
and, lest the enemy should have time to collect in 
great force, the general concluded to set forward with 
twelve hundred select men, while Colonel Dunbar 
should follow slowly in the rear, with the main 
body and the heavy baggage. Colonel Washington's 
regiment had been split into separate companies, and 
he had only joined the army as aid to the general. 
The roughness of the country prevented the advan- 
ced corps from reaching the Monongahela till the 
8th of July. It was resolved to attack Dii Quesne 
the very next day ; and lieutenant-colonel Gage 
was sent in front with three hundred British regulars, 
while the general himself followed at some distance 
with the main body. He had been strongly caution- 
ed by Colonel Washington to provide against an 
ambuscade, by sending forward some provincial 
companies to scour the woods ; but he held the 
provincials and the enemy in equal contempt. The 
Monongahela was crossed the second time, about 
seven miles from Du Q,uesne ; and the army was 
pressing forward in an open wood, through high 
and thick grass, when the front was suddenly 
thrown into disorder by a volley from small arms. 
The main body was formed three deep, and brought 
to its support : the commander-in-chief of the enemy 
fell ; and a cessation of the fire led General Brad- 
dock to suppose that the assailants had fled ; but he 
was soon attacked with redoubled fury. Concealed 



» Braddock was mortally wounded, and taken on sashes, at 
first, from the field, and then a litter was made for him, on which 
he was carried forty miles from the battle ground, where he ex- 
pired on the evening of the fourth day after his defeat. Seven 
hundred of his men were killed, among whom were William Shir- 
ley, of the staff, and Col. Sir Peter Halket. Among the wounded 

22 



behind trees, logs, and rocks, the Indians poured 
upon the troops a deadly and incessant fire ; oflicers 
and men fell thickly around, and the survivors knew 
not where to direct their aim to revenge their 
slaughtered comrades. The whole body was again 
thrown into confusion ; but the general, obstinate 
and courageous, refused to retreat ; and instead of 
withdrawing them beyond the reach of the enemy's 
muskets, where their ranks might easily have been 
formed anew, undertook to rally them on the very 
ground of attack, and in the midst of a most inces- 
sant and deadly fire. He persisted in these efibrts 
until three horses had been shot under him, and 
every one of his officers on horseback, except Colonel 
Washington, was either killed or wounded. The 
general at length fell, and the rout became universal.* 
The troops fled .precipitately until they met the division 
under Dunbar, then forty miles in the rear. Sixty- 
four oflicers out of eighty-five and about half of the 
privates were killed or wounded. General Brad- 
dock died in Dunbar's camp ; and the whole army, 
which appears to have been panic struck, marched 
back to Philadelphia. The provincial troops, whom 
Braddock had so lightly esteemed, displayed during 
the battle the utmost calmness and courage. Though 
placed in the rear, they alone, led on by Washing- 
ton, advanced against the Indians, and covered the 
retreat ; and had they at first been permitted to en- 
gage the enemy in their own way, they would easily 
have defeated them. 

The two northern expeditions, though not so 
disastrous, did not either of them succeed in at- 
taining the object proposed. • In that against Crown 
Point much delay was occasioned by the distracted 
councils of so many different governments ; and it 
was not till the last of August, that General .Tohnson, 
witli three thousand seven himdred men, arrived at 
the fort of Lake George, on his way to Ticonderoga. 
Meanwhile the French squadron bad eluded Admiral 
Boscawen ; and, as soon as it arrived at Quebec, 
Baron Dieskau, the commander, resolved to march 
against Oswego with his own twelve hundred re- 
gulars, and about six hundred Canadians and 
Indians. The news of General Johnson's move- 
ment determined Dieskau to change his plan, and to 
lead his forces directly against the American camp. 
General Johnson called for reinforcements : eight 
hundred troops, raised as a corps of reserve by 

were Robert Orme, Roger Morris, Sir John Si. Clair, and several 
others of the staff, and Lieut. Cols. Button and Gage. Braddock 
was a brave and excellent officer. His mistake was in not study- 
ing the character of the enemy. Franklin advised him to proceed 
with the utmost caution ; but the proud general thought the ad- 
viser was a much better philosopher than soldier. — Am. Ed. 



168 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Massachusetts, were immediately ordered to his 
assistance ; and the same colony undertook to raise 
an additional number of two thousand men. Co- 
lonel Williams was sent forward with one thousand 
men to amuse and reconnoitre the enemy. He met 
them four miles from the camp, offered battle, and 
was defeated.* Another detachment shared the 
same fate ; and the French were now within one 
hundred and fifty yards of the camp, when a halt 
for a short time enabled the Americans to recover 
their alarm, and to make good use of their artillery 
through the fallen trees, behind which they were 
posted. Dieskau advanced to the charge ; but 
he was so firmly received, that the Indians and 
militia gave way and fled : he was obliged to order 
a retreat of the regulars ; and, in the ardent pursuit 
which ensued, he was himself mortally wounded and 
made prisoner.! A scouting party had, in tlie 
mean time, taken the enemy's baggage ; and when 
the retreating army came up, they attacked it so suc- 
cessfully from behind the trees, that the panic-struck 
soldiers dropped all their accoutrements, and fled 
in the utmost confusion for their posts on the lakes.? 
This victory revived the spirits of the colonists, de- 
pressed by the recent defeat of General Braddock, but 
the success was not improved in any proportion to 
their expectation. General Shirley, now the com- 



* Hencirick, a Mohawk chief, was killed in this battle. He 
was the son of a Mohegan chief, by a Mohawk woman. He mar- 
rieil into a Mohawk family, and became distinguished among the 
six nations. His fame extended to Massachusetts, for the commis- 
sioners, in 1751, consulted him on the great question of instructing 
certain youtlis of his nation. He was friendly to the English ; and 
in this battle with Dieskau, he commanded three hundred Mo- 
hawks. He was grave and sententious in council, and brave in 
fight. Some of his aphorisms are as wise as those of Solon. When 
it was proposed to send a detachment to meet the enemy, and the 
number being mentioned, he replied: " If they are to fight, tliey are 
too few; if they are to be killed, they are too many." When it 
was proposed to send out the detachment in three parlies, Hendrick 
took three sticks, and said, " put them together, and you can not 
break them ; take them one by one, and you will break them easily." 
They followed the advice of the old warrior in this ; and had they 
regarded the precautions he suggested, in scouring the field by a 
flank guard, Williams would not have fallen into the ambuscade. 
Hendrick is remembered among the friends of white men, who 
now and then have been found in the difltrent ages of our history, 
among Indians. — Am. Ed. 

t John Harmand Dieskau, baron, was a lieutenant general in 
the French army. In 1755, he left Montreal with twelve hundred 
regulars, and six hundred Canadians and Indians. General John- 
son, with three thousand seven hundred men, arrived at the fort ol 
Lake George, on his way to Ticonderoga. Baron Dieskau, hear- 
ing of this movement of General Johnson, instead of proceeding 
to Albany, as was his original intention, resolved to attack the 
American camp. A reinforcement of eight hundred troops was 
sent to General Johnson's assistance; and Colonel Williams, with 
one thousand men, was ordered to reconnoitre the enemy. He 
met the enemy, but was defeated, and left among the slain. The 
loss of the French was also considerable ; M. St. Pierre, com- 
mander of the Indians, was mortally wounded. On the same day, 
the 3th of September, Baron Dieskau appeared in view of Colonel 



mander-in-chief, urged an attempt on Ticonderoga ; 
but a council of war judging it unadvisable, Johnson 
employed the remainder of the campaign in fortify 
ing his camp. On a meeting of commissioners 
from Massachusetts, and Connecticut, with the go- 
vernor and council of New York, in October, it Avas 
unanimously agreed, that the army under General 
Johnson should be discharged, excepting six hun- 
dred men, who should be engaged to garrison Fort 
Edward and Fort William Henry. The French 
still retained possession of Ticonderoga, and forti- 
fied it. 

General Shirley, § who was to conduct the ex- 
pedition against Niagara and Fort Frontignac, 
experienced such delays, that he did not reach Oswe- 
go until the 21st of August. On his arrival, he 
made all necessary preparations for the expedition to 
Niagara ; but, through the desertion of batteau men, 
the scarcity of wagons on the Mohawk River, and 
the desertion of sledgemen at the great carrying place, 
the conveyance of provisions and stores was so 
much retarded, that nearly four weeks elapsed 
before he could commence any further operations ; 
and from a continued succession of adverse circum- 
stances, in a council of war called on the 27th of 
September, it was unanimously resolved to defer the 
expedition to the succeeding year ; to leave Colonel 

Johnson's army, which was encamped on the banks of Lake George, 
defended on each side by a woody swamp. The Americans having 
recovered from the alarm which their first disaster had thrown 
them into, and being stationed behind some fallen trees, their su- 
perior situation enabled them to make good use of their artillery. 
Dieskau, encouraged by his previous success, advanced boldly to 
the charge; but his Indians, more accustoined to the tomahawk and 
scalping knife, than to the roar of cannon, fled in dismay. His 
auxiliary troops being so dispersed, he was obliged to order a re- 
treat of the regulars. In the pursuit which followed, he was him- 
self wounded. A soldier, seeking for plunder, found Dieskau alone, 
deserted by his troops, leaning on the stump of a tree, unable to 
move from a wound in his leg. While he was searching for his 
walch, to deliver lo him, the soldier supposing he was seeking for 
a pistol, poured a charge through his hips. He was conveyed to 
New York, where he was attended by Dr. Jones. He never en- 
tirely recovered from the wound, which gradually impaired his 
constitution, and he died in consequence of it, at Surene, in France, 
September 8th, 1767. He was unquestionably a general of milita- 
ry skill. — Ibid. 

t General Phineas Lyman was second in command in this baltle. 
He was a brave man, of far superior abilities lo Johnson ; and 
when Ihe commander in chief was wounded. General Lyman look 
Ihe command, and fought out the battle most gallantly. Lyman 
was a man of first rale talents and education, a lawyer, and a 
statesman. He sustained himself for five hours, on ihat day, and 
gave his orders like a veteran soldier ; but Johnson never mentioned 
his name in his account of the baltle, from a most despicable feeling 
o( jealousy. Lyman continued for several campaigns to command 
the Connecticut troops, and won laurels in every situation. The 
close of his life was dark and sad ; but his honour was never tar- 
nished. — Ibid. 

§ Shirley was a good lawyer, and a brave ofilcer. He was a 
man of literary tasie and acquirements. He published a tragedy, 
and some other dramatic works. — Ibid. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



169 



Mercer at Oswego, with a garrison of seven hundred 
men, and to build two additional forts for the securi- 
ty of the place ; while the general should return with 
the rest of the army to Albany. Thus ended tlie 
campaign of 1755 : it opened with the brightest 
prospects ; immense preparations had been made, 
yet not one of the objects of the three principal ex- 
peditions had been attained ; and by this failure the 
whole frontier was exposed to the ravages of the 
Indians, which were accompanied by their usual 
acts of barbarity. 

The colonies, however, far from being discouraged 
by the misfortunes of the last campaign, determined 
to renew and increase their exertions. General 
Shirley, to whom the superintendence of all the 
military operations had been confided, assembled a 
council of war at New York to concert a plan for the 
ensuing year. The plan adopted by the council 
embraced expeditions against Du Quesne, Niagara, 
and Crown Point, and the despatching a body of 
troops by way of the rivers Kennebeck and Chau- 
diere, to create alarm for the safety of Quebec. 
Major-General Winslow* was appointed to lead the 
expedition against Crown Point. He was a popular 
officer, and the colonists felt a deep interest in the 
expedition ; but, for want of an established financial 
system, (their only taxes were upon lands and polls,) 
the requisite funds were raised with difficulty, and the 
recruiting service made very slow progress. Only 
seven thousand men assembled at the posts on Lake 
George. General Winslow declared, that, without 
more forces, he could not undertake the expedition ; 
and it would probably have been abandoned, had he 
not been reinforced by the timely arrival of some 
British troops. They came over with General Aber- 
crombie, who had superseded General Sliirley, and 
who soon after gave place to the Earl of Loudoun. 
These changes produced some unpleasant contests 
for priority of rank. General Winslow asserted 
frankly, that the provincials would never be com- 
manded by British officers ; and the Earl of Loudoun 
seriously propounded the question, whether the colo- 
nial troops, with his majesty's arms in their hands, 
would refuse obedience to his majesty's commanders? 
He was answered in the affirmative ; and when he 
understood that the New England troops, in par- 
ticular, had enlisted under the condition of being led 
by their own officers, he agreed to let those troops act 
separately. 

* Winslow was a grandson of the second governor of Plymouth, 
of that name. He was engaged as a captain in the expedition to 
Cuba, in 1740 ; as a major-general in the expeditions to Kennebec, 
Nova Scotia, and Crown Point, in the Spanish wars. The bold 



While the English were adjusting these differences, 
and debating whether it would be expedient to attack 
Fort Niagara, or Fort Du Quesne, Montcalm, the 
successor of Dieskau, marched against Oswego with 
about five thousand French, Canadians, and Indian,". 
His artillery played with such effect upon the fbrt, 
that it was soon declared untenable ; and to avoid an 
assault, the garrison, who were sixteen hundred in 
number, and had stores for five months, surrendered 
themselves prisoners of war. The fort had been an 
object of considerable jealousy to the Five Nations ; 
and Montcalm made a wise use of his conquest by 
demolishing it in their presence. The English and 
American army was now thrown upon the defensive. 
Instead of attacking Ticonderoga, General Winslow 
was ordered to fortify his own camp ; Major-general 
Webb, with fourteen hundred regulars, took post 
near Wood Creek ; and Sir William Johnson, with 
one thousand militia, was stationed at the German 
Flats. The colonists were now called upon for rein- 
forcements ; and, as parliament had distributed among 
them one hundred and fifteen thousand pounds for 
the last year's expenses, they were enabled to answer 
the call with perhaps more promptitude than was 
anticipated. The recruits were on their way to the 
camp, when intelligence of the small-pox at Albany 
frightened them home again. The other provincials 
were equally alarmed ; and all, except a New York 
regiment, were dismissed. Thus terminated the 
second campaign. The expedition up the Kenne- 
beck had been abandoned ; that against Niagara was 
not commenced ; and not even a preparation had 
been made for that against Du Quesne. 

At the commencement of the following year a 
council was held at Boston, composed of Lord 
Loudoun, and the governors of the New England 
provinces and of Nova Scotia. At this council his 
lordship proposed that New England should raise 
four thousand men for the ensuing campaign ; and 
that a proportionate number should be raised by 
New York and New Jersey. These requisitions were 
complied with ; and in the spring his lordship found 
himself at the head of a very considerable army. 
Admiral Holbourn arriving in the beginning of July 
at Halifax with a powerful squadron, and a reinforce- 
ment of five thousand British troops, under George 
Viscoimt Howe, Lord Loudoun sailed from New 
York with six thousand regulars, to join those troops 
at the place of their arrival. Instead of the complex 



stand he took in favour of the militia at that time, has been quoted 
as a precedent since, and endeared his name to every lover of mi- 
litary honour. — Am. Ed. 



170 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



operations undertaken in previous campaigns, his 
lordship hmited his plan to a single object. Leaving 
the posts on the lakes strongly garrisoned, he resolved 
to direct his whole disposable force against Louis- 
bourg ; Halifax having been determined on as the 
place of rendezvous for the fleet and army destined 
for the expedition. Information was, however, soon 
received, that a French fleet had lately sailed from 
Brest ; that Louisbourg was garrisoned by six thou- 
sand regulars, exclusive of provincials ; and that it 
was also defended by seventeen line of battle ships, 
which were moored in the harbour. There being no 
hope of success against so formidable a force, the 
enterprise was deferred to the next year ; the general 
and admiral on the last of August proceeded to New 
York ; and the provincials were dismissed. 

The Marquis de Montcalm, availing himself of the 
absence of the principal part of the British force, 
advanced with an army of nine thousand men, and 
laid siege to Fort William Henry. The garrison at 
this fort consisted of between two and three thousand 
regulars, and its fortifications were strong* and in very 
good order ; and for the additional security of this 
important post. General Webb was stationed at Fort 
Edward with an army of four thousand men. The 
French commander, however, urged his approaches 
with such vigour, that, within six days after the 
investment of the fort, Colonel Monro, the com- 
mandant, having in vain solicited succour from 
General Webb, found it necessary to surrender by 
capitulation. The garrison was to be allowed the 
honours of war, and to be protected against the In- 
dians until within the reach of Fort Edward ; but the 
next morning, a great number of Indians having been 

• This is a great mistake ; the fort was built merely as a defence 
against Indians, and was entirely unfit for a siege, by a power who 
had the command of ordnance. The fort was not abandoned until 
the last shot they had was fired. The conduct of the brave and 
gallant Montcalm, is inexplicable. Could not such a general, with 
so many regular troops, have restrained the Indians 1 His reputa- 
tion was without stain until that hour. Some of the disarmed and 
wretched troops were compelled to make resistance, and wrenched 
the arms from their assailants, and defended themselves with des- 
peration. There are blood-stained pages in history we could wish 
were not there. This is one of them. — Am. Ed. 

i While the army was in winter quarters, a circumstance oc- 
curred which exhibits the watchful jealousy the colonists ever ex- 
ercised over their liberties. " The general court had provided 
barracks on Castle Island, for a regiment of Highlanders, which 
had been expected at Boston. Some recruiting officers soon after- 
wards arrived at Nova Scotia; and, protesting that their regiments 
would never be filled up if the men must be lodged in these barracks, 
they required the justices of the peace to furnish quarters, accord- 
ing to the act of parliament. The justices denied that the act of 
parliament extended to this country. Lord Loudoun wrote the 
court a letter, and asserted roundly that it did ; that, moreover, he 
had 'used gentleness and patience' long enongh; and that unless 
the requisitions were complied with in forty-eight hours from the 
receipt of his letter, he should be ' under the necessity' of ordering 



permitted to enter the lines, began to plunder ; and 
meeting with no opposition, they fell upon the sick 
and wounded, whom they immediately massacred. 
Their appetite for carnage being excited, the defence- 
less troops were attacked with fiend-like fury. Monro 
in vain implored Montcalm to provide the stipulated 
guard, and the massacre proceeded. All was turbu- 
lence and horror. On every side savages were 
butchering and scalping their wretched victims. 
Their hideous yells, the groans of the dying, and the 
frantic shrieks of others shrinking from the uplifted 
tomahawk, were heard by the French unmoved. The 
fury of the savages was permitted to rage without 
restraint until fifteen hundred were killed, or hurried 
captives into the wilderness. The day after this 
awful tragedy. Major Putnam was sent with his 
rangers to watch the motions of the enemy. When 
he came to the shore of the lake, their rear was 
hardly beyond the reach of musket shot. The pros- 
pect was horrible in the extreme ; the fort demolished ; 
the barracks and buildings yet burning; innumerable 
fragments of human carcasses still broiled in the 
decaying fires; and dead bodies, mangled with toma- 
hawks and scalping knives, in all the wantonness 
of Indian barbarity, were every where scattered 
around. Who can forbear exclaiming with the poet, 

" Man is to man the surest, sorest ill !" 

Thus ended the third campaignt in America ; 
happily forming the last series of disasters resulting 
from folly and mismanagement, rather than from 
want of means and military strength. The successes 
of the French left the colonies in a gloomy state. By 
the acqttisition of Fort William Henry, they had ob- 
tained full possession of the lakes Champlain and 



' into Boston the three battalions from New York, Long Island, and 
Connecticut ; and if more were wanting, he had two in the Jerseys 
at hand, besides those in Pennsylvania.' The general court now 
passed an act very similar to ihat of parliamenl, on the subject of 
recruits; but it did not fully answer Lord Loudoun's expectations, 
nor did he fail to let them know it in a second epistle. The an- 
swer of the general court was merely a reiteration of what we 
have so often heard from the same body. They asserted their 
rights as Englishmen ; said they had conformed to the act of par- 
liament as nearly as the case would admit ; and declared that it 
was their misfortune, if a strict adherence to their duty should give 
oflence to Lord Loudoun. He, in turn, applauded the zeal of the 
province in the service of his majcst}', afiected to rely on its com- 
pliance with his wishes, and countermanded his orders for the 
march of the troops. The general court sent his excellency a con- 
ciliatory message, in which they asserted that they were entirely 
dependent on parli.amcnl; lhat its acts were the rule of all their 
judicial proceedings ; that its authority had never been questioned ; 
and that if they had not made this avowal ' in times past, it was be- 
cause there had been no occasion for it.' Judge Marshall seems to 
think that this language was sincere, but Mr. Minot attributes it to 
the desire of the court to keep friends with parliament till they 
were reimbursed for the expenses which (hey had incurred during 
the war. The truth is probably between the two opinions." — 
Sanford's Hist, of the United States, p. 145, 146. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



171 



George ; and by the destruction of Oswego, they had 
acquired the dominion of those other lakes which 
connect the St. Lawrence with the waters of Missis- 
sippi. The first afforded the easiest admission from 
the northern colonies into Canada, or from Canada 
into those colonies ; the last united Canada to Loui- 
siana. By the continued possession of Fort Du 
duesne, they preserved their ascendancy over the 
Indians, and held undisturbed control of all the 
coiuitry west of the Alleghany mountains. The 
British nation was alarmed and indignant, and the 
king found it necessary to change his councils. At 
the head of a new ministry, he placed the celebrated 
William Pitt, afterwards earl of Chatham, who was 
raised by his talents from the humble post of ensign 
in the guards to the control of the destinies of a 
mighty empire ; under his administration public con- 
fidence revived, and the nation seemed inspired with 
new life and vigour.* He was equally popular in 
both hemispheres ; and so promptly did the governors 
of the northern colonies obey the requisitions of his 
circular letter of 1757, that by May, in the following 
year, Massachusetts had seven thousand, Connecticut 
five thousand, and New Hampshire three thousand 
troops, prepared to take the field. The zeal of Mas- 
sachusetts was particularly ardent. The people of 
Boston supported taxes which took away two thirds 
of the income on real estate ; one half of the effective 

* " William Pitt, earl of Chatham, one of the most able and suc- 
cessful ministers that England ever possessed, was born November 
15, 1708, and was the son of Robert Pitt, Esq., of Eoconnock, in 
Cornwall. His education he received at Eton, and at Trinity Col- 
lege, Oxford. His entrance into public life was as a cornet of 
horse; and in 1735, through the influence of the duchess dowager 
of Marlborough, he was returned to parliament, as member for 
Old Sarum. He subsequently sat for Seaford, Aldborough, and 
Bath. As a senator, he soon rendered himself so obnoxious to 
Walpole, that the minislei', with equal injustice and impolicy, de- 
prived him of his commission. This unconstitutional ac! only en- 
hanced his popularity, and sharpened his resentment. After having 
been ten years in opposition, he was, early in 174G, appointed joint- 
vice-treasurer of Ireland ; and, in the same year, treasurer and 
paymaster general of the army, and a privy counsellor. During 
his treasurership, he invariably refused to benefit by the large ba- 
lances of money which necessarily remained in his hands. In 
1755, lie was dismissed; in 1756, he obtained a brief reinstate- 
ment in power, as secretary of state, and was again dismissed ; 
but, in 1757, defeat and disgrace having fallen on the country, the 
unanimous voice of the people compelled the sovereign to place 
him at the head of the administration. Under his auspices, Britain 
was, during four years, triumphant in every quarter of the globe. 
Thwarted in his measures, after the accession of George III., he 
resigned, in October, 1761, an office which he could no longer hold 
with honour to himself, or advantage to the nation. A pension 
was granted to him, and his wife was created a baroness. On the 
downfall of the Rockingham administration, Pitt was appointed 
lord privy seal, and was raised to the peerage, with the title of 
earl of Chatham. He acquired no gloiy as one of the new and ill- 
assorted ministry, and he withdrew from it in November, 1768. 
Though suffering severely from gout, he continued to speak in 
parliament upon all important questions. The American war, in 
particular, he opposed with all his wonted vigour and talent. On 



men in the province were on some sort of military 
duty ; and the transports for carrying the troops to 
Halifax were ready to sail in fourteen days from the 
time of their engagement. The mother country was 
not less active. While her fleets blockaded or cap- 
tured the French armaments, she despatched Admiral 
Eoscawen to Halifax with a formidable squadron of 
ships, and an army of twelve thousand men. Lord 
Loudoun was replaced by General Abercrombie, who, 
early in the spring of 1758, was ready to enter upon 
the campaign at the head of fifty thousand men, tlie 
most powerful army ever seen in America. 

Three points of attack were marked out for this 
campaign ; the first, Louisbourg ; the second, Ticon- 
deroga and Crown Point; and the third, Fort Du 
Quesne. On the first expedition Admiral Boscawen 
sailed from Halifax on the 28th of May, with a fleet 
of twenty ships of the line and eighteen frigates, and 
an army of fourteen thousand men, under the com- 
mand of General Amherst, and arrived before Louis- 
bourg on the 2d of June. The garrison of that place, 
commanded by the Chevalier de Drucourt, an officer 
of courage and experience, was composed of two 
thousand five hundred regulars, aided by six hundred 
militia. The harbour being secured by five ships of 
the line, one fifty gun ship, and five frigates, three 
of which were sunk across the mouth of the basin, it 
was found necessary to land at some distance from 

the 8th of April, 1778, while rising to speak in the house of lords, 
he fell into a convulsive fit, and he expired on the 11th of the fol- 
lowing May. He was interred, and a monument raised to him, in 
Westminsler Abbey, at the public e-xpense ; and a perpetual an- 
nuity of 4000/. was granted to his heirs. Some short poems, and 
a volume of letters to his nephew, have appeared in print. The 
character of Lord Chatham is thus ably summed up by Grallan : 
' There was in this man something that could create, subvert, or 
reform ; an understanding, a spirit, and an eloquence, to summon 
mankind to society, or to break the bonds of slavery asunder, and 
to rule the wilderness of free minds with unbounded authority; 
something that could establish or overwhelm empire, and strike a 
blow in the world that should resound through the universe.' " 

In America, his name was held in the highest estimation. 
Every patriot did him honour. Country signs bore his semblance, 
or something the people thought like his noble features. In the 
town of Dedhain, in Massachusetts, Nathaniel Ames, the father of 
the great orator, Fisher Ames, a physician, philosopher, and ma- 
thematician, erected a granite column to his memory, and sur- 
mounted it by a bust of the great friend to libeily. It was thrown 
down by time, and suffered to lie in neglect for many years; but 
it has since been renovated, and stands now a monument to de- 
parted genius and patriotism. " His eloquence formed an era in our 
language;" and the fire he breathed into the soul of freedom, has 
not, and we trust never will, be extinguished. Genius, united to 
letters and patriotism, can never die. We forgive his last act; it 
was one of feeling and of national pride. Lord Chatham aided 
the projectors of canals with his whole soul, while politicians 
thought he had better have been doing almost any thing else; but 
his sagacity has been proved by the wonderful advantages which 
have resulted to the nation from canals. Grattan should have 
added, that he foresaw the rcsonrces of the nation, and commenced their 
development ; if not so rhetorical, it would have been literally true ; 
and even the beauty of prophecy is its fulfilment. — American Editor. 



172 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



the town. This being effected, and the artillery and 
stores brought on shore, General Wolfe was detached 
with two thousand men to seize a post occupied by 
the enemy at the Lighthouse Point, from which the 
ships in the harbour, and the fortifications in the 
town, might be greatly annoyed. On the approach 
of that gallant officer, the post was abandoned by the 
enemy, and several very strong batteries were erected 
there by their opponents. Approaches were also 
made on the opposite side of the town, and the siege 
was pressed with resolution and vigour, though with 
great caution. A very heavy cannonade being kept 
up against the town and the vessels in the harbour, 
a bomb was at length set on fire and blew up one of 
the largest ships, and the flames were communicated 
to two others, which shared the same fate. The 
English admiral now sent six hundred men in boats 
into the harbour, to make an attempt on two ships 
of the line which still remained in the basin ; one of 
which, being aground, was destroyed, the other was 
towed off in triumph. This gallant exploit, putting 
the English in complete possession of the harbour, 
and several breaches being made practicable in the 
works, the place was deemed no longer defensible, 
and the governor offered to capitulate. It was 
required that the garrison should surrender as prison- 
ers of war. These humiliating terms, though at first 
rejected, were afterwards acceded to ; and Louisbourg, 
with all its artillery, provisions, and military stores, 
as also Island Royal, St. John's, and their dependen- 
cies, were placed in the hands of the English, who, 
without farther difficulty, took possession of the 
island of Cape Breton. The conquerors found two 
hundred and twenty-one pieces of cannon, and 
eighteen mortars, witli a very large quantity of stores 
and ammunition. The inhabitants of Cape Breton 
were sent to France in English ships ; but the 
garrison, sea officers, sailors, and marines, amounting 
collectively to nearly six thousand men, were carried 
prisoners to England. 

The armies destined to execute the plans against 
Ticonderoga and Fort Du Q,uesne were appointed to 
rendezvous respectively at Albany and Philadelphia. 
The first was commanded by General Abercrombie, 
and consisted of upwards of fifteen thousand men, 
attended by a formidable train of artillery. On the 
5th of July, the general embarked his troops on Lake 

» George Howe, lord-viscount, wa.s commander of 5000 British 
troops in America, and was the most popular of all the leaders of 
the British armies, in the conflicts with France. When Abercrom- 
bie made his attack on Ticonderoga, he led the van-guard, and fell 
at the first fire. He was admired by all the provincials. Old 
Stark, the hero of Bennington, who knew him well, feared that he 
should not have been a true whig, in the revolution, if Lord Howe 



George, on board of one hundred and twenty-five 
whale boats, and nine hundred batteaux, and com- 
menced operations against Ticonderoga. After 
debarkation at the landing place in a cove on the 
west side of the lake, the troops were formed into 
four columns, the British in the centre, and the 
provincials on the flanks. In this order they march- 
ed toward the advanced guard of the French, which, 
consisting of one battalion only, posted in a logged 
camp, destroyed what was in their power, and made 
a precipitate retreat. While Abercrombie was con- 
tiiuiing his march in the woods towards Ticonde- 
roga, the columns were thrown into confusion, and 
in some degree entangled with each other. At this junc- 
ture. Lord Howe, at the head of the right centre column, 
fell in with a part of the advanced guard of the enemy 
which had been lost in the wood in retreating from 
Lake George, and immediately attacked and dis- 
persed it, killing a considerable number and taking 
one hundred and forty-eight prisoners. This success 
was, however, dearly purchased, by the loss of the 
gallant nobloman who fell in leading the attack.* The 
English army, without further opposition, took pos- 
session of a post within two miles of Ticonderoga. 
Abercrombie, having learned from the prisoners the 
strength of the enemy at that fortress, and from an 
engineer the condition of their works, resolved on an 
immediate storm, and made instant disposition for an 
assault. The troops having received orders to march 
up briskly, rush upon the enemy's fire, and reserve 
their own till they had passed a breastwork, marched 
to the assault with great intrepidity. Unlooked for 
impediments, however, occurred. In front of the 
breastwork, to a considerable distance, trees had been 
felled with their branches outward, many of which 
were sharpened to a point, by means of which the 
assailants were not only retarded in their advance, 
but, becoming entangled among the boughs, were 
exposed to a very galling fire. Finding it impracti- 
ble to pass the breastwork, which was eight or nine 
feet high, and much stronger than had been repre- 
sented. General Abercrombie, after a contest of near 
four hours, ordered a retreat, and the next day re- 
sumed his former camp on the soutli side of I>ake 
George. In this brave but ill-judged assault nearly 
two thousand of the assailants were killed and wound- 
ed, while the loss of the enemy, who were covered 

had been alive. His death was mourned as a public calamity, and 
the Americans seemed to lose their spirit in his fall. The good 
people of Massachusetts caught the infection of grief from the 
soldiers, and erected a monument, by permission, for their admired 
general, in Westminster Abbey, at their own expense, of two hun- 
dred and fifty pounds sterling. It is still standing in Westminster 
Abbey. — Am. Ed. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



173 



during the whole action, was inconsiderable. Gen- 
eral Abercrombie immediately re-crossed Lake George, 
and entirely" abandoned the project of capturing 
Ticonderoga.* 

The campaign was not destined, however, to close 
with such ill-success. Colonel Bradstreet proposed 
an expedition against Frontignac ; a fort which, by 
being placed on the north side of the St. Lawrence, 
just where it issues from Lake Ontario, was the key 
to the communication between Canada and Louisi- 
ana. It served also to keep the Indians in subjec- 
tion, and was the general repository of stores for the 
enemy's western and southern posts. Late in the 
evening of the 25th of August, Colonel Bradstreet 
landed within a mile of the place, with three thou- 
sand men, eight pieces of cannon, and three mortars. 
The French had not anticipated an attack at this 
point, and the garrison consisted of only one himdred 
and ten men, with a few Indian auxiliaries. It was 
impossible to hold out long. Colonel Bradstreet 
posted his mortars so near the fort, that every shell 
took effect ; and the commander was very soon 
obliged to surrender at discretion. The booty con- 
sisted of sixty pieces of cannon, great numbers of 
small arms, provisions, military stores, goods to a 
large amount, and nine armed vessek of from eight 
to eighteen guns. Colonel Bradstreet destroyed 
the fort and vessels, re-crossed the Ontario, and re- 
turned to the army. 

Had it not been for this fortunate enterprise, the 
unaccoiuitable delay in preparing the expedition 
against Du Q,uesne would probably have left that 
fort a third time in possession of the enemy. It was 
not until June that the commander, General Forbes, 
set out from Philadelphia ; it was September, before 
Colonel Washington, with the Virginia regulars, was 
ordered to join the main body at Ray's Town ; and, 
owing to the difficulties of cutting a new road, it 
was as late as November, when the army appeared 
before Du Quesne. The garrison, deserted by the 
Indians, and without adequate means of defence, had 



♦ Major Rogers, with his rangers, was in this battle, and asked 
permission to scour the woods before the regular troops were led 
on ; but this was not granted. Major Robert Rogers was a native 
of Londonderry, or Dunbarton, in the state of New Hampshire. 
He was early known as a brave soldier, and was authorized by the 
British government to raise five comp.anies of rangers, as they were 
called. They were kept on the frontiers for winter as well as 
summer service, to walch the hostile Indians, who often, in the 
most inclement season, made attacks upon the defenceless inhabit- 
ants of the frontiers. This body of troops was taken from the 
boldest and hardiest of the yeomanry of the land. They were 
doubly armed, and carried with them snow-shoes and skates for 
service. They generally made their head-quarters at the southern 
extremity of Lake George, Their snow-shoes put them on an 
equality with their foes, and with their skates they had greatly the 



escaped down the Ohio the evening before the arri- 
val of the British, who had only to taken possession, 
therefore, in the king's name. The fort was supplied 
with a new garrison, and the name changed to 
Pittsburg. The Indians, as usual, joined the 
strongest side. A peace was concluded with all the 
tribes between the Ohio and the lakes ; and the 
frontier inhabitants of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and 
Virginia, were once more relieved from the terrors of 
fire and scalping knives. 

The campaign of 1758 was highly honourable to 
the British arms, and the results of it very important. 
Of the three expeditions, two had completely succeed- 
ed, and the leader of the third had made an impor- 
tant conquest. To the commanding talents of Pitt, 
and the confidence which they inspired, this change 
of fortune must be chiefly attributed ; and in no 
respect were these talents more strikingly displayed 
than in the choice of men to execute his plans. The 
advantages of this campaign had, however, been 
purchased by an expensive effort and corresponding 
exhaustion of provincial strength ; and, when a cir- 
cular letter from Mr. Pitt to the several governors 
induced the colonies to resolve upon riiaking the 
most vigorous preparations for the next, they 
soon discovered that their resources were by no 
means commensurate with their zeal. 

Notwithstanding these difficulties, it was resolved 
to signalize the year 1759 by the complete conquest 
of Canada. The plan of the campaign was, that 
three powerful ariuies should enter the French pos- 
sessions by three different routes, and attack all 
their strong-holdj^t nearly the same time. At the 
head of one division of the army, Brigadier-General 
Wolfe, a young officer who had signalized himself at 
the siege of Louisbourg, was to ascend the St. Law- 
rence and lay siege to Quebec, escorted by a strong 
fleet to co-operate with his troops. The central and 
main army, Jjiimposed of British and provincials, was 
to bo conducted against Ticonderoga and Crown 
Point by General Amherst, tlie new commander in 



advantage of the Indians. Stark, Putnam, and several others, 
who were distinguished afterward in the revolutionary «ar, were 
trained in this school. Some of the well authenticated exploits of 
this hardy band, seem like romance to us, in the present day. All 
along the borders of Lake George, spots are shown where the 
rangers fought desperate battles, in the winter season, sometimes 
with more than twice their numbers. This corps fought from 1755 
10 the fall of auebec, in 1759. They were put foremost m battle 
by Abercrombie and Amherst, and some of them were sent to assist 
Wolfe. Rogers states in his journal of these campaigns, that their 
packs were generally of twice the weight of those commonly car- 
ried bv soldiers. Many of this band perished in their frontier 
campaigns. For some particulars of the life of this singular man, 
see Allen's Biography.— ilm. Ed. 



174 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



chief, who, after making himself master of these 
places, was to proceed over Lake Champlain and by 
the way of Richelieu River to the St. Lawrence, and 
descending that river, form a junction with General 
Wolfe before the walls of Quebec. The third army, 
to be composed principally of provincials, reinforced 
by a strong body of friendly Indians, was to be com- 
manded by General Prideaux, who was to lead this 
division first against Niagara, and, after the reduction 
of that place, to embark on Lake Ontario, and pro- 
ceed down the St. Lawrence against Montreal. It 
has been observed by a recent author, " Had tlie 
elements been laid, and tlic enemy spell-bound, the 
whole of this Inilliant plan could not have helped 
succeeding." Tliis sentence, however, betrays a 
very limited view of a plan that was well worthy of 
the mind of Pitt. In this arrangement immediate 
advantage was not sacrificed ; while the more remote 
results exhibited a prospect highly calculated to ex- 
cite the ambition of the leaders, and to arouse all the 
energies of the troops. It is in thus aflbrding 
motives which tend to liring physical force into 
most effective and persevering action, that intellectual 
superiority becomes manifest, confounding the calcu- 
lations of ordinary minds. 

Early in the winter. General Amherst commenced 
preparations for his part of the enterprise ; but it 
was not till the last of May that his troops were 
assembled at AUiany ; and it was as late as the 22d 
of .Tuly, when lie appeared before Ticonderoga. As 
the naval superiority of Great Britain had prevented 
France from sending out reinforcements, none of the 
posts in this quarter were able to witlistand so great 
a force as that of General Amherst. Ticonderoga 
was immediately abandoned ; the example was fol- 
lowed at Crown Point ; and the only way in which 
the enemy seemed to think of preserving their 
province was by retarding the English army with 
shows of resistance till the season of operation should 
be past, or till, by the gradual concentration of their 
forces, they sliould become numerous enough to 
make an effectual stand. P"'rom Crown Point they 
retreated to Ile-aux-Noix, where General Amherst 
luidorstood there was a body of between three and 
four diousand men, and a fleet of several armed 
vessels. The English made great exertions to 
secure a naval superiority ; and had it not been for 
a succession of adverse storms upon the lake, they 
would most probably have accomplished the original 
design of forming a junction at Quebec, instead of 
being obliged to go into winter quarters at Crown 
Point. In prosecution of the enterprise against 
Niagara, General Prideaux had embarked with an 



army on Lake Ontario ; and on the 6th of July 
landed without opposition within about three miles 
from the fort, which he invested in form. While 
directing the operations of the siege, he was killed by 
the bursting of a cohorn, and the command devolved 
on Sir William Johnson. That general, prosecuting 
with judgment and vigour the plan of his predecessor, 
pushed the attack of Niagara with an intrepidity that 
soon brought the besiegers wilhin a hundred yards 
of the covered way. Meanwhile, the French, alarm- 
ed at the danger of losing a post which was a key 
to their interior empire in America, had collected a 
large body of regular troops from the neighbouring 
garrisons of Detroit, Venango, and Presqu' Isle, with 
which, and a party of Indians, they resolved, if pos- 
sible, to raise the siege. Apprised of their intention 
to hazard a battle, General Johnson ordered his light 
infantry, supported by some grenadiers and regular 
foot, to take post between the cataract of Niagara and 
the fortress ; placed the auxiliary Indians on his 
flanks ; and, together with this preparation for an 
engagement, took effectual measures for securing his 
lines, and bridling the garrison. About nine in the 
morning of the 24th of July, the enemy appeared, and 
the horrible sound of the war whoop from the hostile 
Indians was the signal of battle. The French 
charged with great impetuosity, but were received 
with firnmess ; and in less than an hour were com- 
pletely routed. This battle decided the fate of 
Niagara. Sir William Johnson the next morning 
opened negotiations with the French commandant ; 
and in a few hours a capitulation was signed. The 
garrison, consisting of six hundred and seven men, 
were to march out with the honours of war, to be 
embarked on the lake, and carried to New York ; 
and the women and children were to be carried to 
Montreal. Tlie reduction of Niagara effectually 
cut off the conmiunication between Canada and 
Louisiana. 

The expedition against the capital of Canada was 
the most daring and important. Strong by nature, 
and still stronger by art, Quebec had obtained the ap 
pellation of the Gibraltar of America ; and every at- 
tempt against it had failed. It was now command- 
ed by Montcalm, an officer of distinguished reputa- 
tion ; and its capture must have appeared chimerical 
to any one Imt Pitt. He judged rightly, however, 
that the boldest and most dangerous enterprises are 
often the most successful, especially when committed 
to ardent minds, glowing with enthusiasm, and emu- 
lous of glory. Such a mind he had discovered in 
General Wolfe, whose conduct at Louisbourg had at- 
tracted his attention. He appointed him to conduct 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



175 



the expedition, and gave him for assistants Briq-adier 
Generals Moncton, Townshend, and Murray ; all, like 
himself, young and ardent. Early in the season he 
sailed from Halifax with eight thousand troops, and, 
near the last of June, landed the whole army on the 
island of Orleans, a few miles below Quebec. From 
this position he could take a near and distinct view 
of the obstacles to be overcome. TJiese were so great, 
that even the bold and sanguine Wolfe perceived 
more to fear than to hope. In a letter to Mr. Pitt, 
written before commencing operations, he declared 
that he saw but little prospect of reducing the place. 
Quebec stands on the north side of the St. Law- 
rence, and consists of an upper and lower town. The 
lower town lies between the river and a bold and 
lofty eminence, which runs parallel to it far to the 
westward. At the top of this eminence- is a plain, 
upon which the upper town is situated. Below, or 
east of the city, is the river St. Charles, whose chan- 
nel is rough, and whose banks are steep and broken. 
At a short distance farther down is the Montmoren- 
cy ; and between these two rivers, and reaching from 
one to the other, was encamped the French army, 
strongly entrenched, and at least equal in number to 
that of the English. General Wolfe took possession 
of Point Levi, on the southern bank of the St. Law- 
rence, and there erected batteries against the town. 
The cannonade which was kept up, though it des- 
troyed many houses, made but little impression on the 
works, which were too strong and too remote to be 
materially affected ; their elevation, at the same time, 
placing them beyond the reach of the fleet. Con- 
vinced of the impossibility of reducing the place, un- 
less he could erect batteries on the north side of the 
St. Lawrence, Wolfe soon decided on more daring 
measures. The northern shore of the St. Lawrence, 
to a considerable distance above Quebec, is so bold 
and rocky as to render a landing in the face of an 
enemy impracticable. If an attempt were made be- 
low the town, the river Montmorency passed, and the 
French driven from their entrenchments, the St. 
Charles would present a new, and perhaps an insuper- 
able barrier. With every obstacle fully in view, Wolfe, 
heroically observing that " a victorious army finds no 
difficulties," resolved to pass the Montmorency, and 
bring Montcalm to ati engagement. In pursuance 
of this resolution, thirteen companies of English gre- 
nadiers, and part of the second battalion of royal 
Americans, were landed at the niouth of that river, 
while two divisions, tnider Generals Townshend and 
Murray, prepared to cross it higher up. Wolfe's plan 
was to attack first a redoubt, close to the water's edge, 
apparently beyond reach of the fire from the enemy's 

23 



entrenchments, in the belief that the French, by at- 
tempting to support that fortification, would put it in 
his power to bring on a general engagement ; or, if 
they should submit to the loss of the redoubt, that he 
could afterwards examine their situation with cool- 
ness, and advantageousljr regulate his future opera- 
tions. On the approach of the British troops, the re- 
doubt was evacuated ; and the general, observing 
some confusion in the French camp, changed his 
original plan, and determined not to delay an attack. 
Orders were immediately despatched to the Generals 
Townshend and Murray to keep their divisions in rea- 
diness for fording the river ; and the grenadiers and 
royal Americans were directed to form on the beac?i 
until they could be properly sustained. These troops, 
however, not waiting for support, rushed impetuously 
towards the enemy's entrenchments ; but they were 
received with so strong and steady a fire from the 
French musketry, that they were instantly thrown 
into disorder, and obliged to seek shelter at the re- 
doubt which the enemy had abandoned. Detained 
here awhile by a dreadful thunder storm, they were 
still within reach of a severe fire from the French ; 
and many gallant officers, exposing their persons in 
attempting to form the troops, were killed, the whole 
loss amounting to nearly five hundred men. The 
plan of attack being effectually disconcerted, the 
English general gave orders for repassing. the river, 
and returning to the isle of Orleans. 

Compelled to abandon the attack on that side, 
Wolfe deemed that advantage might result from 
attempting to destroy the French fleet, and by dis- 
tracting the attention of Montcalm with continual 
descents upon the northern shore. General Murray 
with twelve hundred men in transports, made two 
vigorous but abortive attempts to land ; and though 
more successful in the third, he did nothing more 
than burn a magazine of warlike stores. The enemy's 
fleet was effectually secured against attacks, either by 
land or by water, and the commander in chief was 
again obliged to submit to the mortification of recall- 
ing his troops. At this juncture, intelligence arrived 
that Niagara was taken, that Ticonderoga and Crown 
Point liad been abandoned, but that General Amherst, 
instead of pressing forward to their assistance, was 
preparing to attack the Ile-aux-Noix. While Wolfe 
rejoiced "at the triumph of his brethren in arms, he 
could not avoid contrasting their success with his own 
disastrous efforts. His mind, alike lofty and suscep- 
tible, was deeply impressed by the disasters at Mont- 
morency ; and his extreme anxiety, preying upon his 
delicate frame, sensibly affected his health. He was 
observed frequently to sigh ; and, as if life was only 



76 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



valuable while it added to his glory, he declared to 
his intimate friends, that he would not survive the 
disgrace which he imagined would attend the failure 
of his enterprise. Nothing, however, could shake 
the resolution of this valiant commander, or induce 
him to abandon the attempt. In a council of his 
principal officers, called on this critical occasion, it 
was resolved, that all the future operations should be 
above the town. The camp at the Isle of Orleans 
was accordingly abandoned ; and the whole army 
having embarked on board the fleet, a part of it was 
landed at Point Levi, and a part higher up the river. 
Montcalm, apprehending from this movement that the 
'invaders might make a distant descent, and come on 
the back of the city of Quebec, detached M. de 
Bougainville, with fifteen hundred men, to watch 
their motions, and prevent their landing. 

Baffled and harassed in all his previous assaults, 
General Wolfe seems to have determined to finish the 
enterprise by a single bold and desperate eff'ort. The 
admiral sailed several leagues up the river, making 
occasional demonstrations of a design to land troops ; 
and, during the night, a strong detachment in flat- 
bottomed boats fell silently down with the stream, to 
a point about a mile above the city. The beach was 
shelving, the bank high and precipitous, and the only 
path by which it could be scaled, was now defended 
by a captain's guard and a battery of four guns. 
Colonel Howe, with the van, soon clambered up the 
rocks, drove away the guard, and seized upon the 
battery. The army landed about an hour before 
day, and by daybreak was marshalled on the heights 
of Abraham. 

Montcalm could not at first believe the intelligence ; 
but, as soon as he was assured of its truth, he made 
all prudent haste to decide a battle which it was no 
longer possible to avoid. Leaving his camp at Mont- 
morency, he crossed the river St. Charles with the 
intention of attacking the English army. No sooner 
did Wolfe observe this movement, than he began to 
form his order of battle. His troops consisted of six 

• On receiving his mortal wound, Wolfe was conveyed into the 
rear, where, careless about himself, he discovered, in the agonies 
of death, the most anxious solicitude concerning the fate of the 
day. F-om extreme faintness, he had reclined his head on the 
arm of an officer, but was soon aroused hy the cry of " They fly, 
they fly!" "Who fly I" exclaimed the dying hero. "The 
French," answered his attendant. " Then," said he, " I die con- 
tented," and immediately expired. A death more full of military 
glory has seldom been recorded by the pen of the historian, or ce- 
lebrated by the pencil of the painter. General Wolfe was only 
thirty-three years of age. He possessed those military talents, 
which, with the advantage of years and opportimity of action, " to 
moderate his ardour, expand his faculties, and give to his intuitive 
perception and scientific knowledge the correctness of judgment 
perfected by experience," would have "placed him on a level with 



battalions, and the Louisbourg grenadiers. The right 
wing was commanded by General Monckton, and the 
left by General Murray. The right flank was covered 
by the Louisbourg grenadiers, and the rear and left 
by Howe's light infantry. The form in which the 
French advanced indicating an intention to outflank 
the left of the English army. General Townshend 
was sent with the battalion of Amherst, and the two 
battalions of royal Americans, to that part of the line, 
and they were formed eii pote7tce, so as to present a 
double front to the enemy. The body of reserve 
consisted of one regiment, drawn up in eight divisions, 
with large intervals. The dispositions made by the 
French general were not less masterly. The right 
and left wings were composed about equally of 
European and colonial troops. The centre consisted 
of a colunm, formed of two battalions of regulars. 
Fifteen hundred Indians and Canadians, excellent 
marksmen, advancing in front, screened by surround- 
ing thickets, began the battle. Their irregular fire 
proved fatal to many British oflicers, but it was soon 
silenced by the steady fire of the English. About 
nine in the morning the main body of the French 
advanced briskly to the charge, and the action soon 
became general. Montcalm having taken post on the 
left of the French army, and Wolfe on the right of 
the Engish, the two generals met each other where 
the battle was most severe. The English troops 
reserved their fire until the French had advanced 
within forty yards of their line, and then, by a general 
dischare-e, made terrible havoc among their ranks. 
The fire of the English was vigorously maintained, 
and the enemy every where yielded to it. General 
Wolfe, who, exposed in the front of his battalion.'', 
had been wounded in the wrist, betraying no symp- 
tom of pain, wrapped a handkerchief round his arm. 
and continued to encourage his men. Soon after, he 
received a shot in the groin ; but, concealing the 
wound, he was pressing on at the head of his grena- 
diers with fixed bayonets, when a third ball pierced 
his breast.* The army, not disconcerted by his fall, 

the most celebrated generals of any age or nation." — Montcalm 
was every way worthy to be a competitor of Wolfe. He had the 
truest military genius of any oflicer whom the French had ever 
employed in America. After he had received his mortal wound, 
he was carried into the city; and when informed that it was mor- 
tal, his reply was, " I am glad of it." On being told that he could 
.survive but a few hours, " So much the better," he replied, " I shall 
not then live to see the surrender of Gluebec." 

General Wolfe was eulogized in the following poem from the 
pen of T. Paine : — 

" In a mouldering cave, where the wretched retreat, 

Britannia sat wasted with care ; 
She mourn'd for her Wolfe, and exclaim'd against fate, 

And gave herself up to despair. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



177 



continued the action under Monckion, on whom the 
command now devolved, but who, receiving a ball 
through his body, soon yielded the command to 
General Townshend. Montcalm, fighting in front 

The walls of her cell she had sculptur'd around 

With ihe feats of her favourite son ; 
And even the dust, as it lay on the ground, 

Was engrav'd with some deeds he had done. 

" The sire of the gods, from his crystalline throne, 

Beheld the disconsolate dame; 
And n^ov'd with her tears, he sent Mercury down. 

And these were the tidings that came : 
Britannia, forbear, not a sigh nor a ftar 

For thy Wolfe, so deservedly lov'd; 
Your tears shall be chang'd into triumphs of joy, 

For Wolfe is not dead, but remov'd. 

" The sons of the east, the proud giants of old, 

Have crept from their darksome abodes; 
And this is the news, as in heaven it was told. 

They were marching to w'ar with the gods; 
A council was held in the chambers of Jove, 

And this was their final decree: 
That Wolfe should be called to the army above. 

And the charge was intrusted to me. 

" To-the plains of Cluebec, with the orders, I flew, 

He begg'd for a moment's delay ; 
He cry'd, oh forbear, lei me victory hear. 

And then thy command I'll obey: 
With a darksome thick film I encompass'd his eyes. 

And bore him away in an urn. 
Lest the fondness he bore to his own native shore. 

Should induce him again to return." 

.The French troops thai served in Canada, being desirous of 
erecting a monument in honour of Montcalm, their general, who 
fell in the action at CXuehec, where the brave Wolfe also fell, a 
French colonel wrote to the Academy of Belles Letlres for an 
epitaph to be placed over Montcalm's lomb, in a church in thai 
city, which occasioned the following letter from M. De Bougain- 
ville, member of the Academy, to-Mr. Pitt : 

Sir — The honours paid under your ministry, lo Mr. Wolfe, as- 
sure me that you will not disapprove of the grateful endeavours of 
the French troops, lo perpetuate the memory of the Marquis De 
Montcalm. The body of this general, who was honoured by the 
regret of your nation, is interred in Cluebee. I have the honour to 
send you an epitaph made for him by the Academy of Inscriptions. 
I beg the favour of you, sir, that you will be pleased to examine it, 
and, if not improper, obtain leave for me to send it to Cluebec, en- 
graved on marble, and to be placed on the Marquis De Montcalm's 
tomb. Should such leave be granted, may I presume to request, 
sir, that j'ou will be so good as to inform me of it, and, at the same 
time, to send me a passport, that the marble, with the epitaph en- 
graved on it, may be received into an English ship, and Mr. Mur- 
ray, governor of Q,uebec, allow it to be placed in the Ursuline 
church. You will be pleased, sir, lo pardon me for this intrusion 
on your important occupations; but endeavouring to immortalize 
illustrious men and eminent patriots, is doing honour to )'ourself. 
I am, with respect, &c. DE BOUGAINVILLE. 

Sir — It is a real satisfaction to me, lo send you the king's consent 
on a subject so affecting, as the epitaph composed by the Academy 
of Inscriptions, at Paris, for the Marquis De Montcalm, and which, 
it is desired, may be sent to Cluebec, engraved on marble, lo be 
placed on the tomb of that illustrious soldier. It is perfectly beau- 
tiful ; and Ihe desire of the French troops, which served in Cana- 
da, lo pay such a tribute to the memory of their general, whom 
they saw expire at their head, in a manner worthy of them and 
himself, is truly noble and praiseworthy. 



of his battalions, received a mortal wound about the 
same time ; and General Senezersrus, the second in 
command, also fell. The British grenadiers pressed 
on with their bayonets. General Murray, briskly 



I shall take a pleasure, sir, in facilitating, every way, such amia- 
ble intentions; and on notice of the measures taken for shipping 
this marble, I will not fail immediately to tran.smit you the passport 
you desire, and send directions to the governor of Cluebec for its 
reception. 

I will beg of you, sir, to be persuaded of my just sensibility of 
that so obliging part of the letter with which you have honoured me 
relating to myself; and to believe that I embrace as a hajipine.s.s, 
the opportunity of manifesting the esteem and particular regard 
wilh which I have the honour to be, &,c. 

W. PITT. 

London, April 10, 1761 

Here lielh, 
In either hemisphere to live for ever, 
Lewis Joseph De Montcalm Gozon, 
Marquis of Si. Veran, Baron of Gabriac, 
Commendator of the Order of Si. Lewis, 
Lieutenant-General of the French forces, 
Both an excellent subject and soldier. 
Whose memory will be immortalized both here and hereafter; 
Coveting nothing but real glory ; 
Thoroughly conversant in all parts of polite literature, 
Conducting himself through all military employment with un- 
blemished honour ; 
Not unacquainted wilh all the arts of war, with dangers, 
And knew how to improve advantages by every opportunity thai 
offered ; 
An active General 
In Italy, Bohemia, and Germany. 
Always behaving himself wilh that magnanimity 
That he might be put upon the same level wilh his ancestors; 
Already eminent in dangers, 
Being sent to defend the province of Canada, 
He often lepulsed the enemy's forces with a handful of men ; 
He made himself master of almost insurmountable fortifications, 
Defended by numerous garrisons, 
And furnished with plenty of warlike stores. 
He could endure cold, hunger, watchings, and fatigue, 
To a degree almost incredible : 
Ever solicitous for the safety of his soldiers. 
He was regardless of his own ; 
A vigilant enemy, and accustomed to conquer ; 
He supplied the deficienoes of fortune by his bravery. 
Want of soldiers, by experience and activity. 
He supported the tottering fate of that colony four years, 
By his prudence and fortitude. 
At length, having a long time baffled the edbrts of his enemies, 
By manifold stratagems. 
Being obliged to engage a large army. 
Commanded by an active and courageous general. 
And supported by a fleet equipped with every thing necessary for 
war ; 
Being mortally wounded at the head of his army, 
In the first onset, 
He died on the 14ih of September, MDCCLIX. 
In the forty-eighth year of his age, 
Firmly relying on Divine Providence, 
Whose precepts he had religiously observed , 
Universallv lamented by his own soldiers, 
And even regietted by his enemies. 
The mourning French have deposited the mortal remaing 
Of ihis incomparable General, 
In a grave, 
Which an impetuous ball had previously dug, 
And commended them to the generous piotecliou 
of their adversaries. 



178 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



advancing with the troops under liis direction, brolve 
the centre of the French army. The Highlanders, 
drawing their broadswords, completed the confusion 
of the enemy ; and after having lost their first and 
second in command, the right and centre of the 
French were entirely driven from the fiejd ; and the 
left was following the example, when Bougainville 
appeared in the rear, with the fifteen hundred men 
who had been sent to oppose the landing of the 
English. Two battalions and two pieces of artillery 
were detached to meet him; but he retired, and the 
British troops were left the undisputed masters of the 
field. The loss of the French was much greater 
than that of the English. The corps of French 
regulars was almost entirely annihilated. The killed 
and wounded of the English army did not amount to 
six hundred men. Although Quebec was still strongly 
defended by its fortifications, and might possibly be 
relieved by Bougainville, or from Montreal, yet 
General Townshend had scarcely finished a road in 
the bank to get up his heavy artillery for a siege, 
when the inhabitants capitulated, on condition that 
during the war they might still enjoy their own civil 
and religious rights. A garrison of five thousand 
men was left under General Murray, and the fleet 
sailed out of the St. Lawrence. 

The fall of Q,uebec did not immediately produce 
the submission of Canada. The main body of the 
French army, which, after the battle on the plains of 
Abraham, retired to Montreal, and which still consist- 
ed of ten battalions of regulars, had been reinforced 
by six thousand Canadian militia, and a body of In- 
dians. With these forces M. de Levi, who had suc- 
ceeded the Marquis de Montcalm in the chief com- 
mand, resolved to attempt the recovery of Quebec. 
He had hoped to carry the place by a coup de main 
during the winter ; but, on reconnoitring, he found 
the outposts so well secured, and the governor so vi- 
gilant and active, that he postponed the enterprise un- 
til spring. In the month of April, when the upper 
part of the St. Lawrence was so open as to admit a 
transportation by water, his artillery, military stores, 
and heavy baggage, were embarked at Montreal, and 
fell down the river under convoy of six frisfates : 
and M. de Levi, after a march of ten days, arrived 
with his army at Point an Tremble, within a few miles 
of Quebec. General Murray, to whom the care of 
maintaining the English conquest had been entrust- 
ed, had taken every precaution to preserve it ; but 
Ills troops had suffered so much by the extreme cold 
of the winter, and by the want of vegetables and 
fresh provisions, that instead of five thousand, the 
original number of his garrison there were not at this 



time above three thousand men fit for service. With 
this small but valiant body he resolved to meet the 
enemy in the field ; and on the 28th of April marched 
out to the heights of Abraham, where, near Sillery, 
he attacked the French under M. de Levi with great 
impetuosity. He was received with firmness ; and 
after a fierce encounter, finding himself outflanked, 
and in danger of being surrounded by superior num- 
bers, he called ofl' his troops, and retired into the 
city. In this action the loss of the English was near 
a thousand men, and that of the French still great- 
er. The French^ general lost no time in improv- 
ing his victory. On the very evening of the battle 
he opened trenches before the town, but it was the 
11th of May before he could mount his batteries, and 
bring his guns to bear on the fortifications. By that 
time General Murray, who had been indefatigable in 
his exertions, had completed some outworks, and 
planted so numerous an artillery on his ramparts, 
that his fire was very superior to that of the besiegers, 
and in a manner silenced their batteries. A British 
fleet most opportunely arriving a few days after, M. 
de Levi immediately raised the siege, and precipitately 
retired to Montreal. Here the Marquis de Vaudreuil, 
governor-general of Canada, had fixed his head quar- 
ters, and determined to make his last stand. For 
this purpose he called in all his detachments, and col- 
lected around him the whole force of the colony. 

The English, on the other hand, were resolved 
upon the utter annihilation of the French power in 
Canada ; and General Amherst prepared to overwhelm 
it with an irresistible superiority of numbers. Al- 
most on the same day, the armies from Quebec, from 
Lake Ontario, and from Lake Champlain, were con- 
centrated before Montreal : a capitulation was imme- 
diately signed ; Detroit, Michilimackinac, and, indeed, 
all New France, surrendered to the English. The 
French troops were to be carried home ; and the 
Canadians to retain their civil and religious privi- 
leges. 

The history of modern Europe, with whose desti- 
ny that of the colonies was closely interwoven, may 
be designated as the annals of an interminable war. 
Her sovereigns, ever having the oily words of peace 
on their lips, have seldom had recourse to the olive 
branch but as the signal of a truce, the duration of 
which should be coeval with the reinvigoration of 
military strength. It was thus with France on the 
present occasion. Equally unsuccessful on both 
continents, and exhausted by her strenuous and con- 
tinued efforts, she was at length induced to make 
overtures of peace ; and every thing seemed to be in 
a fair train for adjustment, when the treaty was sud- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



179 



dmly broken off by an attempt of the court of Ver- 
sailles to mingle the politics of Spain and of Germany 
with the disputes between France and Great Britain. 
A secret family compact between the Bourbons to 
support each other throuofh evil and good, in peace 
and in war, had rendered Spain desirous of war, and 
induced France once more to try her fortune. As the 
interests of the two nations were now identified, it 
only remained for England to make a formal decla- 
ration of hostility against Spain. The colonies of 
New England being chiefly interested in the reduc- 
tion of the West India Islands, furnished a consider- 
able body of troops to carry on the war. A large 
fleet was despatched from England ; the land forces 
amounted to sixteen thousand ; and before the end of 
the second year, Great Britain had taken the import- 



• " The acquisitions of Great Britain, both from France and 
Spain, on the continent of North. America, established by this 
treaty, whether they be considered in relation to the political or 
commercial interests of the parent country, or in relation to the 
entire interests of the American colonies, merit particular atten- 
tion. Every article, therefore, which has respect to America, is 
subjoined in the words of the treaty. By the second article, France 
renounces and guarantees to Great Britain all Nova Scotia or 
Acadia, and lik;wise Canada, tlie isle of Cape Breton, and all 
other islands in the gulf and river of St. Lawrence. By the third 
article, it is stipulated, that the French shall have the liberty of 
6shin2; and drying on a part of the island of Newfotmdland, as 
specified in the thirteenth article of the treaty of Utrecht; and the 
French may also fish in the gulf of St. Lawrence, so as they do 
not exercise the same but at the distance of three leagues from all 
the coasts belonging to Great Britain, as well those of the continent, 
as those of the islands in the said gulf As to what relates to the 
fishery out of the said gulf, the French shall exercise the same, but 
at the distance of fifteen leagues from the coasts of the isle of Cape 
Breton. By the fourth article, Great Britain cedes to France, to 
serve as a shelter for the French fishermen, the islands of St. Peter 
and of Mii;uelon; and his most Christian Majesty absolutely en- 
gages not to fortify the said island, nor to erect any other buildings 
thereon, but merely for the convenience of the fishery ; and to keep 
only a guard of fifty men for the police. By the sixth article it is 
stipulated', that the confines between the dominions of Great Bri- 
tain and France, on the continent of North America, shall be irre- 
vocably fixed, by a line drawn along the middle of the river Mis- 
sissippi, from its source, as far as the river Iberville, and from 
thence by a line drawn along the middle of this river, and of the 
lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain, to the sea; and to this purpose 
the most Christian King cedes in full right, and guarantees to his 
Britannic Majesty, the river and port of Mobile, and every thing 
that he possesses on the left side of the river Mississippi, except 
the town of New Orleans, and the island on which it is situated, 
which shall remain to France, provided that the navigation of the 
river shall, be equally free to the subjects of Great Britain and 
Prance, in its whole breadth and length, from its source to the sea, 
and that part expressly which is between the said island of New 
Orleans and the right bank of that river, as w-ell as the passage 
both in and out of its mouth ; and the vessels belonging to the sub- 
jects of either nation shall not be stopped, visited, or subjected to the 
payment of any duty whatsoever. The stipulations in favour of 
the inhabitants of Canada, inserted in the second article, shall also 
take place with legard to the inhabitants of the countries ceded by 
this article ; that is, that the French in Canada may freely profess 
the Roman Catholic religion, as far as the laws of Great Britain 
permit; that they may enjoy their civil rights, retire when they 
please, and may dispose of their estates to British subjects. By the 
seTcntb article, it is stipulated, that Britain shall restore to France 



ant city of Havannah, the key of the Mexican Gulf, 
together witli the French provinces of Martinique, 
Grenada, St, Lucia, St. Vincent, and the Caribbee 
Islands. 

The progress of the British conquests, which 
threatened all the remaining colonial possessions of 
their opponents, was arrested by preliminary articles 
of peace, which, towards the close of 1762, were 
interchanged at Fontainbleau between the ministers 
of Groat Britain, France, and Spain. On the 10th 
of February, in the following year, a definitive treaty 
of peace was signed at Paris, and soon after ratified.* 
France ceded to Great Britain all the conquests which 
the latter had made in North America ; and it was 
stipulated between the two crowns, that the boundary- 
line of their respective dominions in the new hemi- 



the islands of Guadaloupe, Marigalante, Desirade, and Martinico, 
in the West Indies, and of Belleisle, on the coast of France, with 
their fortresses; provided that the term of eighteen months be 
granted to his Britannic Majesty's subjects, settled there, and in 
other places hereby restored to France, to sell their estates, recover 
their debts, and to transport themselves and effects, without being 
restrained on account of their religion, or any pretence, except for 
debts, or criminal prosecutions. By the eighth article, France 
cedes and guarantees to Great Britain the islands of Grenada and 
the Grenadines, with the same stipulations in favour of the inhabit- 
ants as are inserted in the second article for those of Canada ; and 
the partition of the islands called neutral, is agreed and fixed, so 
that those of St. Vincent, Dominico, and Tobago, ^hall remain in 
full right to England, and that of St. Lucia shall be delivered to 
France in full right, the two crowns reciprocally guaranteeing to 
each other the partition so stipulated. By the sixteenth article, it 
is stipulated, that his Britannic Majesty shall cause all the fortifi- 
cations to be demolished, which his subjects shall have erected in 
the bay of Honduras, and other places of the territory of Spain, in 
that part of the world. And his Catholic Majesty shall not, for 
the future, sufl'er the subjects of his Britannic Majesty, or their 
workmen, to be disturbed or molested under any pretence whatso- 
ever, in their occupation of cutting, loading, and carrying away 
log-wood; and for this purpose they may build, without hinderance, 
and occupy, without interruption, the houses and magazines neces- 
sary for tiiem, for their families, and for their effects ; and his 
said Catholic Majesty assures to them, by this article, the entire 
enjoyment of what i.s' above stipulated. By the seventeenth arti- 
cle, his Catholic Majesty desists from all pretensions which he may 
have formed to the right of fishing about the island of Newfound- 
land. By the eighteenth article, it is stipulated, that the king of 
Great Britain shall restore to Spain all that he has conquered in 
the island of Cuba, with the fortress of Havannah ; and that fort- 
ress, as well as all the other fortresses of the said island, shall be 
restored in the same condition they were in when they were con- 
quered by his Britannic Majesty's arms. By the twentieth article, 
his Catholic Majesty cedes and guarantees, in full right, to his 
Britannic Majestv, Florida, with the Fort St. Augustine, and the 
bay of Pensacola, as well as all that Spain po.sse.sses en the conti- 
nent of North America, to the east, or to the southeast of the river 
Mississippi ; and, in general, every thing that depends on the said 
countries and lands, with the sovereignly, property, and possession, 
and all rights acquired by treaties, or otherwise, which the Catho- 
lic king and the crown of Spain have had till now over the said 
countrres."— Anderson, vol.iii. p. 339— 433, where the preliminary 
articles of the treaty are inserted entire; and vol. iv. p. 1,2, where 
the moit material alterations or explanations of those articles, as 
settled by the definitive treaty, are inserted.— American Annals, 
vol. ii. p. 113—115. 



180 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



sphere sliould niii along the middle of the Mississippi, 
from its source as far as the Iberville, and along the 
middle of that river, and of Lakes Maurepas and 
Poiitcluutrain. 

Thus terminated a war, which orio-inated in an 
attempt on the part of the French to surround the 
English colonists, and chain them to a narrow strip 
of country alona: the coast of the Atlantic ; and ended 
with their giving up the whole of what was then 
their only valuable territory in North America. The 
immediate advantage the colonies derived from the 
successful issue of the contest was great and apparent. 
Although, for a short period after the conquest of 
Canada had been effected, they were subject to attacks 
from the Indian tribes attached to the French, and 
also from the Cherokees on their south-western bor- 
ders, they were soon enabled to visit their cruelties 
with severe retribution, and to procure a lasting 
repose, as the Indians had no forts to which to repair 
for protection or aid. But the indirect results, though 
almost unperceived at first, were far more important, 
and prepared the way for those momentous efforts 
which issued in the loss to Great Britain of the fairest 
portion of her colonies, and the establishment of her 
vassal as a rival. The colonists became inured to the 
habits and hardships of a military life, and skilled in 
the arts of European warfare ; while the desire of 
revenge for the loss of Canada, which France did not ij 
fail to harbour, was preparing for them a most 
efficient friend, and making way for the anomalous 
exhibition of a despotic sovereign exerting- all his 
power in the cause of liberty and independence. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE REVOLUTION. FROM THE MOTION FOR WRITS 

OF ASSISTANCE TO THE REPEAL OF THE STAMP 
ACT. 

No period of the world's history exhibits events 
more deeply fraught with interest, or more full of 
moral and political instruction, than the era of 
American independence. Duly to appreciate the clia- 
racter of the struggle, it is necessary to take a brief 
review of the circumstances in wliich the colonies 
originated, their progress for nearly a century and a 
half, and the nature of the connexion which existed 
between the colonies and the parent state. 

A considerable variety of circumstances attended 
the establishment of the different colonies. In some 
cases large sums were advanced, either by associated 
or by individual proprietors who remained in England, 



expecting, though in vain, to derive a profitable return 
for tlie advance of their capital ; while in others, and 
those the most eminent, the colonies were founded 
solely at the expense and by the talent and laborious 
exertion of the individuals who expatriated them- 
selves, to obtain the uninterrupted enjoyment of 
rights which they sought in vain in their native land. 
In no instance can it be truly stated, that any Ame- 
rican colony was established at the expense of the 
govfernment or nation of Great Britain. The indi- 
viduals who had thus voluntarily separated them- 
selves from their native land by a distance of three 
thousand miles, still maintained some connexion with 
the parent state, both because the new soil was claimed 
as an appendage of the crown, and in order to place 
themselves under adequate protection against the 
hostile attempts of any of the other European states. 
By royal charter, however, each colony was allowed 
its legislative assembly, and with such slight restric- 
tions, that the colonists might well be excused for 
entertaining the idea that they possessed their own 
parliament ; and their history evinces that this senti- 
ment was widely extended and deeply impressed on 
the minds of the Americans. In no case were the 
civil institutions of the colonies less free than those 
of the British constitution — in many instances they 
were far more so ; while the simplicity and popular 
character of their ecclesiastical bodies, fended most 
powerfully to keep alive the spirit of civil freedom. 
The liberties they enjoyed were rendered still more 
valuable, in their esteem, from the recollection of the 
sacrifices they had made to obtain them. What 
labour — what fatigue — what peril had they not en- 
countered in an unknown and savage land ! — Exposed, 
to the excessive rigour of the winter, and the over- 
powering heat of the summer, of an American climate, 
unmitigated by the protecting and consoling influ- 
ences of civilization, an early death had been the fate of 
most of the first emigrants ; while those who survived 
the miseries of their situation had to defend their new 
habitations against the assaults of a ferocious foe, who 
disputed their title to the possession of lands they had 
so long regarded as exclusively their own. Did the 
aristocracy or the legislature of Great Britain share in 
these toils ? Did they dispense with any of their 
luxurious habits to relieve the wants, or sympathize 
in the difficulties or distresses of these brave and 
indefatigal>le men ? Or did they not leave them un- 
noticed till they became sufficiently wealthy to afford 
a lucrative banishment to some of the basest scions 
of nobility, and a prospect of yielding a revenue 
which might facilitate the enlargemeiit of the pension 
list ? 



K 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



181 



After the difficulties inevitably attendant on first 
attempts at colonization were overcome, the progress 
of the colonists in changing the luxuriant wilderness 
into a cultivated and well-regulated state was very 
rapid ; and to tiie abundance of nature, conmierce 
soon added the accumulations of wealth. The secret 
of their prosperity undoubtedly is, that the colonies 
were left to themselves, without the officious inter- 
meddling of the legislature of the parent state. The 
navigation acts form the only exception to this obser- 
vation. These acts, it has already been observed,* 
prohibited both exportation and importation either in 
Britain or the colonies, except in English-built vessels 
manned by English sailors. These and other enact- 
ments were designed to secure to England a monopoly 
of all American productions, from which her merchants 
could derive a profit ; and had they been carried into 
full efitct, they would have prevented all direct inter- 
course between the British American colonies and 
those of Spanish America, as well as with Europe 
and Asia. Through'the laxity of their administration, 
however, an important traffic had long been carried 
on witli Spanish settlements, the returns of which 
were principally in gold and silver, an object of great 
moment to the interest of the English colonies, and 
indited very advantageous to Great Britain herselft 
A considerable trade was also carried on between New 
York and some other of the principal American sea- 
ports, and Lisbon, the returns of which were made 
chiefly in specie, and tb.e remainder in wine. These 
and other sources of commercial profit were closed 
by the strict enforcement of the navigation laws, their 
systematic evasion having attracted the attention of 
the British ministry ; and this measure was, in fact, 
one of the most powerful, though least avowed, 
incitements to revolutionary zeal. It must also be 
added, that for the aggrandizement of English manu- 
factures, the colonists were prohibited from making 
some of the most simple and necessary articles, a 
measure which was, in the estimation of the Ame- 
ricans, as degrading as it was unjust and oppressive. 

It must be evident to any impartial investigator, 
that for all purposes of internal government, in the 
New England colonies especially, the connexion 
between them and the British empire was little more 
than nominal ; and that, under the form of allegiance, 
the reality of independence had lona: existed. "It 
was not easy to devise," says Governor Hutchinson, 
whose testimony on this point at least must be admit- 
ted to be of great weight, " a system of subordinate 
government less controlled by the supreme, than the 

• Book I. chap. ii. ; and chap. iii. 

+ Stedman's American War, 4to. vol. i. p. 16. 



governments in the colonies. Every colony had 
been left to frame their own laws, and adapt them to 
the genius of the people, and the local circumstances 
of the colony. Massachusetts, in particular, was 
governed by laws varying greatly from, though not 
repugnant to, the laws of England. Not only their 
penal laws, their forms of administering justice, the 
descent of estates, varied from the English constitu- 
tion, and were settled to their own minds ; but they 
had been allowed to establish a mode of religious 
worship, and a form of church government and 
discipline, which, at most, might be said to be only 
tolerated in England."! Possessed of their own 
legislature, the colonists imposed and appropriated 
their own imposts, and perpetually resisted the at- 
tempts of the crown to render the governors, judges, 
and other officers appointed by the sovereign, inde- 
pendent of the colonial legislatures, by refusing them. 
The repeated declarations of some of tlie representa- 
tive assemblies, that no power could lawfully require 
the imposition of any tax without the assent of the 
colonial assembly, plainly indicated their opinion as 
to their independence of the British parliament in all 
matters of internal government ; while their frequent 
resistance to the encroachments of the crown, in the 
conduct of the governors, proves equally their watch- 
ful jealousy to keep the sovereign power within 
the narrowest limits, and to dispute its exercises 
whenever it interfered with their re.al or imagina- 
ry rights. 

The advocates of the liberties of America, preced- 
ing and during the period of contest, appear to have 
been fully aware of the real state of the question; 
that their views were just, is testified by the almost 
unanimous concurrence of all enliglitencd statesmen 
of the present day. When Charles Tovvushciid, at 
the conclusion of one of his speeches in favour of the 
right of the British parliament to tax the colonies, 
exclaimed, " And now will these Americans, planted 
by our care, nourished up by our indulgence, until 
they are grown to a degree of strength and importance, 
and protected by our arms— will they grudge to 
contrijuite their mite to relieve us from the heavy 
burden we lie under?" Colonel Barre replied:— 
" They planted by your care ! No, your oppression 
planted them in America. They fled from your 
tyranny, to a then uncultivated and inhospitable 
country, where they exposed themselves to almost 
all the hardships to which human nature is liable, 
and among others, to the cruellies of a savage fof — 
the most subtle, and I will take upon me to say, he 



t Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts Bay, p. 353. 



182 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



most formidable, of any people upon the face of God's 
earth ; and yet, actuated by principles of true Eng- 
lisli liberty, they met all hardships with pleasure, 
compared with those they suffered in their own 
country, from the hands of those who should have 
been their friends. They nourished by your indul- 
gence ! They grew by your neglect of them. 
As soon as you began to take care about them, that 
care was exercised in sending persons to rule them in 
one department and another, who were deputies of 
deputies to some members of this house, sent to prey 
upon them ; men, whose behaviour on many occa- 
smns has caused the blood of those sons of liberty to 
recoil within them ; men promoted to the highest 
seats of justice, some of whom, to my knowledge, 
were glad, by going to a foreign country, to escape 
being brought to a bar of justice in their own. 
They protected b)^ your arms ! They have nobly 
taken up arms in your defence, have exerted their 
valour, amidst tlieir constant and laborious industry, 
for tlie defence of a country whose frontiers were 
drenched in blood, while its interior parts yielded all 
Us little savings to your emolument. And believe me, 
that same spirit of freedom which actuated that 
people at first, will accompany them still."* 

The immediate and exciting causes of the spirit of 
opposition to the government were two-fold ; the 
rigorous execution of the navigation laws, which 
destroyed a most important and profitable, though 
contraband and illegal trade ; and the assertion by 
the Britisli parliament of its right to tax the colonies. 
The latter so speedily followed the former, and afford- 
ed so preferable a ground on which to make a stand, 
that the navigation laws were seldom exhibited as 
one of the, chief grievances ; although, had not the 
stamp act and other similar measures been brought 
forward, the laws affecting the trade of the co- 
lonies would inevitably have excited the same op- 
position. 

The attempt to hold a people, circumstanced as 
were the American colonists, under the legislation of 
Great Britain, was as irrational as it was luijust. 
Financial embarrassments called forth the er^neous 
policy into action, which, as often happens in 
private life, deeply aggravated the evil it was design- 
ed to remedy; and the attempt to wring a few thou- 
sands per annum from the colonists, terminated in 
plunging Great Britain into debt, and in depriving 
her of an immense territory, which, under a just 
and liberal management, might still have con- 

• Gordon's History of the American Revolution, vol. i. p. 160, 
161. 
t Bisselt's History, vol. i. p. 227, and M. Botta's Historic de la 



tiniTed one of the most illustrious appendages of the 
British crown. 

Plans of laying internal taxes, and of drawing a 
revenue from the colonies, had been at various times 
suggested to the ministry, and particularly to Sir 
Robert Walpole. This statesman, however, was too 
wise and sagacious to adopt them. " I will leave the 
taxation of the Americans," Walpole answered, " for 
some of my successors, who may have more courage 
than I have, and be less friendly to commerce thaii I 
am. It has been a maxim with me," he added, 
" during my administration, to encourage the trade 
of the American colonies to the utmost latitude; nay, 
it has been necessary to pass over some irregularities 
in their trade with Europe ; for, by encouraging 
them to an extensive and growing foreign commerce, 
if they gain five hundred thousand pounds, I am 
convinced that, in two years afterwards, full two 
Inmdred and fifty thousand of this gain will be in his 
majesty's exchequer by the labour and product of this 
kingdom, as immense quantities of every kind of 
our manufactures go thither ; and as they increase in 
the foreign American trade, more of our produce will 
be wanted. This is taxing them more agreeably to 
their own constitution and laws."t The first Pitt, 
also, in his celebrated speech on the repeal of. the 
stamp act, referring to the conduct of the several 
preceding administrations, says, " None of these 
thought, or even dreamed of, robbing the colonies of 
their constitutional rights. That was reserved to 
mark an era of the late administration ; not that 
there were wanting some, when I had tlie honour to 
serve his majesty, to propose to me to burn my fin- 
gers with an American stamp act. With the enemy 
at their back, with our bayonets at their breasts, in 
the day of their distress, perhaps the Americans 
would have submitted to the imposition ; but it 
would have been taking an ungenerous and unjust 
advantagfe." 

Whatever might have been the views or wishes of 
any individual of the British cabinet, at any period, 
relative to drawing a revenue directly from the co- 
lonies, no one had been bold enough to make the at- 
tempt until after the reduction of the French power 
in America. This was deemed a favourable moment 
to call upon the Americans for taxes, to assist in the 
payment of a debt, incurred, as was alleged, in a 
great measure, for their protection against apoM'^crful 
enemy, now no longer an object of their dread. t A 
British statesman should have reflected, that, if the 



Guerre de I'lndependence et des Etat.s-Unis d'Ameriqne. Edit. 
Franc, vol. i. p. 62. 
t Pitkin, vol. i. p. 157. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



183 



Americans were relieved from the dread of their 
ancient enemy, they no longer required tlie protec- 
tion of the parent country against that enemy ; and 
that the strongest hold on their dependence was gone 
when Canada was gained.* 

The conquest of Canada had scarcely been effected,! 
when rumours were extensively prevalent! that a dif- 
ferent system of government was about to be adopt- 
ed by the parent state ; that the charters would be 
taken away, and the colonies reduced to royal govern- 
ments. The officers of the customs began to enforce 
witlr strictness all the acts of parliament regulating 
the trade of the colonies, several of which had been 
suspended, or had become obsolete. Governor Ber- 
nard, of Massachusetts, who was always a supporter of 
the royal prerogative, appears to have entered fully in- 
to these views, and to have indicated, by his appoint- 
ment of confidential advisers, that his object would be 
to extend the power of the government to any limits 
which the ministry might require. The first demon- 
stration of the new course intended to be pursued, 
was the arrival of an order in council to carry into 
effect the acts of trade, and to apply to the supreme 
judicature of the province for writs of assistance, to 
be granted to the officers of the customs. According 
to the ordinary course of law, no searches or seizures 
can be made without a special warrant, issued upon 
probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, 

• " The disposition to lax. the American.s, unless they would tax 
themselves equal to the wishes of the ministry, was undoubtedly 
strengthened by the reports of their gayety and luxury which 
reached the mother country : it was also said, that the planters 
lived like princes, while the inhahilants of Britain laboured hard 
for a tolerable subsistence. The officers lately returned represent- 
ed them as rich, wealthy, and even overgrown in fortune. Their 
opinion might arise from observations inade in the Ainerican cities 
and towns during the war, while large sums were spent in the 
country, for the support of fleets and arinies. American produc- 
tions were then in great demand, and trade flourished. The peo- 
ple, naturally generous and hospitable, having a number of stran- 
gers among them, indulged themselves in many uncommon ex- 
penses. When the war was terminated, and they had no further 
apprehension of danger, the power of the late enemy in the coim- 
try being totally broken, — Canada., and the back lands to the very 
banks of the Mississippi, with the Floridas, being ceded to Great 
Britain, — it was thought they could not well make too much of 
those who had so contributed to their security. Partly to do 
honour to them, and partly, it is to be feared, to gratify their own 
pride, they added to their sliow of plate, by borrowing of neighbours, 
and made a great parade of riches in their several entertainments. 
The plenty and variety of provision and liquors enabled them to 
furnish out an elegant table, at a comparatively trifling expense." — 
Gordon's History, vol. i. p. 1.57, 158. 

t It will be perceived, that the contest respecting the writs of as- 
sistance occurred nearly two years before the signature of the treaty 
of Paris; but it has been deemed preferable to make a slight chro- 
nological retrocession, than to dissever this occurrence from those 
with which it is so strictly allied in its moral and political cha- 
racter. 

t " Nothing excited a greater alarm in the breats of those to 
whom it was communicated, than the following anecdote, viz. The 
Rev. Mr. Whitefield, ere he left Portsmouth, in New Hampshire, 

24 



! particulai'ly do.sigiintiiig the place to be searched and 
i the iroods to be seized. But the writ of assistance 
was to command all sheriffs and other civil officers 
to assi.st the person to whom it was granted, in 
breaking open and searching every place where he 
might suspect_ any prohibited or uncustomed goods 
to be concealed. It was a sort of commission, during 
pleasure, to ransack the dwellings of the citizens, for 
it was never to be returned, nor any account of the 
proceedings under it rendered to the court whence it 
issued. Such a weapcjn of oppression in the hands 
of the inferior officers of the customs, might well 
alarm even iimccencc,- and confound the violators of 
the law. 

The mercantile part of the community united in 
opposing the petition, and was in a state of great 
anxiety, as to the result of the question. The offi- 
cers of the customs called upon Mr. Otis for his official 
assistance, as advocate-general, to argue their cause : 
but as he believed these writs to be illegal and tyran- 
nical, he resigned the situation, though very lucrative, 
and if filled by a compliant spirit, leading to the high- 
est favours of government. The merchants of 
Salem and Boston applied to Otis? and Thacher, who 
engaged to make their defence. The trial took place 
in the council chamber of the Old Town House, in 
Boston. The judges were five in number, including 
Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson, who presided as 

on Monday afternoon, the 2d of April, 1764, sent for Dr. Langdon 
and Mr. Haven, the congregational ministers of the town, and upon 
their coming and being alone with him, said, ' I can't in conscience 
leave the town without acquainting you with a secret. My heart 
bleeds for America. O poor New England ! There is a deep-laid 
plot against both your civil and religious liberties, and they will be 
lost. Your golden days are at an end. You have nothing but 
trouble before you. My information comes from the best authority 
in Great Britain. I was allowed to speak of the affair in general, 
but enjoined not to mention particulars. Your liberties will be 
lost.'" Gordon, vol. i. p. 143. Considerable jealousy appears to 
have been justly entertained by the Americans of the well known 
Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts. The bishop 
of LlandafT observed, in a discourse on behalf of that institution, 
that the establishment of episcopacy being obtained, " the American 
church will go out of its infant stale, be able to stand upon its own 
legs, and, without foreign help, support and spread itself, and then 
this society will be brought to the happy issue intended." Mr. 
Whitefield justly remarks, in a letter to Dr. Durell, " Supposing 
his lordship's assertions true, then I fear it will follow, that a so- 
ciety, which, since its first institution, hath been locked upon as a 
society for propagating the gospel, hath been all the while rather a 
society for propagating episcopacy in foreign parts." 

§ Mr. Hutchinson insists that the opposition of Mr. Otis was 
oriffinally excited by the governor's refttsing the place of chief jus- 
tice of tlie supreme court to his father ; and speaking of his conduct 
on this occasion, says, " Mr. Otis's zeal in carrying on these causes 
was deemed as ineriiorious as if it had sprung from a sincere con- 
cern for the liberties of the people. His resenlmcnt against the 
governor was not charged upon him as the motive." Mr. Hutch- 
inson may, however, be supposed at least as prejudiced against Mr. 
Otis, as his biograplier or Mr. Adams may be in his favour. See 
Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts Bay, from 1749 to 1774. p. 
90—95. 



184 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



chief justice ; and ^he room was filled with all the 
officers of government and the principal citizens, to 
hear the arguments in a cause that inspired the deep- 
est solicitude. The case was opened by JMr. Gridley, 
who argued it with much learning, ingenuity, and 
dignity, urging every point and authority that could 
be found, after the most diligent search, in favour of 
tlie custom house petition ; making all his reasoning 
depend on this consideration, — " if the parliament of 
Great Britain is the sovereign legislator of the Bri- 
tish empire." He was followed by Mr. Thacher on 
the opposite side, whose reasoning was ingenious and 
able, delivered in a tone of great mildness and mode- 
ration. " But," in the language of president Adams, 
" Otis was a flame of fire ; with a promptitude of 
classical allusion, a depth of research, a rapid summa- 
ry of historical events and dates, a profusion of legal 
authorities, a prophetic glance into futurity, and a 
rapid torrent of impetuous eloquence, he hurried away 
all before him. American independence was then 
and there born. The seeds of patriots and heroes to 
defend the Non shie DHs animostis infaiis* to de- 
fend the vigorous youth, were then and there sown. 
Every man of an immense crowded audience appear- 
ed to me to go away as I did, ready to tal^e arms 
against writs of assistance. Then and there was 
the first scene of the first act of opposition to the ar- 
bitrary claims of Great Britain. Then and there the 
child Independence was born. In fifteen years, i. e. 
in 1776, he grew up to manhood and declared himself 
free."t 

In consequence of this argument, it appears, the 
popularity of Otis was without bounds, and at the 
next election he was for the first time chosen a mem- 
ber of the house of representatives by an almost unani- 
mous vote. Some idea of the state of public senti- 
ment at that period may be derived from the following 
remarkable language of the governor, in his speech 
at the commencement of the session. " Let me re- 
commend to you to give no attention to declamations 
tending to promote a suspicion of the civil rights of 
the people being in danger. Such harangues might 
suit well in the time of Charles and James, but in 
the times of the Georges they are groundless and un- 
just. Since the accession of the first George, there 
has been no instance of the legal privileges of any 
corporate body being attacked by any of the king's 
ministers or servants, without public censure ensuing. 
His present majesty has given uncommon assurances 

• This allusion is to the alliance medal, struck in Paris; one 
siile of which contains the head of Liberty, with the words Liber/as 
AmericaTw., 4th .Tuly, 1776; and on the reverse, a robust infant 
struggling with the serpent, attacked by a lion, (England,) defend- 



how much he has at heart the preservation of the 
liberty, riglits, and privileges of all his subjects. Can 
it be supposed that he can forfeit his word ; or that 
he will suffer it to be forfeited by the acts of any 
servant of his with impunity ? An insinuation so 
unreasonable and injurious I am sure will never be 
well received among you." 

In the following session, Governor Bernard in- 
formed the house of representatives that, during the 
recess of the legislature, he had appropriated a small 
sum towards fitting out the sloop Massachusetts to 
protect the fishery. The committee appointed to 
prepare an answer, reported to the house a message, 
in which_ after desiring his excellency to restore the 
sloop to her former condition, they add — " Justice to 
ourselves and to our constituents obliges us to remon- 
strate against the method of making or increasing 
establishments by the governor and council. It 
is in effect taking from the house their most darling 
privilege, the right of originating all taxes. It is, in 
short, annihilating one branch of the legislature. 
And when once the representatives of a people give 
up this privilege, the government will very soon be- 
come arbitrary. No necessity, therefore, can be suf- 
ficient to justify a house of representatives in giving up 
such a privilege; for it would be of little consequence 
to the people whether they were subject to George or 
Louis, the king of Great Britain or the French king, 
if both were arbitrary, as both would be if both could 
levy taxes without parliament." " Treason, trea- 
son !" cried one of the members, when these words 
were read ; but the report was accepted, and the mes- 
sage sent unaltered to the governor. The same 
day he returned it, accompanied by a letter requesting 
that a part of it might be expunged, as disrespectful 
to the king. It was then proposed to insert an 
amendment in the message, expressive of loyalty ; 
but a certain member crying " Rase them, rase them," 
the obnoxious words, which had been underlined by 
the governor, were erased ; " it being obvious that 
the remonstrance would bo the same in effect with or 
without them." The g-overnor sent a vindication ol 
his conduct to the house, and prorogued the assem- 
bly before there was time to answer it. 

In the mean time, the laws of trade were enforced 
with increasing strictness, gieatly to the embarrass- 
ment of American commerce, particularly that of the 
northern colonies, the whole of whose foreign trade 
seemed about to be ruined ; an event which would 



ed by Minerva, (France,) who interposes a shield with the fleurs 
de lis, and on which the lion fastens; the motto, furnished by Sir 
William Jones, Non sine Diis animosus injans. 
t Tudor's Life of Otis, p. 61. 



II 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



ISO 



leave them no means of making remittances to Eno;- 
land for the purchase of manufactures, rendered so 
necessary by the severity of their climate, bat direct 
exportations to that country ; to which, the subjection 
of Canada having made that province the seat of tlie 
fur trade, they had nothing to send, but the growth 
of their foi-ests and the produce of their whale fishery. 
The apprehension of this evil induced them to urge 
their agents and correspondents in Great Britain to 
make every effort to procure a repeal, or to prevent 
the perpetuity, of the most obnoxious statutes, particu- 
larly of the sugar and molasses act. Notwithstanding 
tlie approach of these evils, and the language of Mr. 
Otis in his argument on writs of assistance, the 
unconstitutional character of this and the other laws 
of trade does not appear to have been denied with a 
voice loud and general enough to excite attention in 
Great Britain, or even in the southern colonies ; nor 
does the authority of parliament to enact them appear 
to have been yet openly contested by any deliberative 
body. The colonies were not ready to throw off by 
force restraints which they had been accustomed to 
wear from tlieir infancy, and which had not till 
lately pressed severely upon them. They now began 
to find them galling; and perhaps the time when they 
would have grown up to such a size as to feel them- 
selves cramped and shackled by them beyond endu- 
rance, was not far distant. The ministry, however, 
chose to anticipate it; and in December, 1763, orders 
were published in America for the vigilant and 
unsparing enforcement of the most odious of these 
laws, with the avowed purpose of raising a revenue. 
The year 1764 was prolific in measures calculated 
to agitate and arouse the spirit of the Americans. 
Early in March an act was passed, which declared 
that the bills which had been issued by the several 
colonial governments, should no longer be regarded 
as legal currency ; an enactment which, although in 
some cases it might have the beneficial effect of pre- 
venting an injurious excess of paper, was very 
prejudicial to the interests, as well as galling to the 
feelings, of the colonists. On the 10th of March, the 
house of commons passed eighteen resolutions for 
imposing taxes and duties on the colonies. The 
execution of that which declared that it might be 
proper to impose certain stamp duties on them, was 
deferred to the next session ; but the others were 
immediately enforced by "An Act for granting certain 
Duties in America ;" which, after stating that it was 
just and expedient to raise a revenue there, imposed 
duties on silks and coloured calicoes from Persia, 
India, or China, and on sugar, wines, coffee, and 
pimento, made the sugar and molasses act perpetual. 



reducing the duty on molasses from sixpence to three 
pence per gallon ; and this for the express and sole 
purpose of raising a revenue. The same act increased 
the number of enumerated commodities, laid new and 
harsh restrictions on commerce, re-enacted many of 
the obsolete laws of trade, and provided that all penal- 
ties and forfeitures, accruing under any of them, 
might be sued for, at the election of the informer, in 
any court of record or of admiralty, or in that of vice- 
admiralty, to be established over all America. The 
declaration which was made, that all tliese duties 
should be devoted to the maintenance of an army for 
the defence of the colonies, Avas by no means satis- 
factory : it was, indeed, urged by the ministry, to 
prove to the Americans that the money which was 
raised from them would ultimately be spent again 
among their own inhabitants ; but the colonists saga- 
ciously conjectured, that now they had no other 
enemy than a few exhausted tribes of Indians, there 
must be some other design than that of defence m 
maintaining a standing army among them ; and they 
could attribute the plan to no other source, than a 
desire on the part of the ministry to secure the 
destruction of their liberties by military force. 

The direct assertion by the British parliament, of 
its right to tax the colonies, accompanied, as it evi- 
dently was, by a determination to carry the principle 
into almost immediate effect, excited the most ex- 
tensive clamour and agitation, not only among 
individuals, but in the minds of the constituted 
authorities. " Taxation without representation is 
tyranny," was the universal watchword ; the pro- 
posed exaction was every where the topic of conver- 
sation, and the subject of the severest animadversion. 
Every day beheld the aflection of the Americans for 
the parent country sensibly diminish, while the dis- 
position to resist by force was silently but effectually 
fostered. Several of the provincial assemblies sent 
instructions to their agents in London to employ 
every means to prevent the obnoxious measure being 
carried into effect. 

The people of Boston, at their meeting in May, 
instructed their representatives to the general court 
on this important subject. In these instructions, 
(which were drawn up by Samuel Adams, one of tlio 
committee appointed for that purpose,) after comment- 
ing on the sugar and molasses act, they proceed to 
observe : " But our greatest apprehension is, that 
these proceedings may be preparatory to new faxes ; 
for if our trade may be taxed, why not our lands ? 
why not the products of our lands, and every thing 
we possess or use ? This, v/e conceive, annihilate? 
our charter rights to govern and tax ourselves. It 



186 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



strikes at our British privileges, which, as we have 
never forfeited, we hold in common with our fellow- 
sulijects wlio are natives of Britain. If taxes are laid 
upon us, in any shape, without our having a legal 
representation where they are laid, we are reduced 
from the character of free subjects, to the state of 
tributary slaves. We, therefore, earnestly recommend 
it to you to use your utmost endeavours to obtain 
from the general court all necessary advice and 
instruction to our agent at this most critical juncture. 
VVe also desire you to use your endeavours that the 
other colonies, having the same interests and rights 
with us, may add their weight to that of this province ; 
that by united application of all who are aggrieved, 
all may obtain redress."* This was the first public 
act in the colonies, in opposition to the ministerial 
plans of drawing a revenue directly from America ; 
and it contained the first suggestion of the propriety 
of that mutual understanding and correspondence 
among the colonies, which laid the foundation of their 
future confederacy. The house of representatives of 
Massachusetts, in June following, declared, "That the 
sole right of giving and granting the money of the 
people of that province, was vested in them, or their 
representatives, and that the imposition of duties and 
taxes by the parliament of Great Britain upon a 
people not represented in the house of commons, is 
absolutely irreconcilable with their rights ; that no 
man can justly take the property of another, without 
his consent ; upon which original principles, the 
power of making laws for levying taxes, one of the 
main pillars of the British constitution, is evidently 
founded." The same senti ments are expressed, though 
in stronger language, in their letter of instructions to 
their agent. " If the colonists are to be taxed at 
pleasure," they say, " without any representatives in 
parliament, what will there be, to distinguish them, 
in point of liberty, from the subjects of the most 
absolute prince ? If we are to be taxed at pleasure, 
without our consent, will it be any consolation to us, 
that we are to be assessed by a hundred instead of 
one 1 If we are not represented, we are slaves." 
The house, also, at the same time, appointed a com- 
mittee, to sit during the recess of the court, to -write 
to the other colonies, requesting them to join in 
applying for a repeal of the sugar act, and in endea- 
vouring to prevent the passage of the act laying 
stamp duties, or any other act imposing taxes on the 
American provinces. ' 

The assembly of Connecticut appointed a committee 
to assist the governor in drawing up reasons why the 



• Life of Samuel Adams, Signers of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, vol. ix. p. 291. 



colonies should not be charged with internal taxes by 
authority of parliament. These reasons were drawn 
up principally by Mr. Fitch, an able jurist, then 
governor of Connecticut, and being reported to the 
assembly of that colony, were approved. In the 
course of the year, petitions to the king and both 
houses of parliament were prepared in many of the 
colonies, and sent to their agents. The general court 
of Massachusetts was prorogued until October. The 
house of representatives of that colony agreed upon a 
petition in accordance with their resglutions of June 
preceding. This being sent to the council for their 
concurrence, through the influence of Thomas Hutch- 
inson, one of the joint committee to whom it was 
referred, M^as finally so altered and modified, as to 
place the objections of that colony to the stamp act 
on the ground of expediency rather than of right. 
The petitions of the other colonies, hoAvever, spoke a 
more bold and decisive language. The memorial of 
the assembly of Virginia to the house of commons 
declared, that " they conceived it essential to British 
liberty, that laws imposing taxes on the people ought 
not to be made without the consent of representatives 
chosen by themselves ; who, at the same time that 
they are acquainted with the circumstances of their 
constituents, sustain a proportion of the burden laid 
on them. This privilege, inherent in the persons 
who discovered and Settled these regions, could not," 
they observed, " be renounced, or forfeited, by their 
removal hither, not as vagabonds and fugitives, but 
licensed and encouraged by their prince, and animated 
with a laudable desire of enlarging the British domi- 
nions and extending its commerce ; on the contrary, 
it was secured to them and their descendants, with 
all other rights and immunities of British subjects, by 
a royal charter, which hath been invariably recog- 
nised and confirmed by his majesty and his prede- 
cessors, in their commissions to the several governors, 
granting a power and prescribing a form of legislation, 
according to which laws for the administration of 
justice, and for the welfare and good government of 
the colony, have been enacted by the governor, 
council, and general assembly ; and to them requi- 
sitions and applications for supplies have been directed 
by the crown." 

The petitions of the assembly of New York were 
drawn with great ability, and breathed a spirit more 
bold and decided than those from any other colony. 
In that to the house of commons, after stating, that 
from the year 1683 there had been in that province 
three legislative branches, consisting of the governor 
and council, appointed by the crown, and the repre- 
sentatives chosen by the people, who had enjoyed the 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



187 



right of taxing the subject for the support of the 
government, and had always granted aid to the crown 
according to their abiUties, they add, " But an 
exemption from the burden of ungranted and in- 
voluntary taxes must be the grand principle of every 
free state. Without such a right vested in them- 
selves, exclusive of all others, there can be no liberty, 
no happiness, no security ; it is inseparable from the 
very idea of property; for who can call that his own, 
which may be taken away at the pleasure of another? 
And so evidently does this appear to be the natural 
right of mankind, that even conquered tributary 
states, though subject to the payment of a fixed 
periodical tribute, never were reduced to so absolute 
and forlorn a condition, as to yield to all the burdens 
which their conquerors might, at any future time, 
thiirk fit to impose. The tribute paid, the debt was 
discharged ; and the remainder they would call their 
own. And if conquered vassals, upon the principle 
of mutual justice, may claim a freedom from assess- 
ments unbounded and unassented to, without which 
they would suffer the loss of every thing, and life 
itself become intolerable, with how much propriety 
and boldness may we proceed to inform the commons 
of Great Britain, who, to their distinguished honour, 
in all ages asserted the liberties of mankind, that the 
people of this colony nobly disdain the thought of 
claiming that exemption as a privilege. They found 
it on a basis more honourable, solid, and stable ; they 
challenge it, and glory in it as their right. That 
right their ancestors enjoyed in Great Britain and 
Ireland ; their descendants, returning to these king- 
doms, enjoy it again ; and that it may be exercised 
by his majesty's subjects at home, and justly denied 
to those who submitted to poverty, barbarian wars, 
loss of blood, loss of money, personal fatigues, and ten 
thousand unutterable hardships, to enlarge the trade, 
wealth, and dominion of the nation : or to speak with 
the most incontestable modesty, that when, as subjects, 
all have equal merits, a fatal, nay, the most odious 
discrimination should nevertheless be made between 
them, no sophistry can recommend to the sober impar- 
tial decision of common sense." While the assembly 
of New York acknowledged that parliament had a 
right to regulate the trade of the colonies, they 
declared, that in doing this they had not the right of 
imposing duties for the purpose of revenue. 

In addition to the acts and declarations of the 
colonial legislatures, various individuals enlightened 
and animated the colonists by numerous publications 
both in the newspapers and by separate pamphlets. 
Among the latter, " The Rights of the Colonists as- 
serted and proved," by Mr. Otis, and " The Sentiments 



of a British American," by Oxenbridge Thacher, 
were particularly distinguished. Mr. Otis, among 
other things, declared, " Tiiat the imposition of taxes, 
whether on trade or on land, on houses, or ships, on 
real or personal, fixed or floating property, in the 
colonies, is absolutely irreconcilable with the rights 
of the colonists, as British subjects and as men." 
On the subject of the sugar and molasses act, Mr. 
Thacher stated his objections, the first of which was, 
" That a tax was thereby laid on several commodities, 
to be raised and levied in the plantations, and to be 
remitted home to England. This is esteemed," he 
said, "a grievance, inasmuch as the same are laid 
without the consent of the representatives of the 
colonists. It is esteemed an essential British right, 
that no man shall be subject to any tax but what, 
in person or by his representative, he ham a voice 
in laying."* 

In the winter of 1765, at the request of the other 
agents of the colonies. Dr. Franklin, Jarcd Ingersoll, 
Mr. Jackson, and Mr. Garth, had a conference with 
Mr. Grenville, on the subject of the stamp duty. Mr. 
Ingersoll was from Connecticut, and had been re- 
quested to assist Mr. Jackson in any matters relating 
to that colony ; Mr. Garth was agent for South Caro- 
lina, and he and Mr. Jackson were members of 
parliament. These gentlemen, and particularly Dr. 
Franklin and Mr. Ingersoll, informed the minister of 
the great opposition to the proposed tax in America, 
and most earnestly entreated him, that if money must 
be drawn from the colonies by taxes, to leave it with the 
colonists to raise it among themselves, in such manner 
as they should think proper, and best adapted to their 
circumstances and abilities. Dr. Franklin informed 
the minister, that the legislature of Pennsylvania had, 
by a resolution, declared, " That as they always had, 
so they always should, think it their duly, to grant 
aids to the crown, according to their abilities, 
whenever required of them in the usual constitu- 
tional way." 

Neither the remonstrances of the colonists, how- 
ever, nor the entreaties of their agents, were of any 
avail with the ministry or parliament. The bill for 
laying the stamp and other duties was soon brought 
before the liouse, and petitions from the colonies cf 
Virginia, Connecticut, and South Carolina, were 
offeTed in opposition to it. The house, however, re- 
fused to receive them ; in the first place, because they 
questioned or denied the right of parliament to pass 
the bill ; and, in the second place, because it was 
contrary to an old standing rule of the house, — "that 



» Pitkin, vol. i. p. 161—170. 



188 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



no petition should be received against a money bill." 
The majority against receiving the petitions was very 
large, and those from the other colonies were not 
oflered. The petition from New York was express- 
ed in such strong languas-e, that no member of the 
house could be prevailed upon to present it. The 
admirable speech of Colonel Barre in reply to Charles 
Townshend, which has already been quoted, although 
it produced a profound impression, did not of course 
defeat the measure ; and the colonial petitions and 
remonstrances, with the petition of the London 
merchants trading to America, were equally unavail- 
ing. In the house of commons there were about two 
hundred and fifty for, and only fifty against it. In the 
lords it passed without debate, with entire unanimity ; 
and on the 22d of March it obtained the royal assent. 
This enactment, which was to come into operation 
on the 1st of November, excited the most serious 
akirm throughout the colonies. It was viewed as a 
violation of the British constitution, and as destruc- 
tive of the first principles of liberty ; and combina- 
tions against its execution were every where formed. 
The house of burgesses in Virginia, which was in 
session when intelligence of the act was received, 
passed several spirited resolutions, asserting the co- 
lonial rights, and denying tlie claim of parliamentary 
taxation. The resolutions* were introduced into the 
Virofinia assembly by the eloquent Patrick Henry, 
who, on the envelope of a copy of them in his own 
hand writing, has given the following interesting 
particulars : " Tliey formed," says Mr. Henry, " the 
first opposition to the stamp act, and the scheme of 
taxing America by the British parliament. All the 
colonies, either through fear, or want of opportunity 
to form an opposition, or from influence of some kind 
or other, had remained silent.t I had been for the 
first time elected a burgess a few days before, was 

* They were as follows : " Resolved, That ihe first adventurers 
and settlers of this his majesty's colony and dominion, brought with 
ihem, and transmitted to their posterity, and all other his majesty's 
subjects since inhabilins; in this his majesty's said colony, all the 
privileges, franchises, and immunities, that have at any time been 
held, enjoyed, and possessed by the people of Great Brilain. 

" Resolved, That by two royal charters, granted by King James 
I., the colonists aforesaid are declared entitled to all the privileges, 
liberties, and immunities, of denizens and natural born subjects, to 
all intents and purposes, as if they had been abiding and born within 
the realm of England. 

" Resolved, That the taxation of the people by themselves, or by 
persons chosen by tliemselves to represent them, who can only 
know what taxes the people are able to bear, and the easiest mode 
of raising them, and are equally affected by such taxes themselves, 
is the distinguishing characteristic of British freedom, and without 
which the ancient constitution canno' subsist. 

" Resolved, That his majesty's liege people of this most ancient 
colony, have uninterruptedly enjoyed the right of being thus go- 
verned by their own assembly in the article of their taxes and in- 
ternal police, and that the same hath never been forfeited, or any 



young, inexperienced, unacquainted with the forms 
of the house, and the members that composed it. 
Finding the men of weight averse to opposition, and 
the commencement of the tax at hand, and that no 
person was likely to step forth, I determined to ven- 
ture ; and alone, unadvised, and unassisted, on a 
blank leaf of an old law book wrote the within. Upon 
offering them to the house, violent debates ensued. 
Many threats were uttered, and much abuse cast on 
me, by the party for submission. After a long and 
warm contest, the resolutions passed by a very small 
majority, perhaps of one or two only. The alarm 
spread throujjhout America with astonishing quick- 
ness, and the ministerial party were overwhelmed. 
The great point of resistance to British taxation was 
imiversally established in tlie colonies. This brought 
on the war, which finally separated the two countries, 
and gave independence to ours. Whether this will 
prove a blessing or a curse, will depend upon the 
use our people make of the blessings which a gra- 
cious God hath bestowed on us. If they are wise 
they will be great and happy. If they are of a con 
trary character, they will be miserable. Kighteous 
ness alone can exalt them as a nation." 

" It was in the midst of this magnificent debate," 
says his biographer, Mr. Wirt, "while he was des- 
canting on the tyranny of the obnoxious act, that he 
exclaimed in a voice of thunder, ' Cassar had his Bru- 
tus — Charles the First his Cromwell — and George the 
Third' — (' Treason,' cried the speaker ; ' Treason, trea- 
son,' echoed from every part of the house : it was one 
of those trying moments which are decisive of 
character. Henry faltered not for an instant ; but 
rising to a loftier attitude, and fixing on the speaker an 
eye of- the most determined fire, he finished his sen- 
tence with the firmest emphasis,) may frojit by their 
example. If this be treason, make 'the most of it.' "I 



other way given up, but hath been constantly recognised by the 
king and people of Great Britain. 

" Resolved, therefore. That the general assembly of this colony 
have Ihe sole right and power to lay taxes and impositions upon 
the inhabitants of this colony, and tliat every attempt to vest such 
power in any person or persons whatsoever, other than the general 
assembly aforesaid, has a manifest tendency to destroy British as 
well as American freedom." — Win's Life of Henry, p. 56, 57. 

t Mr. Henry does not appear to have been fully informed of, or 
to have adequately estimated, the character of the proceedings in 
Massachusetts and other colonies, during the preceding year. 

t We cannot refrain from giving another extract from Mr. 
Wirt's Life of Henry, although it is a specimen of an overcharged 
and vitiated style. Mr. W. has, however, received a just critique 
from that able work, to which England and America are both 
greatly indebted, the North American Review. " He had never 
before had a subject which entirely matched his genius, and was 
capable of drawing out all the powers of his mind. It was remark- 
ed of him, throughout his life, that his talents never failed to rise 
with the occasion, and in proportion with the resistance which he had 
to encounter. The nicety of the vote on his last resolution, proves 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



189 



In the province of Massachusetts dissatisfaction at 
the passing the stamp act was strongly manifested, 
and surprise was mingled with irritation, arising 
from the act having been adopted without any regard 
to the memorials and remonstrances forwarded from 
America on the subject. Feeling as freemen and as 
Englishmen, they saw a fatal blow aimed at their 
highly valued charter-liberties, and were justly ap- 
prehensive that, without a more resolute and united 
defence than had yet been made, their civil freedom 
would be laid prostrate at the feet of despotic power. 
Governor Bernard, in his speech to the legislature 
in May, merely glanced at the interesting subject by 
which the public mind was so deeply agitated ; but 
urged entire submission to all acts of parliament, as 
it was the sanctuary of liberty and justice ; and 
eulogized the character of the prince on the throne. 
" as one fully deserving the epithet of a patriot king." 
His speech had principal reference to other topics of 
a local nature. But the house of representatives, 
having referred to committees the several matters re- 
commended by the governor, devoted themselves to 
the adoption of measures for preserving the rights of 
the province, which they saw directly and systemati- 
cally assailed. On an early day of the session, 
" having considered the many difficulties to which 
the colonies were and must be reduced by the opera- 
tion of the late acts of parliament," they voted to 
appoint a committee of nine of their body to report 
what measures were best to be taken thereon. This 
committee recommended " that there should be a 
meeting, as soon as convenient, of committees from 
the houses of representatives or burgesses in the 
several colonies on this continent, to consult together 
on their present circumstances, and the difficulties to 
which they are and must be reduced, by the late acts 
of parliament for levying duties and taxes on the 
colonies, and to consider of a general and humble 
address to his majesty and the parliament, imploring 
relief ; that such meeting should be holden at New 
York, in October ; that three persons be chosen from 
the house of representatives, on the part of this 
province, to attend the convention ; that letters be 
prepared and transmitted to the respective speakers 
of the several houses of representatives, or burgesses, 

that this was not a time to hold in reserve any part of his forces. 
It was, indeed, an alpine passage, under circumstances even more 
unpropitious than those of Hannibal ; for he had not only to fight, 
hand to hand, the powerful party who were already in possession 
of the heights, but at the same instant to cheer and animate the 
timid band of followers that were trembling, and fainting, and 
drawing back, below him. It was an occasion that called upon 
him to put forth all his strength, and he did put it forth, in such a 
manner as man never did before. The cords of argument, with 
which his adversaries frei^ently flattered themselves that they 



in the colonies, advising them of the resolutions of 
the house, and inviting them to join by their commit- 
tees for the purposes above expressed. And that a 
letter be also prepared and forwarded to the agent of 
the province in England on these matters."* This 
was a very important measure : an occasion was 
thus furnished for citizens from the different colonies 
to confer with one another, and to ascertain each 
other's opinions and feelings ; and a precedent 
was established for a general meeting, in future to 
consult for the welfare of the whole. The effect of 
united consultation and petitions must also be much 
greater than an application or an expression of dis- 
content from a single province ; and the British 
administration might perceive that the dissatisfaction 
in the colonies was not, as represented, confined to a 
particular section of the country and to a few indivi- 
duals, but was almost universal. 

On the 7th of October, the convention, consisting 
of twenty-eight delegates from the assemblies of Mas- 
sachusetts, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, 
Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, 
the Delaware counties, Maryland, and South Caro- 
lina, assembled in the city of New York, and Timo- 
thy Ruo-gles, of Massachusetts, was chosen president. 
The first measure of the congress was a declaration 
of the rights and grievances of the colonists. They 
were declared to be entitled to all the rights and 
liberties of natural-born subjects within the kingdom 
of Great Britain ; among the most essential of which 
are, the exclusive power to tax themselves, and the 
privilege of trial by jury. The grievance chiefly 
complained of was the act granting certain stamp 
and other duties in the British colonies, which, by 
taxing the colonists without tlieir consent, and by ex- 
tending the jurisdiction of courts of admiralty, was 
declared to have a direct tendency to subvert their 
rights and liberties. A petition to the king, and a 
memorial to each house of parliament, were also 
agreed on ; and it was recommended to the several 
colonies to appoint special agents, who should unite 
their utmost endeavours in soliciting redress of griev- 
ances. The assemblies of Virginia, North Carolina, 
and Georgia, were either not in session, or were 
prevented by their governors from sending represent- 



had bound him fast, became packthreads in his hands. He burst 
them wilh as much ease as the unshorn Samson did the bands of 
the Philistines. He seized the pillars of the temple, shook them 
terribly, and seemed to threaten his opponents with ruin. It was 
an incessant storm of lightning and thunder, which struck ihera 
aghast. The faint-hearted gathered courage from his counte 
nance, and cowards became heroes while they gazed upon his ex- 
ploits." — p. 64, 65. 

• Bradford's History of Massachusetts, p. 53. 



190 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 




atives to the congress ; but they forwarded peti- 
tions to England similar to those adopted by that 
body. 

The populace in various parts of the colonies were 
iinwillina: to wait for the effect of the constitutional 
measures their representatives were adopting. One 
day in the month of August the effigy of Andrew 
Oliv^er, the proposed distributor of stamps in Massa- 
chusetts, was found hanging on a tree, afterwards 
well known by the name of Liberty Tree, in the 
main street of Boston. At night it was taken down, 
and carried on a bier, amidst the acclamations of an 
immense collection of people, through the court house, 
down King-street, to a small brick building, suppos- 
ed to have been erected for the reception of the de- 
tested stamps. This building being soon levelled 
witli the ground, the rioters next attacked Mr. Oli- 
ver's house, and having broken the windows, entered 
it, and destroyed part of the furniture. The ne.xt 
day, however, Mr. Oliver authorized several gentle- 
men to announce on the exchange, that he had de- 
clined having any concern with the office of stamp 
master ; but in the evening a bonfire was made, and 
a repetition of this declaration exacted of him. 
On the 2Gth the tumults were renewed. The rioters 
Eissembled in King-street, and proceeded to the house 
of the deputy register of the court of admiralty, 
whose private papers, as well as tlie records and files 
of the court, were destroyed. The house of Benja- 
min Hallowell, jun., comptroller of the customs, was 
next entered ; and elevated and emboldened by liquors 
found in his cellar, the mob, with inflamed rage, di- 
rected their course to the house of Lieutenant-govern- 
or Hutchinson, who, after vainly attempting resist- 
ance, was constrained to depart to save his life. By 
four in the morning one of the best houses in the 
province was completely in ruins, nothing remain- 
ing but the bare walls and floors. The plate, 
family pictures, most of the furniture, the wearing 
apparel, about nine hundred pounds sterling, and the 
manuscripts and books which Mr. Hutchinson had 
been thirty years collecting, besides many public 
papers in his custody, were either carried off" or de- 
stroyed. The ivhole damage was estimated at two 
:housand five hundred pounds.* The town of Bos- 
*;on the next day voted unanimously, that the select- 
men and magistrates be desired to use their utmost 
endeavours, agreeably to law, to suppress the like 
disorders for the future, and that the freeholders and 
other inhabitants would do every thing in their pow- 
er to assist them. The officer appointed to receive 



• Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, from 1749 to 1774, p. 



the stamped paper, which was daily expected, having 
resigned his commission, the governor determined to 
receive the paper into his own charge at the castle , 
and, by advice of council, he ordered the enlistment 
of a number of men to strengthen the garrison. This 
caused great murmur among the people. To pa- 
cify them, he made a declaration in council, that 
he had no authority to open any of the packages, or 
to appoint a distributor of stamps ; that his views in 
depositing the stamped paper in the castle, and in 
strengthening the garrison there, were to prevent im- 
prudent people from ofiering p.n insult to the king ; 
and to save the town, or province, as it might hap- 
pen, from being held to answer for the value of the 
stamps, as they certainly would be if the papers 
should be taken away. This declaration the council 
desired him to publish, but it did not stop the cla- 
mour. He was forced to stop the enlistment, and to 
discharge such men as had been enlisted. The first 
day of November, on which the stamp act was to be- 
gin its operation, was ushered in at Boston by the 
tolling of bells; many shops and stores were shut; 
and effigies of the authors and friends of that act 
were carried about the streets, and afterwards torn 
in pieces by the populace. 

Nor was Massachusetts alone ; — the obnoxious act 
received similar, though less flagrant treatment in the 
other colonies. On the 24th of August a gazette extra- 
ordinary was published at Providence, with Vox Populi 
vox Dei, for a motto : effigies were exhibited, and in 
the evening cut down and burnt. Three days after- 
wards, the people of Newport conducted effigies of 
three obnoxious persons in a cart, with halters about 
their necks, to a gallows near the town house, where 
they were hung, and after a while cut down and 
burnt amidst the acclamations of thousands. On the 
last day of October, a body of people from the country 
approached the town of Portsmouth, (New Hampshire,) 
in the apprehension that the stamps would be distri- 
buted; but on receiving assurance that there was no 
such intention, they quietly returned. All the bells 
in Portsmouth, Newcastle, and Greenland, were tolled, 
to denote the decease of Liberty ; and in the course 
of the day, notice was given to her friends to attend 
her funeral. A coffin, neatly ornamented, and in- 
scribed with " Liberty, aged cxlv. years," was 
prepared for the funeral procession, which began from 
the state house, attended with two unbraced drums ; 
minute guns were fired until the corpse arrived at the 
grave, when an oration was pronounced in honour of 
tlie deceased ; but scarcely was the oration concluded, 
when, some remains of life having been discovered, 
the corpse was taken up ; and the inscription on the 



/ 




?,D^t?r8.-ved try U G Tli<«iii.3on 



^/;^^L-^— -^^ A^ 








N^X^ 



V\ 






HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



191 



lid of the coffin was immediately altered to "Liberty 
REVIVED ;" the bells suddenly struck a cheerful sound, 
and joy appeared again in every countenance. In 
Connecticut, Mr. IngersoU, the constituted distributor 
of stamps, was exhibited and burnt in effigy in the 
month of August ; and the resentment at length 
became so general and alarming, that he resigned 
his office. 

The spirit manifested by the citizens of New York 
produced a similar resignation ; and the obnoxious 
act was contemptuously cried about the streets, la- 
belled, "The Folly of England and Ruin of America." 
The stamp papers arriving toward the end of October, 
Lieutenant-Governor Golden took every precaution to 
secure them. On the 1st of November, many of the 
inhabitants of New York, offended at the conduct 
and disliking the political sentiments of the governor, 
having assembled in the evening, broke open his 
stable, and took out his coach ; and after carrying it 
through the principal streets of the city, marched to 
the common, where a gallows was erected, on one 
end of which they suspended his effigy, with a stamped 
bill of lading in one hand, and a figure of the devil 
in the other. When the effigy had hung a consi- 
derable time, they carried it in procession suspended 
to the gallows, to the gate of the fort, whence it was 
removed to the bowling green, under the muzzle of 
the guns, and a bonfire made, in which the whole 
pageantry, including the coach, was consumed, amidst 
the acclamations of several thousand spectators. The 
next day, the people insisting upon having the stamps, 
it was agreed that they should be delivered to the 
corporation, and they were deposited in the city hall. 
Ten boxes of stamps, which arrived subsequently, 
were committed to the flames. 

At Philadelphia, on the appearance of the ships 
having the stamps on board, all the vessels in the 
harbour hoisted their colours half-mast high, the bells 
were muffled, and continued to toll until evening. 
The body of quakers, with a part of the church of 
England and of the baptists, seemed inclined to sub- 
mit to the stamp act ; but great pains were taken to 
engage the Dutch and the lower class of people in the 
opposition, and Mr. Hughes, the stamp master, found 
it necessary at length to resign. In Maryland, 
Mr. Hood, the stamp distributor for that colony, to 
avoid resigning his office, fled to New York; but 
he was constrained by a number of freemen to sign a 
paper, declaring his absolute and final resignation. 
In Virginia, when the gentleman who had been ap- 
pointed distributor of stamps arrived at Williamsburg, 
he was immediately urged to resign ; and the next 
day he so handsomely declined acting in his office, 
25 



that he received the acclamations of the people ; at 
night the town was illuminated, the bells were rung, 
and festivity expressed the universal joy. 

Associations had already been formed in the colo- 
nies, under the title of the Sons of Liberty, and were 
composed of some of the most respectable of their citi- 
zens. The association in New York held a meetinor 
on the 7th of November, at which it was determined 
that they would risk their lives and fortunes to resist 
the stamp act. Notice of this being sent to the Sons 
of Liberty in Connecticut, a union of the two asso- 
ciations was soon after agreed upon, and a formal 
instrument drawn and signed ; in which, after de- 
nouncing the stamp act as a flagrant outrage on the 
British constitution, they most solemnly pledged them- 
selves to march with their whole force whenever re- 
quired, at their own proper cost and expense, to the 
relief of all who should be in danger from the stamp 
act or its abettors ; to be vigilant in watching for the 
introduction of stamped paper, to consider all who are 
caught in introducing it as betrayers of their country, 
and to bring them if possible to condign punishment, 
whatever may be their rank ; to defend the liberty of 
the press in their respective colonies from all viola- 
tions or impediments on account of the said act ; to 
save all judges, attorneys, clerks, and others, from fines, 
penalties, or any molestation whatever, who shall pro- 
ceed in their respective duties without regard to the 
stamp act ; and lastly, to use their utmost endeavours 
to bring about a similar union with all the colonies 
on the continent. In pursuance of this plan, circular 
letters were addressed to the Sons of Liberty in Boston, 
New Hampshire, and as far as South Carolina, and 
the proposal was received with almost universal en- 
thusiasm. 

Societies were formed also in most of the colonies, 
including females, and those of the highest rank and 
fashion, of persons who resolved to forego all the luxu- 
ries of life, sooner than be indebted for them to the 
commerce of England, under the restrictions imposed 
upon it by parliament. These societies denied them- 
selves the use of all foreign articles of clothing ; card- 
ing, spinning, and weaving became the daily employ- 
ment of ladies of fashion ; sheep were forbidden to be 
used as food, lest there should not be found a sufficient 
supply of wool ; and to be dressed in a suit of home- 
spun was to possess the surest means of popular dis- 
tinction. So true were these patriotic societies to 
their mutual compact, that the British merchants and 
manufacturers soon began to feel the necessity of uni- 
ting with the colonies in petitioning parliament for a 
repeal of the obnoxious law ; and the table of the 
minister was loaded with petitions and remonstrances 



192 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



from most of the manufacturing and mercantile towns 



in the kingdom. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE REVOLUTION — FROM THE REPEAL OF THE 
STAMP ACT TO THE PASSING THE BILL FOR CLO- 
SING THE PORT OF BOSTON. 

While the colonies were thus brought into a state 
bordering on insurrection by the injudicious and unjust 
measures of the Grenville administration, tire adminis- 
tration itself was rapidly hastening to its dissolution. 
George HI. had ascended the throne not long after the 
capture of Quebec ; and in the following October the 
patriot Pitt, who had devised and executed the grand 
scheme of expelling the French from North America, 
resigned the seals of office. Lord Bute, who appears 
to have been a personal friend of the new king, was 
appointed Mr. Pitt's successor ; and imder his brief 
administration the peace of Paris was concluded. 
He was succeeded by Mr. Grenville, whose name 
will always bear an unhappy notoriety as the author 
of the stamp act ; and whose measures have formed 
the subject of the preceding chapter. However the 
king might approve his political sentiments, and the 
king was a decided tory, Grenville was not person- 
ally in favour with his majesty ; and the result was, 
(after some unsuccessful negotiation with Mr. Pitt, 
who expressed his unwillingness to go to St. James's 
" without he could carry the constitution along with 
him,") the formation of the Rockingham administra- 
tion. 

The speech of the king at the opening of parlia- 
ment in January, 1766, clearly evinced the difference 
of principle between the men who now formed his 
cabinet, and his former ministers. He declared " his 
firm confidence in the wisdom and zeal of parliament, 
which would, he doubted not, guide them to such 
sound and prudent resolutions as might tend at once 
to preserve the constitutional rights of the British 
legislature over the colonies ; and to restore to them 
that harmony and tranquillity which have lately been 
interrupted by disorders of the most dangerous nature. 
He said he had nothing at heart but the assertion of 
legal authority, the preservation of the liberties of all 
his subjects, the equity and good order of his govern- 
ment, and the concord and prosperity of all parts of 
his dominions." — On the motion for an address to 
the king, the sentiments of the house on the measures 
of the late administration, and particularly on the 
stamp act, were given boldly and freely. Mr. Pitt 



was the first to offer his sentiments on the state affairs. 
" It is a long time, Mr. Speaker," said that able states- 
man and uncorruptible patriot, " since I have attend- 
ed in parliament : when the resolution was taken in 
this house to tax America, I was ill in bed. If I could 
have endured to have been carried in my bed, so great 
was the agitation of my mind for the consequences, 
I would have solicited some kind hand to have laid 
me down on this floor to have borne my testimony 
against it. It is my opinion, that this kingdom has 
no right to lay a tax upon the colonies. At the 
same time, I assert the authority of this kingdom to 
be sovereign and supreme in every circumstance of 
government and legislature whatsoever. Taxation is 
no part of the governing or legislative power ; the taxes 
are a voluntary gift and grant of the commons alone. 
The concurrence of the peers and of the crown is ne- 
cessary only as a form of law. This house represents 
the commons of Great Britain. When in this house we 
give and grant, therefore, we give and grant what is 
our own, but can we give and grant the property of 
the commons of America? It is an absurdity in terms. 
There is an idea in some, that the colonies are virtu- 
ally represented in this house. I would fain know 
by whom ? The idea of virtual representation is the 
most contemptible that ever entered into the head of 
man : it does not deserve a serious refutation. The com- 
mons in America, represented in their several as.scm- 
blies, have invariably exercised this constitutional 
right of giving and granting their own money ; they 
would have been slaves if they had not enjoyed it. 
At the same time, this kingdom has ever professed the 
power of legislative and commercial control. The colo- 
nies acknowledge your arUhority in all things, with the 
sole exception, that you shall not take their money 
out of their pockets without their consent. Here 
would I draw the line — quajn ultra citraque veqnit 
consistere rectum." A profound silence succeeded 
the address of Mr. Pitt ; no one appeared inclined to 
take the part of the late ministers. At length Mr. 
Grenville himself, the obstinate author of all the mis- 
chief which then so loudly threatened the peace and 
prosperity of the whole empire, rose in defence of the 
measures of his administration. " Protection and 
obedience," said the late minister, " are reciprocal ; 
Great Britain protects America, America is therefore 
bound to yield obedience. If not, tell me, when 
were the Americans emancipated ? The seditious 
spirit of the colonies owes its birth to the factions in 
this house. We were told we trod on tender ground, 
we were bid to expect disobedience : what is this 
but telling America to stand out against the law '? to 
encourage their obstinacy with the expectation of 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



193 



support here ? Ungrateful people of America ! The 
nation has run itself into an immense debt to give 
them protection ; bounties have been extended to 
them ; in their favour the act of navigation, that pal- 
ladium of British commerce, has been relaxed ; and 
now that they are called upon to contribute a small 
share towards the public expense, they renounce your 
authority, insult your officers, and break out, I might 
almost say, into open rebellion." 

In reply to the observations of Mr. Grenville, Mr. Pitt 
thus addressed himself to the speaker : " Sir, a charge 
is brouffht aafainst gentlemen sittinsr in this house for 
giving birth to sedition in America. The freedom 
with which they have spoken their sentiments against 
this unhappy act is imputed to them as a crime ; but 
tiie imputation shall not discourage me. It is a 
liberty which I hope no gentleman will be afraid to 
exercise ; it is a liberty by which the gentleman who 
calumniates it might have profited. He ought to have 
desisted from his project. We are told America is 
obstinate — America is almost in open rebellion. Sir, 
/ rejoice that America has resisted ; three millions 
of people so dead to all the feelings of liberty, as 
voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been 
fit instruments to make slaves of all the rest. I 
came not here armed at all points with law cases 
and acts of parliament, with the statute book doubled 
down in dogsears to defend the cause of liberty ;* but 
for the defence of liberty upon a general constitutional 
principle, it is a ground on which I dare meet any 
man. I will not debate points of law : but what, 
after all, do the cases of Chester and Durham prove, 
but that under the most arbitrary reigns, parliament 
were ashamed of taxing a people without their 
consent, and allowed them representatives ? A 
higher and better example might have been taken 
from Wales ; that principality was never taxed by 
parliament till it was incorporated with England. 
We are told of many classes of persons in this king- 
dom not represented in parliament ; but are they not 
all virtually represented as Englishmen within the 
realm? Have they not the option, many of them at 
least, of becoming themselves electors ? Every in- 
habitant of this kingdom is necessarily included in 
the general system of representation. It is a ?nis- 
fortune that more are not actually represejited.t 
The honourable gentleman boasts of his bounties to 
America. Are not these bounties intended finally 
for the benefit of this kingdom? If they are not, 
he has misapplied the national treasures. I am no 

» Alluding to Mr. Grenville's having read several statutes in the 
course of his speech, as precedents for taxation without representa- 
'ion. 



courtier of America — I maintain that parliament has 
a right to bind, to restrain America. Our legislative 
pov/er over the colonies is sovereign and supreme. 
The honourable gentleman tells us, he understands 
not the difference between internal and external taxa- 
tion ; but surely there is a plain distinction between 
taxes levied for the purpose of raising a revenue, and 
duties imposed for the regulation of commerce. 
'When,' said the honourable gentleman, ' were the 
colonies emancipated?' At what time, say I, in 
answer, were they made slaves ? I speak from ac- 
curate knowledge when I say that the profits to Great 
Britain from the trade of the colonies, through all 
its branches, is two millions per annum. This is 
the fund which carried you triumphantly through 
the war ; this is the price America pays you for her 
protection ; and shall a miserable financier come with a 
boast that he can fetch a peppercorn into the ex- 
chequer at the loss of millions to the nation ? I know 
the valour of your troops — I know the skill of your 
officers — I know the force of this country : but in 
such a cause your success would be hazardous. Ame- 
rica, if she fell, would fall like the strong man : she 
would embrace the pillars of the state, and pull down 
the constitution with her. Is this your boasted peace ? 
Not to sheathe the sword in the scabbard, but to 
sheathe it in the bowels of your countrymen ? The 
Americans have been wronged — they have been driven 
to madness by injustice. Will you punish them for 
the madness you have occasioned ? No, let this coun- 
try be the first to resume its prudence and temper ; 
I will pledge myself for the colonies, that, on their part, 
animosity and resentment will cease. Upon the whole, 
I will beg leave to tell the house in a few words what 
is really my opinion. It is, that the stamp act be re- 
pealed absolutely, totally, and immediately. At the 
same time, let the sovereign authority of this country 
over the colonies be asserted in as strong terms as can 
be devised, and be made to extend to every point of 
legislation whatsoever ; that we may bind their trade, 
confine their manufactures, and exercise every power 
whatsoever, except that of taking their money out of 
their pockets without their consent." 

The address of the commons having been voted, 
Mr. Grenville made an attempt to pledge the house to 
enforce the obnoxious enactment, but was success- 
fully opposed by the new ministers, who were sup- 
ported by a majority of one hundred and forty. The 
house made no delay in entering on the investigation 
of the papers relative to American affairs, which 



t To this declaration the whole nation, with the exception of a 
small and interested faction, is now yielding its unqualified 
assent. 



194 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



were laid before them by command of his majesty. 
The petition from the cciigress at New York was 
not allowed to be read, the parliament having denied 
their authority to assemble for the purpose alleged. 
Various other petitions, however, as well from the 
colonies as from the manufacturino- and trading in- 
terests of the kingdom, all tending to the same point, 
received due and patient attention. In the course of 
this inquiry on American affairs, Dr. Franklin, whose 
political integrity and moral worth were alike duly 
estimated by the people of England, was called to the 
bar of the house, and freely questioned upon many 
important topics.* The answers which he gave fully 
confirmed the new ministers in the propriety and 
expediency of their intention to move for a repeal of 
the stamp act ; and a bill for that purpose was, on 
the 22d of February, brought in by General Conway, 
who had so boldly denied the right of parliament to 
impose it in the first instance. The debate which 
ensued was warm, interesting, and long ; but " the 
house, by an independent, noble-spirited, and unex- 
pected majority, in the teeth of all the old mercenary 
iSiciss of the state, in despite of all the speculators 
and augurs of political events, in defiance of the whole 
embattled legion of veteran pensioners and practised 
instruments of court, gave a total repeal to the stamp 
act, and if the scheme of taxing the colonies had been 
totally abandoned, a lasting peace to the whole em- 
pire. "t The motion was carried by two hundred 
and seventy-five against one hundred and sixty-seven. 
During the debate, " the trading interest of the empire 
crammed into the lobbies of the house of commons 
with a trembling and anxious expectation, and waited, 
almost to a winter's return of light, their fate from 
the resolution of the house. When, at length, that 
had determined in their favour, and the doors thrown 
open showed them the figure of their deliverer in the 
well earned triumph of his important victory, from the 
whole of that grave multitude there arose an invo- 
luntary burst of gratitude and transport. They jump- 



• Dr. Franklin's answers to the numerous questions put to him on 
this occasion, show at once his thorough knowledge of the merits of 
the cause, and of the views, principles, and spirit of his countiymen. 
To the question, "Do not you think the people of America would 
submit to the stamp duty if it was moderated V he answered, " No, 
never, unless compelled by force of arms." To the question, " What 
was the temper of America towards Great Britain before the year 
1763'?" he replied, " The best in the world. They submitted wil- 
lingly to the government of the crown, and paid, in their courts, 
obedience to acts of parliament. Numerous as the people are in 
the several old provinces, they cost you nothing in forts, citadels, 
garrisons, or armies, to keep them in subjection. They were go- 
verned by this country at the expense only of a little pen, ink, and 
paper; they were led by a thread. They had not only a respect, 
but an affection for Great Britain, for its laws, its customs, and 
manners, and even a fondness for its fashions, that greatly increas- 
ed the commerce. Natives of Britain were always treated with 



ed upon him like children on a long absent father. 
They clung about him as captives about their re- 
deemer. All England joined in his applause. Nor 
did he seem insensible to the best of all earthly re 
wards, the love and admiration of his fellow-citizens. 
Hope elevated and joy brightened his crest."+ The 
bill having passed the house of commons, went up to 
the house of lords. Lords Bute and Strange publicly 
declared that his majesty's wish was not for a repeal. 
The Marquis of Rockingham and Lord Shelburne 
went together to the king, and told him what was 
reported. They were informed that his majesty had 
expressed his desire that it should be enforced ; but 
if it could not be done peaceably and without blood- 
shed, it was his sincere desire and intention that it 
should be totally repealed. The dukes of York and 
Cumberland, the lords of the bedchamber, and the 
ofiicers of the household, were for carrying fire and 
sword to America ; and most of the bench of bishops 
con&urred in those hostile sentiments. There were, 
in the lords, for the repeal one hundred and five, 
against it seventy-one. 

On the 19th of March, his majesty went to the 
house of peers, and passed the bill for repealing the 
American stamp act, as also that for securing the 
dependency of the colonies on the British crown. 
On this occasion the American merchants made a most 
numerous appearance to express their gratitude and joy ; 
ships in the river displayed their colours ; the city was 
illuminated ; and every method was adopted to de- 
monstrate the sense entertained of the wisdom of par- 
liament in conciliating the luinds of the people on 
this critical occasion. In America, the intelligence 
was received with acclamations of the most sincere 
and heartfelt gratitude by all classes of people. Pub- 
lic thanksgivings were offered up in all the churches. 
The resolutions which had been passed on the subject 
of importations were rescinded, and their trade with 
the mother country was immediately renewed with 
increased vigour. The homespun dresses were 



pariicular regard ; to be an Old England-man was, of itself, a cha- 
racter of some respect, and gave a kind of rank among us." — " And 
what is their temper now'?" it was asked. "O, very much alter- 
ed," he replied. "Did you ever hear the authority of parliament 
to make laws for America, questioned till lately t" — " The authori- 
ty of parliament," said he, " was allowed to be valid in all laws, 
except such as should lay internal taxes. It was never disputed 
in laying duties to regulate commerce." To the question, " Can 
you name any act of assembly, or public act of any of your govern- 
ments, that made such distinction 7" he replied, "I do not know 
that there was any ; I think there was never an occasion to make 
such an act, till now that you have attempted to tax us; that has 
occasioned resolutions of assembly, declaring the distinction, in 
which I think every assembly on the continent, and every member 
in every assembly, have been unanimous." 

t Mr. Edmund Burke's speech, April 19, 1774, 

t Ibid. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



195 



given to the poor, and once more the colonists appear- 
ed clad in the produce of British looms. 

In his circular to the governors of the colonies, Se- 
cretary Conway informed them that the king and 
parliament "seemed disposed not only to forgive but 
to forget those most unjustifiable marks of an undu- 
tiful disposition, too frequent in the late transactions 
of these colonies ;" but at the same time required them 
strongly to recommend to the assemblies to make full 
and ample compensation to those who had suffered 
" for their deference to the act of the British legisla- 
ture." The transactions referred to in the secretary's 
letter were those which took place in Boston and 
New York, in the summer of 1765. In June, 1766, 
this letter of the British secretary was laid before the 
assembly of Massachusetts, by Governor Bernard. 
In comnmnicating it to the assembly of that province, 
the governor says, " The justice and humanity of this 
requisition," as he called it, " is so forcible, that it 
cannot be controverted ; the authority with which it 
is introduced should preclude all disputation about it." 
This language on the part of the royal governor was 
considered, by the house of representatives, as inter- 
fering with the freedom of deliberation in that body, 
and was one of the causes which produced delay in 
complying with the wishes of the king and parlia- 
ment on this subject. In their answer to this com- 
munication, the house observed, " That it was con- 
ceived in much higher and stronger terms in the 
speech than in the letter of the secretary. Whether 
in thus exceeding, your excellency speaks by your 
own authority, or a higher, is not with us to deter- 
mine. However, if this recommendation, which your 
excellency terms a requisition, be founded on so mucli 
justice and humanity that it cannot be controverted ; 
if the authority with which it is introduced should 
preclude all disputation about complying with it, we 
should be glad to know what freedom we have in the 
case." Compensation was not made to the sufferers 
in Massachusetts until December, 1767 ; and then in 
a manner and on conditions highly displeasing to the 
British government ; the act for that purpose also 
containing " free and general pardon, indemnity, and 
oblivion, to all offenders in the late times." The act 
was afterwards disallowed by the king and council, 
because the assembly had no power to pass a law of 
general pardon without the previous assent of the 
crown. The sufferers, however, received the com- 
pensation provided by the act, and the rioters were 
not prosecuted. 

The government of Great Britain could not have 
found an agent less qualified to foster and preserve a 
spirit of reconciliation in the colonies, than his excel- 



lency Governor Bernard. He was haughty, morose, 
and tyrannical, and seemed to take delight in thwart- 
ing every measure of the assembly not proposed by 
his immediate friends and sub-agents. This conduct 
on the part of the governor, so far from subduing tlie 
spirits of what was called the American party, or the 
friends of liberty, irritated them to more open hosti- 
lity, and brought continual accessions to their niuu- 
bers. The town of Boston was at this time rcpreseiil- 
ed by James Otis, jun., Thomas Cushinff, Samuel 
Adams, and John Hancock ; men whose subsequent 
conduct proved that they were not to be driven into 
any surrender of privilege. It was probably in the 
power of the governor to have made them friends of 
the king ; but he chose, by every petty act of opposi- 
tion to their views, to alienate their respect and af- 
fection, and confirm them in the character of cham- 
pions of freedom. At the meeting of the assembly, 
Mr. Otis was chosen speaker, but the governor refu- 
sed to confirm the choice ; he also refused to sanction 
the nomination of the council, because the crown 
officers had been left out. Hitherto the influence of 
the governor over the assembly had been greatly as- 
sisted by the secrecy with which the debates of that 
house had been carried on ; but the friends of liberty 
were now so numerous there, tiiat their doors were 
thrown open, and a gallery ordered to be erected for 
the accommodation of their fellow-citizens. From 
this moment the court party began to decline, and 
the cause of the people to acquire additional de- 
fenders. 

In New York the legislature, by a voluntary act, 
granted compensation to those who had suffered a 
loss of property in their adherence to the stanjp act ; 
but they refused to carry into execution the act of 
parliament for quartering his majesty's troops upon 
them, on account of a clause which they declared in- 
volved the principle of taxation. 

In the mean time a change took place in the Bri- 
tish cabinet. The administration of the Marquis of 
Rockingham terminated in July, 1766, and a new 
ministry was formed, under the direction of Mr. Pitt, 
composed of men of different political principles and 
parties. The Duke of Grafton was placed at the 
head of the treasury ; Lord Shelburne was joined 
with General Conway, as one of the secretaries of 
state ; Charles Townshend was made chancellor of 
the exchequer ; Camden lord chancellor ; Pitt had the 
privy seal, and was made a peer, with the title of the 
Earl of Chatham ; and Lord North and George Cooke 
were joint paymasters. Under this checkered ad- 
ministration, the scheme of taxing America was re- 
vived. In May, 1767, 'he new chancellor of the 



196 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



exchequer submitted a plan of this kind to parlia- 
ment. Charles Townshend was a man of genius 
and talents, but of high passions, eccentric, and 
versatile. He had warmly supported Grenville in the 
passage of the stamp act, and had voted with the 
Marquis of Rockinsrham in its repeal. The ex-mi- 
nister Grenville may indeed be considered the real au- 
thor of the second plan for taxing the colonies, for 
he was ever urging the subject on the new ministers.* 

The measure proposed by Townshend to the house 
was for imposing duties on glass, paper, pasteboard, 
white and red lead, painters' colours, and tea im- 
ported into the colonies. The preamble declared, 
" that it was expedient to raise a revenue in America, 
and to make a more certain and adequate provision 
for defraying the charge of the administration of jus- 
tice and the support of the civil government in the 
provinces, and for defraying the expenses of defend- 
ing, protecting, and securing them." The Earl of 
Chatham was then confined by sickness in the coun- 
try, the bill passed both houses without much opposi- 
tion, and on the 29th of June received the royal as- 
sent. 

The conduct of the assemblies of Massachusetts 
and New York had given great dissatisfaction in 
Great Britain. The refusal of the assembly of the 
latter to comply with the requisitions of the mutiny 
act, in particular, had excited the indignation of the 
ministry and parliament to such a degree, that three 
days after the passage of the new tax bill an act was 
passed restraining the legislature of that province 
from passing any act whatever, until they had fur- 
nished the king's troops with all the articles required 
by the mutiny act. The ministry at the same time 
determined to establish a new board of custom-house 
officers in America. An act was therefore passed, 
enabling the king to put the customs and other duties 
in America, and the execution of the laws relating 
to trade there, under the management of commission- 
ers to be appointed for that purpose, and to reside in 
the colonies. This, as the preamble declares, would 
" tend to the encouragement of commerce, and to bet- 
ter securing the rates and duties, and the more speedy 
and effectual collection thereof" 

These three acts arrived in America about the 
same time. The imposition of new taxes, accompa- 
nied by the establishment of a board of custom-house 
officers, not only to enforce the collection of the new 

* " Declaiming, as usual, one evening, on American affairs, he 
addressed himself particularly to the ministers. ' You are cowards,' 
he said; ' you are afraid of the Americans ; you dare not tax Ame- 
rica.' This he repeated in different language. Upon this, Towns- 
hend look fire, immediately rose, and said, ' Fear ! fear! cowards ! 
dare not tax America ! I dare tax America.' Grenville stood 



taxes, but the various ancient statutes relating to 
duties and the colonial trade, again excited great 
alarm among the colonists. It led them to a more 
thorough investigation of the nature of their political 
connexion with the parent country, and to a more 
strict inquiry into the extent of the power of parlia- 
ment over them. The ablest heads were engaged in 
these investigations and inquiries, and the ablest pens 
employed in defence of American rights.t The le- 
gislature of New York were, indeed, frightened into 
imiuediate compliance, but a different efl'ect was pro- 
duced in the other colonies. They saw in it a bold 
and daring attack upon their chartered privileges ; if 
the parliament of England felt so little scruple in 
abolishingthe legislative power of acolony, they might, 
with equal indifference, attack some other rights gua- 
ranteed to them by their charter, and in the end adopt 
the advice which had been once given by Governor 
Bernard, and abolish the charter itself The uneasi- 
ness occasioned by this prohibitory act was, indeed, 
particularly in Massachusetts, little less than that 
produced by the stamp act ; and their fears were still 
further increased soon afterwards by the arrival of a 
body of Britsh troops in Boston, which were hypo- 
critically said to have been driven in by stress of 
weather. They arrived during the recess of the le- 
gislature, and the governor and his council undertook 
to provide for their support out of the public treasury. 
The conduct of the troops themselves was by no 
means calculated to appease the people ; on the con- 
trary, it tended to confirm the suspicions, that the al- 
leged cause of their coming into Boston was an in- 
sidious fabrication. When the legislature met, they 
remonstrated, in their usual firmness and dignity of 
manner, against the appropriations of the public 
money by the governor ; and the governor, with his 
usual virulence, wrote an exaggerated account of the 
affair to the ministers at home. J The new duties 
were considered by the Americans only as a new 
mode of drawing money from them by way of taxes ; 
and the spirit manifested in the case of the stamp act 
again appeared, while they viewed the appointment 
of commissioners of the customs to reside in America 
as a dangerous innovation, and an unnecessary in- 
crease of the crown officers. 

The appropriation of the new duties to the support 
of crown officers, and to the maintenance of troops in 
America, was a subject of serious complaint. It had long 

silent for a moment, and then said, ' Dare you ta.x America"! I 
wish to God I could see it.' Townshend replied, ' I will, I will.' " — 
MSS. papers of Dr. Wm. S. Johnson, then in England as agen for 
Connecticut, quoted in Pitkin's History, vol. i. p. 217. 

t Pitkin, vol. i. p. 218. 

t Allen's History of the Revolution, vol. i. p. 107. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



197 



been a favourite object of the British cabinet toestablish 
in the colonies a fund, from which the salaries of the go- 
vernors, judges, and other officers of the crown should 
be paid, independent of the annual grants of the colo- 
nial legislatures. As these officers held their places 
during the pleasure of the king, the people of Massa- 
chusetts, it will be remembered, had unitbrmly resist- 
ed such establishment, though repeatedly urged on 
the part of the crown. On this subject the house of 
representatives maintained, in resolutions indicative 
of great firmness, their former purpose. The house, 
also, during this session addressed a circular letter to 
the other colonies, stating the difficulties to be appre- 
hended by (he operation of the late acts of parlia- 
ment, and requesting their co-operation for redress. 
When the question of addressing a circular to the 
colonies was first presented to the house it was op- 
posed, as seeming to countenance the meeting of 
another congress, heretofore so offensive to the British 
government ; and the motion was negatived. The 
subject was afterwards reconsidered, and the letter so 
worded as to satisfy a large majority of the house. 
The other colonies approved of the proceedings of 
Massachusetts, and joined in applying to the king for 
relief 

The circular letter of Massachusetts created no 
little alarm in the British cabinet. They viewed it 
as an attempt to convene another congress, to concert 
measures in opposition to the authority of parliament. 
Union and concert among the colonies was a peculiar 
object of dread with the ministers ; and they were 
determined, if possible, to prevent every measure 
leading to it. A letter from Lord Hillsborough, se- 
cretary of state, was therefore addressed to tlie go- 
vernor of Massachusetts, directing him, at the next 
meeting of the general assembly of that colony, " to 
require of the house of representatives, in his majes- 
ty's name, to rescind the resolution which gave birth 
to the circular letter of the speaker, and to declare 
their disapprobation of, and dissent to, that rash and 
hasty proceeding." If the house refused compliance, 
he was directed immediately to dissolve the assembly, 
and to transmit their proceedings to the king, that 
measures might be taken to prevent for the future 
" a conduct of so extraordinary and unconstitutional 
a nature." This being communicated to the house 
of representatives of Massachusetts in June, 1768, the 
house, in the most peremptory manner, by ninety-two 
to seventeen, refused to rescind, or to disapprove of 
the proceedings of the preceding assembly ; declaring 
their rights as British subjects, in a respectful man- 
ner, to petition the king and parliament for a redress 
of grievances, and to request the other colonies to 



unite with them for the same purpose. The house 
viewed the letter of Lord Hillsborough as an unwar- 
rantable attempt on their rights ; and in their answer 
to the communication of the governor on this subject, 
express themselves with no little warmth. " If the 
votes of the house were to be controlled by the direc- 
tion of a minister," they say, " we have left us but a 
shadow of liberty." On the question to rescind, Mr. 
Otis, one of the representatives from Boston, said — 
" When Lord Hillsborough knows that we will not 
rescind our acts, let him apply to parliament to rescind 
theirs. Let Britain rescind their measures, or they 
are lost for ever." On receiving information of the 
decision of the house, the governor immediately 
dissolved the assembly. 

The ministerial mandate to the other colonies was 
equally disregarded. The answer of the house of 
representatives of Maryland to the message of Go- 
vernor Sharpe, communicating Lord Hillsborough's 
letter, evinces the independent and fearless spirit of 
the people of that province. " We cannot," say they, 
" but view this as an attempt, in some of his majesty's 
ministers, to suppress all communication of senti- 
ments between the colonies, and to prevent the united 
supplications of America from reaching the royal 
ear. We have the warmest and most affection- 
ate attachment to our most gracious sovereign, and 
shall ever pay the readiest and most respectful regard 
to the just and constitutional power of the British 
parliament ; but we shall not be intimidated by a few 
high-sounding expressions from doing what we think 
is riffht." The assemblies of New York, Delaware, 
Virginia, and Georgia, expressed similar sentiments, 
in language more or less decided. Indeed, all Ame- 
ricans looked with astonishment at such a system of 
policy proceeding from a ministry of which Lord Cha- 
tham constituted a part. They found it impossible 
to reconcile tlie conduct now adopted towards them 
with their ideas of his lordship's character. They 
had heretofore regarded him as a friend, in whose 
honest and liberal principles they might securely 
trust the management of all that concerned the colo- 
nies ; but here was a melancholy evidence before 
their eyes of the insincerity of ministerial professions. 
In justice to the character of I^ord Chatham, how- 
ever, it must be observed, that he was not in parlia- 
ment during any part of the time that t])ese measures 
of Mr. Townshend were under discussion. The 
state of his health was such as not only to detain 
him from his seat in the house, but to render him in- 
cnpable of attondino- to any of the duties of his high 
station ; and it appears that his opinion weighed 
but little with the men whom he had raised to power 



198 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Charles Townshend, from whom all the troubles 
and commotions that were now rapidly spreading 
through the colonies in a great measure originated, 
did not live to witness their effects. He died in Sep- 
tember, 1767, and was succeeded as chancellor of the 
exchequer by Frederick Lord North, ayoung nobleman, 
who was then but little known in the political world, 
but who will be found to make a conspicuous figure 
in the sequel of this history. Very soon afterwards. 
Lord Chatham, disgusted with the corrupt influence 
which manifested itself in every act of the court, and 
sick of the political world, resigned the privy seal, 
which was immediately put into the hands of the Earl 
of Bristol. It was thought necessary, about the same 
time, to create a new office — that of secretary of state 
for the colonies — which was given to Lord Hillsbo- 
rough, a circumstance Avhich indicated that they 
were becoming an object of the highest considera- 
tion in the estimation of the cabinet. 

The colonists meanwhile were adopting all the 
peaceable means in their power to show their sense 
of the wrongs heaped upon them. Petitions, memo- 
rials, and remonstrances to the king and parliament, 
and letters to the individual friends of America, were 
addressed from all the legislatures ; but the most 
favourable reply which any of them received was an 
exhortation to suffer with patience and in silence. 
To suffer tamely, and without seeking redress, how- 
ever, was not the character of the sturdy sons of 
freedom who inhabited the colonies. They entered 
into the same kind of resolutions of non-importation, 
the effects of which had been so severely felt by the 
traders in England under the stamp act. Bos- 
ton, as before, took the lead. At a town meeting 
held in October, it was voted that measures should be 
immediately taken to promote the establishment of 
domestic manufactories, by encouraging the consump- 
tion of all articles of American manufacture. They 
also agreed to purchase no articles of foreign growth 
or manufacture, but such as were absolutely indis- 
pensable. New York and Philadelphia soon follow- 
ed the example of Boston ; and in a short time the 
merchants themselves entered into associations to im- 
port nothing from Great Britain but articles that ne- 
cessity required. 

The new board of commissioners of the customs 
established at Boston had now entered on the duties 
of their office. From the great excitement at that 
place, produced by the late proceedings of parliament, 

* Pitkin, vol. i. p. 229. 

t This was in direct violation of an act of parliament, (the 6th 
Anne,) which declared, that " no mariner, or other person, who 
shall serve on board, or be retained to .serve on board, any priva- 



a collision between the new custom-house officers and 
the people was by no means improbable. The in- 
dignation of the people of Boston was at length excit- 
ed to open opposition by the seizure of Mr. Hancock's 
sloop Liberty, for a violation of the revenue laws, 
Tlie popularity of the owner, who was one of the 
most active friends of the people, added to the abhor- 
rence already felt for the officers of the customs and 
the whole board of commissioners, combined to give 
a character of outrage to this seizure in the minds of 
the populace, which led to an alarming riot. Under 
the idea that the sloop would not be safe at the wharf 
in their custody, the custom-house officers had soli- 
cited aid from a ship of war which lay in the har- 
bour, the commander of which or-dered the sloop to 
be cut from her fastenings and brought under the 
guns of his ship. It was to prevent this removal 
that the mob collected — many of the officers were 
severely wounded in the scuffle, and the mob being 
baffled in their attempts to retain the sloop at the 
wharf, repaired to the house of the collector, comp- 
troller, and other officers of the customs, where they 
committed many acts of violence and injury to their 
property. This riotous disposition continued for se- 
veral days, during which the commissioners applied 
to the governor for assistance, but his excellency not 
being able to protect them, advised them to remove 
from Boston ; they consequently retired, first on 
board the Romney man-of-war, and then to Castle 
William. A committee of the council, in their report 
on this subject, say, that, although the extraordinary 
circumstances attending the seizure of the sloop, might, 
in some measure, extenuate the criminality of the 
riotous proceedings in consequence of it, yet, being 
of a very criminal nature, they declared their abhor- 
rence of them, and requested that the governor would 
direct prosecutions against the offenders. This re- 
port was accepted b^r the council, but in consequence 
of the dissolution of the assembly, was not acted upon 
by the house. Such, however, was the state of pub- 
lic feeling:, that no prosecutions could be successfully 
carried on.* The excitement at Boston was greatly 
increased about this time by the impressment of some 
seamen belonging to that town by order of the offi- 
cers of the Romney .t The inhabitants of Boston 
were assembled on this occasion, and their petition 
to the governor, praying his interference to prevent 
such outrages for the future, shows to what a state 
of alarm, anxiety, and even despair, they were then 



teer, or trading ship, or vessel, that shall be employed in America, 
nor any mariner or person, being on shore in any part thereof, shall 
be liable to be impressed or taken away by any officer or oflScers of 
or belonging to, her majesty's ships of war." 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



199 



reduced. They state that, while waiting for a gra- 
cious answer to their petitions to the king, they were 
invaded with an armed force, impressing and imprison- 
ing the persons of their fellow subjects, contrary to 
an express act of parliament ; that menaces had been 
thrown out fit only for barbarians, aflecting them in 
the most sensible manner, and that, " on account of 
the obstruction of their navigation, the situation of 
the town was nearly such as if war had been formally 
declared against it. To contend," they said, " against 
our parent state, is, in our idea, the most shocking 
and dreadful extremity ; but tamely to relinquish the 
only security we and our posterity retain for the en- 
joyment of our lives and properties without one strug- 
gle, is so humiliating and base, that we cannot sup- 
port the reflection." 

The general court of Massachusetts having been 
dissolved by Governor Bernard, who refused to con- 
vene it again without his majesty's command, on the 
proposal of the selectmen of Boston to the several 
towns in the colony, a convention met in that town 
on the 22d of September, to deliberate on constitu- 
tional measures to obtain redress of their grievances. 
The convention, disclaiming legislative authority, 
petitioned the governor ; made loyal professions ; 
expressed its aversion to standing armies, to tumults 
and disorders, its readiness to assist in suppressing 
riots, and preserving the peace ; recommended pa- 
tience and good order ; and after a short session dis- 
solved itself. 

The day before the convention rose, advice was 
received that a man-of-war and some transports from 
Halifax, with about nine hundred troops, had arrived 
at Nantasket harbour. On tlie day after their arri- 
val, the fleet was brought to anchor near Castle Wil- 
liam. Having taken a station which commanded 
the town, the troops, under cover of the cannon of 
the ships, landed without molestation, and, to the 
number of upwards of seven hundred men, marched, 
with muskets charged, bayonets fixed, martial music, 
and the usual military parade, into the common. In 
the evening, the selectmen of Boston were required to 
quarter the two regiments in the town ; but they ab- 
solutely refused. A temporary shelter, however, in 
Fanueil Hall, was permitted to one regiment that was 
without its camp equipage. The next day, the State- 
house, by order of the governor, was opened for the 
reception of the soldiers; and, after the quarters were 
settled, two field pieces, with the main guard, were 
stationed just in its front. Every thing was calcula- 
ted to excite the indignation of the inhabitants. The 
lower floor of the state-house, which had been used 
by gentlemen and merchants as an exchange, the re- 

26 



presentatives-chamber, the court-house, Fanueil Hall 
— places with which were intimately associated ideas 
of justice and freedom, as well as of convenience and 
utility — were now filled with troops of the line. 
Guards were placed at the doors of the State-house, 
through which the council must pass in going to their 
own chamber. The common was covered with 
tents. Soldiers were constantly marching and coun- 
termarching to relieve the guards. The sentinels 
challenged the inhabitants as they passed. The sab- 
bath was profaned, and the devotion of the sanctua- 
ry disturbed, by the sound of drums and other 
military music. There was every appearance of a 
Sfarrisoned town. The colonists felt disgusted and 
injured, but not overawed, by the presence of such a 
body of soldiery. After the troops had obtained quar- 
ters, the council were required to provide barracks 
for them, agreeably to act of parliament ; but they 
resolutely declined any measure which might be con- 
strued into a submission to that act. In a few weeks 
several more transports arrived at Boston from Cork, 
having on board part of the 64th and 65th British 
regiments, under Colonels Mackey and Pomeroy. 

It is evident that the British ministry little tmder- 
stood the true interests of the kingdom in regard to 
the transatlantic colonies. They had certainly made 
sufficient experiments to ascertain that the Americans 
were not to be intimidated into a surrender of any 
of their rights ; and yet they persisted in measures 
which could only tend to alienate their affections, and 
to widen the breach which former attempts had crea- 
ted, and which a contrary policy might have healed. 
These rigorous mcastires of the ministry, however, 
received the fullest sanction of both houses of parlia- 
ment. The lords passed resolutions censuring the 
votes and proceedings of Massachusetts ; and pro- 
nounced the election of deputies to sit in convention, 
and the meeting of that convention, daring insults 
offered to his majesty's authority, and audacious usur- 
pations of the powers of govennnent. The house of 
commons concurred in these resolutions ; and both 
houses, in a joint address to his majesty, expressed 
their satisfaction in the measures that he had pursued ; 
gave the strongest assurances that they would effect- 
ually support him in such further measures as might 
be found necessary to maintain the magistrates in a 
due execution of the laws in Massachusetts Bay ; and 
besought him " to direct the governor to lake the most 
effectual methods for procuring the fullest information, 
touching all treasons or misprisions of treason, com- 
mitted within the government since the 30th day of 
December, 1767, and to transmit the same, together 
with the names of the persons who were most active 



200 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



in the co nmission of such offences, to one of the sec- 
retaries of state, in order that his majesty might issue 
a special commission for inquiring of, hearing, and 
determining, the said offences within the reahn of 
Great Britain, pursuant to the provision of the statute 
of the 35th of Henry the Eighth." 

There is no portion of the conduct of the British 
government, in its contest with the colonies, which 
betrays stronger indications of tyranny, or evin- 
ces more of the blindness happily so often found in 
connexion with it, than the last of these resolutions. 
It was evidently intended to terrify the leaders of the 
patriotic party ; but it certainly ought to have been 
foreseen, that it was far more calculated to give them 
additional power, by affording another instance of the 
unjust and oppressive measures which the British 
legislature was prepared to sanction. If the object 
of the ministry had been to goad the colonists to 
resistance before they were overawed by numerous 
garrisons of royal troops, their conduct was intelligi- 
ble and consistent ; but as that was evidently far 
from their design, we find in it another occasion of 
admiring the dispensations of Him " who setteth up 
one and putteth down another," in allotting so small 
a portion of prescience to the individuals who at this 
time counselled his Britannic majesty. 

Massachusetts had no general assembly when the 
address and resolutions of parliament became known 
in America, it having been dissolved by the governor ; 
but Virginia, imiformly prompt, intelligent, and deci- 
ded, did not suffer them to pass unobserved. The 
house of burgesses, alarmed at the general danger, 
passed several resolutions, which they directed their 
speaker to transmit without delay to the speakers of 
the houses of assembly in the other colonies, whose 
concurrence in similar sentiments was earnestly re- 
quested. On the next day, the house, foreseeing the 
event, met on the instant of the ringing of the bell, and 
with closed doors received the report of their resolu- 
tions, considered, adopted, and ordered them to be enter- 
ed upon their journals ; which they had scarcely done, 
when they were summoned to attend the governor, 
and were dissolved. " Mr. Speaker," said he, " and 
gentlemen of the house of representatives, I have 
heard of your resolves, and augur ill of their effects ; 
you have made it my duty to dissolve you, and you 
are accordingly dissolved." But the dissolution of 
the house of burgesses did not change the materials 
of which it had been composed. The same members 
were re-elected without a single exception, and the 
same determined spirit of resistance continued to 

* Wirt's Life of Henry, p. 87. 



diffuse itself from the legislature over the colony 
which they represented, and to animate by sympathy 
tJie neighbouring colonies.* The assembly of South 
Carolina, the lower house in Maryland and the Dela- 
ware counties, and the assembly of North Carolina, 
adopted similar resolutions. Towards the close of the 
year, the assembly of New York also passed resolutions 
in concurrence with those of Virg-inia. 

The general court of Massachusetts was at length 
convened on the 31st of May, not having been before 
called together by the governor since his memorable 
dissolution of it, for refusing to rescind their resolution 
respecting the circular letter. Their first act was to 
send a committee to the governor, to declare, " that 
they claimed that constitutional freedom, which was 
the right of the assembly, and was equally important 
as its existence ; to assure his excellency, that it was 
their firm resolution to promote the welfare of the 
subject, and support his majesty's government in the 
province ; to make a thorough inquiry into the griev- 
ances of the people, and to have them redressed ; to 
amend, strengthen, and preserve the laws of the land ; 
to reform illegal proceedings in administration, and 
to maintain the public liberty." " This resolution," 
they said, "demanded parliamentary freedom in the 
debates of the assembly ; and therefore they were 
constrained early to remonstrate to his excellency, 
that an armament by sea and land investing the 
metropolis, and a military guard with cannon pointed 
at the very door of the state-house, where the assem- 
bly had convened, was inconsistent with the dignity 
and freedom with which they had a right to deliber- 
ate, consult, and determine. The experience of ages 
was sufficient to evince that the military power was 
ever dangerous, and subversive of a free constitution ; 
the council of the province had publicly declared that 
the aid of the military was unnecessary to support 
the civil authority in Massachusetts ; nor could they 
conceive that his majesty's service required a fleet 
and army at Boston, in a time of profound peace ; 
and they had a right to expect that his excellency, 
as the representative of the king, would give the 
necessary orders for the removal of the forces, both 
of the sea and of the land, out of the harbour, and from 
the gates of the capital, during the sitting of the assem- 
bly." To this message of the house the governor 
replied, " that he had no control of the king's troops 
stationed in the town or province, and that he had 
received no orders for their removal. "t 

From the haughty temper of Governor Bernard, it 
could not be expected that he would be condescending 

t Bradford's History of Massachusetts, p. 182. 



11 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



201 



in the exercise of official authority ; yet it was hard- 
ly to be supposed that he would causelessly give of- 
fence, by objecting to many of the best friends of the 
people elected to the council board. He gave his 
negative, however, to eleven gentlemen who had been 
chosen by the assembly, among whom were Bowdoin, 
Brattle, and Hancock : and after the general court 
had been some days in session, because they were 
consulting upon means to preserve the liberties of the 
people and obtain redress of grievances, instead of 
giving their attention to the ordinary business of 
voting salaries and providing for replenishing the trea- 
sury, he undertook to dictate to them what were the 
proper subjects of legislation ; charged them with 
wasting the public money by needless debates, and 
threatened to adjourn the court to some other place, 
unless they should proceed in the usual, and, as he 
pretended, necessary course of business. The gene- 
ral assembly was accordingly removed to Cambridge, 
where it was very inconvenient to be holden, as the 
records and the house erected for their accommoda- 
tion were -in Boston. Thus the military were sufl'er- 
ed to keep possession of the capital of the province, 
and the legislative assembly ordered to another place, 
because they chose not to be surrounaed by armed 
men. They could not, however, be driven from their 
purpose of boldly remonstrating against all arbitrary 
measures, especially the obnoxious one of keeping a 
large military force in the province, and of devising 
proper means for relief to the people. " The firmness 
and decision of this assembly," says Mr. Alden Brad- 
ford, " are entitled to the highest praise. The reso- 
lution and patriotism they exhibited at this critical 
period have never, perhaps, been exceeded by our 
most meritorious statesmen." The occasion demand- 
ed an energy and zeal which no dangers or threats 
could subdue. And the men whom the people had 
then trusted with their dearest rights, proved them- 
selves equal to the peculiar exigencies of the times. 
Nothing was omitted on their part to show their ab- 
horrence of despotism, their attachment to constitu- 
tional liberty, and their determined purpose to deliver 
the people from oppression.* 

On the 6th of July, the governor sent a message 
to the court, with accounts of the expenditures al- 
ready incurred by quartering his majesty's troops ; de- 
siring funds to be provided for discharging the same, 
and requiring a provision for the further quartering of 
the forces in Boston and Castle Island, according to 
act of parliament. The next day the house of assem- 
bly, among other resolutions, passed the following : 



♦ History of Massachusetts, p. 184. 



" That a general discontent on account of the revenue 
acts, an expectation of a sudden arrival of a mili- 
tary power to enforce the said acts, an apprehension 
of the troops being quartered upon the inhabitants, 
the general court dissolved, the governor refusing to 
call a new one, and the people almost reduced to a 
state of despair, rendered it highly expedient and 
necessary for the people to convene by their com- 
mittees ; to associate, consult, and advise the best 
means to promote peace and good order ; to present 
their united complaints to the throne ; and jointly 
to pray for the royal interposition in favour of their 
violated rights — nor can this procedure possibly be 
illegal, as they expressly disclaim all governmental 
acts : that the establishment of a standing army in 
this colony, in time of peace, is an invasion of natu- 
ral rights : that a standing army is not known as a 
part of the British constitution : that sending an 
armed force into the colony under pretence of assist- 
ing the civil authority, is highly dangerous to the 
people, unprecedented, and unconstitutional." On 
the 12tli of July, the governor called on the court to 
answer, whether they would or would not make pro- 
vision for the troops. The house, by message, after 
remarking on the mutiny or billeting act, answered, 
" As we cannot consistently with our own honour or 
interest, much less with the duty we owe to our con- 
stituents, so we never shall make any provision of 
funds for the purposes in your several messages." 
On the reception of this message, the governor pro- 
rogued the general court to the 10th of January, to 
meet at Boston. 

On the 1st of August, Sir Francis Bernard was re- 
called. A few days before his departure, he received 
letters from the secretary of state, which, being circu- 
lar to the several governors of the continent, were ap- 
parently intended to be made public. One of the 
last acts of his administration was his directing, or 
authorizing, the publication of the assurance to the 
people of the colonies in those letters, " that the ad- 
ministration is well disposed to relieve the colonies 
from all ' real' grievances arising from the late acts 
of revenue. And though the present ministers have 
concurred in the opinion of the whole legislature, that 
no measures ought to be taken which can derogate 
from the legislative authority of Great Britain over 
the colonies, yet they have declared, that they have at 
no time entertained a design to propose any further 
taxes upon America for the purpose of a revenue ; 
and that it is their intention to propose, in the next 
session of parliament, to take ofi" the duties upon glass, 
paper, and colours, upon consideration of such duties 
being contrary to the true principles oi" commerce.'" 



202 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Government in England expected, by this assurance 
of intended favour, to incline the people to abate 
their opposition. But it had a very different effect. 
It was immediately the common language among the 
advocates for liberty, " Repealing the act upon prin- 
ciples of commerce is a mere pretence, calculated to 
establish the grievance we complain of The true 
reason why the duty upon tea is to continue, is to 
save the ' right' of taxing. Our acquiescing in the 
repeal of the rest will be construed into an acknow- 
ledgment of this ' right.' The fear of trouble, from 
the discontent of merchants an9 manufacturers upon 
our non-importation agreements, has brought the 
ministry to consent to this partial repeal. A vigor- 
ous enforcement of these agreements will increase the 
fear, and we shall certainly carry the point we con- 
tend for, and obtain the repeal of the whole." A meet- 
ins: of the tradinof classes was called in Boston. The 
repeal of only part of the act was unanimously re- 
solved to be a measure intended merely to quiet the 
manufacturers in Great Britain, and to prevent the 
setting up of manufactures in the colonies, and one 
that would by no means relieve trade from its diffi- 
culties ; it was, therefore, further resolved, to send for 
no more goods from Great Britain, a few specified 
articles excepted, unless the revenue acts should be 
repealed. A committee was appointed to procure a 
written pledge from the inhabitants of the town not 
to purchase any goods from persons who have import- 
ed them, or who shall import them, contrary to the 
late agreement ; and another committee to inspect 
the manifests of the cargoes of all vessels arriving 
from Great Britain, and to publish the names of all 
importers, unless they immediately delivered their 
goods into the hands of a committee appointed to re- 
ceive them. In the midst of these proceedings, ne- 
cessarily productive of considerable disorder, Govern- 
or Bernard left the administration to Lieutenant-go- 
vernor Hutchinson, and embarked on board the Rip- 
pon, a man-of war ordered from Virginia to receive 
him, and sailed for England. Instead of the marks 
of respect commonly shown, in a greater or less de- 
gree, to governors upon their leaving the province, 
there were many marks of public joy in the town of 
Boston. The bells were rung, guns were fired from 
Mr. Hancock's wharf, the liberty tree was covered with 
flags, and in the evening a great bonfire was made 
upon Fort Hill.* 

The year 1770 is rendered important by the eleva- 
tion of Lord North to the premiership. Having been 
chancellor of the exchequer in the Duke of Grafton's 



♦ Dr. Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts Bay, from 1749 to 
1774, ohap. ii. p. 254. 



administration, on his grace's resignation, which took 
place in the end of January, he succeeded him as 
first lord of the treasury, a pre-eminence he held till 
the close of the American revolution. His adminis- 
tration will ever be celebrated by the fact, that during 
its existence Great Britain lost more territory and ac- 
quired more debt than in any previous period of her 
history. His first measure was partially, and unhap- 
pily only partially, of a conciliatory character — a 
motion for the repeal of the port duties of 1767, with 
the exception of the duty on tea, which his lordship 
expressly declared he desired to keep on as an asser- 
tion of the supremacy of the parliament. In vain it 
was contended that the reservation of this single arti- 
cle would keep up the contention which it was so 
desirable to allay ; that after giving up the prospect 
of a revenue from the colonies, it was absurd and im- 
politic to persevere in the assertion of an abstract 
claim of right, which, if attempted in any mode to be 
carried into practice, would produce nothing but 
civil discord and interminable opposition ; that, in 
short, if nothing more was meant by this omission 
of the tea in the repeal, than the mere declaration of 
parliamentary supremacy, the law already in exist- 
ence, under the title of the Declaratory Act, was 
abundantly sufficient for that purpose, and that the 
Americans had hitherto silently acquiesced in that 
law. To all these arguments Lord North replied, — 
" Has the repeal of the stamp act taught the Ameri- 
cans obedience ? Has our lenity inspired them with 
moderation ? Can it be proper, while they deny our 
legal power to tax them, to acquiesce in the argu- 
ment of illegality, and, by the repeal of the whole 
law, to give up that power? No ! the most proper 
time to exert our rioht of taxation is when the right 
is denied. To temporize is to yield ; and the au- 
thority of the mother country, if it is now unsupport- 
ed, will, in reality, be relinquished for ever. A total 
repeal cannot be thought of, till America is prostrate 
at our feet." 

Governor Pownall, who moved, as an amendment, 
to include tlie duty on tea, acknowledged, that even 
the total repeal of the duties in question, though it 
might be expected to do much, would not restore 
satisfaction to America. " If," said he, " it be asked, 
whether it will remove the apprehensions excited Ijy 
your resolutions and address of the last year, for 
bringing to trial in England persons accused of trea- 
son in America, I answer, No. If it lie asked, if this 
commercial concession would quiet the minds of the 
Americans as to the political doubts and fears which 
have struck them to the heart, throughout the conti- 
nent, I answer, No. So long as they are left in 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



203 



doubt whether the habeas corpus act, whether the 
bill of rifjhts, whether the common law as now exist- 
ing in England, have any operation and eflect in 
America, they cannot be satisfied. At this hour they 
know not whether the civil constitutions be not sus- 
pended and superseded by the establishment of a mili- 
tary force. The Americans think that they have, in 
return to all their applications, experienced a temper 
and disposition that is unfriendly, and that the en- 
joyment and exercise of tlie common rights of free- 
men have been refused to them Never with these 
views will they solicit the favour of this house ; 
never more will they wish to bring before parliament 
the grievances under which they conceive them- 
selves to labour. Deeply as they feel, they suffer and 
endure with a determined and alarming silence ; for 
their liberty they are under no apprehensions. It 
was first planted under the auspicious genius of the 
constitution ; it has grown up into a verdant and 
flourishing tree ; and should any severe strokes be 
aimed at the branches, and fate reduce it to the bare 
stock, it would only take deeper root, and spring out 
again more durable than before. They trust to 
Providence, and wait with firmness and fortitude the 
issue." The evenf proved that Mr. Pownall knew, 
incomparably better than Lord North, the character 
and state of the colonies. During his residence in 
America, while successively governor of two of the 
provinces, he acquired that knowledge which the 
British ministry could not, and some provincial 
governors would not, acquire. It might have 
been supposed that the very unsatisfactory result of 
the previous half-measures of this kind would have 
deterred any minister from a repetition of them. It 
displays as little knowledge of the construction of the 
human mind, as attention to the history of popular 
agitations, to intermingle professions of kindness with 
threats, or concessions with expressions of insult. 

The colonies, however, would probably have as- 
sumed a less agitated aspect, had not other circum- 
stances existed to ferment and perpetuate feelings of 
hostility. Among these, the introduction and main- 
tenance of troops of the line in Boston was one of the 
most aggravating. The inhabitants felt that their 
presence was designed to overawe and control the ex- 
pression of their sentiments, and the military appear 
to have viewed their residence in the town in the 
same light. Under the excitement that was thus 
occasioned, affrays were frequently occurring between 
the populace and the soldiers ; and it would appear 
that, as might be expected, neither party conducted 

• Bradford's History of Massaohusells, p. 205. 



themselves with prudence or forbearance. On the 
one hand, the soldiers are represented as parading 
the town., armed with heavy clubs, insulting and 
seeking occasion to quarrel with die people ;* while, 
on the other, the populace are declared to be the 
aggressors, and ilie military to have acted on the de- 
fensive. t Early in the evening of the 5th of March, 
the inhabitants were observed to assemble in different 
quarters of the town ; parties of soldiers were also 
driving about the streets, as if both tiie one and the 
other had something more than ordinary upon their 
minds. About eight o'clock, one of the bells of the 
town was rung in such manner as is usual in case of 
fire. This called people into the streets. A large 
number assembled in the market-place, not far from 
King-street, armed with bludgeons, or clubs. A small 
fray between some of the inhabitants and the soldiers 
arose at or near the barracks at the west part of the 
town, but it was of little importance, and was soon 
over. A sentinel who was posted at the custom- 
house, not far from the main guard, was next insulted, 
and pelted with pieces of ice and other missiles, 
which caused him to call to the main guard to pro- 
tect him. Notice was soon given to Captain Preston, 
whose company was then on guard, and a sergeant 
with six men was sent to protect the sentinel ; but 
the captain, to prevent any precipitate action, follow- 
ed them himself. There seem to have been but few 
people collected when the assault was first made on 
the sentinel ; but the sergeant's guard drew a greater 
number together, and they were more insulted than 
the sentinel had been, and received frequent blows 
from snowballs and lumps of ice. Captain Preston 
thereupon ordered them to charge ; but this was no 
discouragement to the assailants, who continued to 
pelt the guard, daring them to fire. Some of the 
people who were behind the soldiers, and observed 
the abuse of them, called on them to do so. At 
length one received a blow with a club, which brought 
him to the ground ; but, rising again, he immediate- 
ly fired, and all the rest, except one, followed the ex- 
ample. This seems, from the evidence on the trials 
and the observation of persons present, to have been 
the course of the material facts. Three men were 
killed, two mortally wounded, who died soon after, 
and several s!i<rhtly wounded. The soldiers imme- 
diately withdrew to the main guard, which was 
strengthened by additional companies. Two or three 
of the persons who had seen the action ran to the 
lieutenant-governor's house, which was about half a 
mile distant, and begged he would go to King-street, 

t Hutchinson, p. 270 



204 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



where they feared a general action would come on 
between the troops and the inhabitants. He went 
immediately, and, to satisfy the people, called for 
Captain Preston, and inquired why he had fired upon 
the inhabitants without the direction of a civil ma- 
gistrate. The noise was so great that his answer 
could not be understood ; and some persons, who 
were apprehensive of the lieutenant-governor's danger 
from the general confusion, called out, " The town- 
house, the town-house !" when, with irresistible vio- 
lence, he was forced up by tlie crowd into the council 
chamber. There demand was immediately made of 
him, to order the troops to withdraw from the town- 
house to their barracks. He refused ; but calling 
from the balcony to the great body of people who re- 
mained in the street, he expressed his great concern 
at the unhappy event ; assured them he would do every 
thing in his power to obtain a full and impartial in- 
quiry, that the law might have its course ; and advi- 
sed them to go peaceably to their homes. Upon this 
there was a cry — " Home, home !" and a great part 
separated, and went home. He then signified his 
opinion to Lieutenant-Colonel Carr, that if the com- 
panies in arms were ordered to their barracks, the 
streets would be cleared, and the town in quiet for that 
night. Upon their retiring, the rest of the inhabitants, 
except those in the council chamber, retired also. 
Lieutenant-Colonel Dalrymple, at the desire of the 
lieutenant-governor, came to the council chamber, 
while several justices were examining persons who 
were present at the transactions of the evening. From 
the evidence it was apparent that the justices would 
commit Captain Preston, if taken. Several hours 
passed before he could be found, and the people sus- 
pected that he would not run the hazard of a trial ; 
but at length he surrendered himself to a warrant for 
apprehending him, and, having been examined, was 
committed to prison. The next morning the soldiers 
who were upon guard surrendered also, and were 
committed. This was not sufficient to satisfy the 
people, and early in the forenoon they were in motion 
again. The lieutenant-governor caused his council 
to be summoned, and desired the two lieutenant-co- 
lonels of the regiments to be present. The select- 
men of Boston were waiting the lieutenant-governor's 
coming to council, and, being admitted, made their 
representation, that, from the contentions arising from 
the troops quartered in Boston, and above all, from 
the tragedy of the last night, the minds of the inhabit- 
ants were exceedingly disturbed; that they would 
presently be assembled in a town meeting ; and that, 
unless the troops should be removed, the most terrible 
consequences were to be expected. The justices also 



of Boston and several of the neighbouring towns had 
assembled, and desired to signify their opinion, that 
it would not be possible to keep the people under 
restraint, if the troops remained in town. The lieu- 
tenant-governor acquainted both the select-men and 
the justices, that he had no authority to alter the 
place of destination of the king's troops ; but that he 
expected the commanding officers of the two regi- 
ments, and would let them know the applications 
which had been made. Presently after their coming, 
a large committee from the town-meeting presented 
an address to the lieutenant-governor, declaring it to 
be the unanimous opinion of the meeting, that nothing 
could rationally be expected to restore the peace of the 
town, " and prevent blood and carnage," but the im- 
mediate removal of the troops. The committee with- 
drew into another room to wait for an answer. 
Some of the council urged the necessity of complying 
with the people's demand ; but the lieutenant-gover- 
nor declared that he would, upon no consideration 
whatever, give orders for their removal. Lieutenant- 
Colonel Dalrymple then signified, that, as the 29th 
regiment had originally been designed to be placed at 
the castle, and was now peculiarly obnoxious to the 
town, he was content that it should be removed to the 
castle, until the general's pleasure should be known. 
The committee was informed of this ofier, and the 
lieutenant-governor rose from council, intending to 
receive no further application upon the subject ; but 
the council prayed that he would meet them again 
in the afternoon, and Colonel Dalrymple desiring it 
also, he complied. Before the council met again, it 
had been intimated to them that the "desire" oftlie 
governor and council to the commanding officer to 
remove the troops, would cause him to do it, though 
he should receive no authoritative " order." As soon 
as they met, a committee from the town-meeting at- 
tended with a second message, to acquaint the lieu- 
tenant-governor that it was the unanimous voice of 
the people assembled, consisting, as they said, of near 
three thousand persons, that nothing less than a total 
and immediate removal of the troops would satisfy 
them.* Ultimately the scruples of the lieutenant- 
governor were overcome, and he expressed his desire 
that the troops should be wholly withdrawn from the 
town to the castle, which was accordingly done. 
The funeral of the victims was attended with extra- 
ordinary pomp. Most of the shops were closed, all 
the bells of the town tolled on the occasion, and the 
corpses were followed to the grave by an immense 
concourse of people, arranged six abreast, the proces- 

♦ Hutchinson, p. 272—275. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



205 



sion being closed by a long train of carriages belonging 
to the principal gentry of the town.* Captain Preston 
and the party of soldiers were afterwards tried. The 
captain and six of the men were acquitted, and two 
were brought in guilty of manglaughter ; a result which 
reflected great honour on John Adams and Josiah 
Quincy, the counsel for the prisoners, and on thejury.t 
This disastrous occurrence infused additional 
spirit into the assembly of the province. Accumula- 
ted as the public business was, there having been 
but one session for eighteen months, the lieutenant- 
governor postponed the assembly from January, the 
time to which it had been prorogued by Governor 
Bernard, to the middle of March, and then ordered it 
to be convened at Cambridge. The reason which he 
gave for this measure was, that he had been so in- 
structed by the British ministry. At the session in 
Cambridge, in his message to both houses respecting 
the state of the province, he said nothing to mitigate 
the alarm, or to alleviate the distress, of the people. 
His duty to the king, his royal master, he said, he 
was resolved faithfully to discharge ; and he gave 
promises of a readiness to unite with the assembly 
in all proper measures for the welfare of the provinc-e ; 
but of tlie recent tragical event he took no notice. 

• Gordon's History, vol. i. p. 290. 

t Cluincy's Life of Josiah Cluincy, p. 31—66, where there is a 
full account of the trial of Captain Preston. 

t "When complaints," said they, " are made of riots and tumults, 
it is the wisdom of governmeni, and it becomes the representatives 
of the people especially, to inquire into the real causes of them. 
If they ari,se from oppression, as is often the case, a thorough re- 
dress of grievances will remove the cause, and, probably, put an 
end to the complaint. It may be justly said of the people of this 
province, that they seldom, if ever, have assembled in a tumultu- 
ous manner, unless they were oppressed. It cannot be expected 
that a people, accustomed to the freedom of the English constitu- 
tion, will be patient while they are under the hand of tyranny and 
arbitrary power. They will rii.scover their resentment in a manner 
which will naturally displease their oppressors; and in such a 
case, the severest laws and the most rigorous execution will be to 
little purpose. The most effectual method to restore tranquillity, 
would be to reiinove their burdens, and to punish all those who have 
been the procurers of their oppression. The instance your honour 
recommends to our attention, admitting it to be true, cannot be 
more threatening to government, than those enormities which have 
been known to be committed by the soldiery of late, and have 
strangely escaped punishment, though repeated, in defiance of the 
laws and authority of government. A military force posted among 
Ihe people without their express consent, is itself one of the greatest 
grievances, and threatens the total subversion of a free constitu- 
tion ; much more, if designed lo execute a system of corrupt and 
arbitrary power, and even to exterminate the liberties of the coun- 
try. The bill of rights, passed immediately after the revolution 
(of 1688,) expressly declares, that the keeping of a standing army 
within the kingdom, in a time of peace, without the consent of the 
parliament, is against law : and we take this occasion to say, with 
freedom, that the keeping of a standing army, within this province, 
in a time of peace, without the consent of tfie general assembly, is 
equally against law. Yet we have seen a standing army procured, 
posted and kept within this province, in a time of piofound peace, 
not only without the consent of the people, but against the remon- 
strance of both liouses of assembly. Such a standing army must 



A few days afterwards he sent a special message to 
inform the house of a trifling affray at Gloucester, in 
which a petty officer of the customs was said to have 
been abused ; and called on them to afibrd assistance 
in bringing the agents to punishment. The reply of 
the house clearly indicated their deep sense of injury 
from their own executive government, as well as from 
the parent state, and the rapid strides they were ma- 
king towards open resistance.! During a great part 
of this session, the house of representatives and the 
council were occupied with remonstrances against 
the removal of the general court to Cambridge. They 
contended, that law, usage, and convenience, were in 
favour of holding it in Boston ; that the governor had 
a discretionary power respecting the place, to be ex 
ercised only when the public welfare required it in 
some peculiar exigency ; and that it was highly im- 
proper and unjust for ministers to give instructions 
in the case, founded merely on political considerations. 
Protesting against the removal as unconstitutional, 
there being no necessity to justify it, and believing it 
was designed to harass the representatives of the people, 
whose deliberations and transactions ought to be per- 
fectly free, they declined proceeding to public business. 
The lieutenant-governor insisted that he was bound 



be designed lo subjugate the people to arbitrary measures. It is a 
most violent infraction of their natural and constitutional rights. 
It is an unlawful assembly, of all others the most dangerous and 
alarming; and every instance of its restraining the liberty of any 
individual, is a crime, which infinitely exceeds what the law intends 
by a riot. Surely, then, your honour cannot think this house can 
descend to the consideration of matters, comparatively trifling, 
while the capital of the province has so lately been in a state of 
actual imprisonment, and the government is under duress. We 
shall not enlarge on the multiplied outrages committed by this un- 
lawful assembly, in frequently assaulting his majesty's peaceable 
and loyal subjects, in beating and wounding the magistrate when 
in the execution of his office; in rescuing prisoners out of the hands 
of justice; and finally, in perpetrating the most horrid slaughter of 
a Dumber of the inhabitants, hut a few days before the sitting of 
this assembly. Yet not the least notice has been taken of these 
outrageous offences ; nor can we find the most distant allusion to 
Ihe late inhuman and barbarous action, either in your speech at 
the opening of the session, or in this mes.sage to both houses. 
These violences, so frequently committed, added to the most rigor- 
ous and oppressive prosecutions, carried on against the subjects, 
grounded on unconstitutional acts, and in the courts of admiralty, 
uncontrolled by the courts of common law, have been justly alarm- 
ing to the people. The disorder, which your honour so earnestly 
recommends to the consideration of the assembly, very probably 
took its rise from such provocations. The use, therefore, which 
we shall make of the information in your message, shall be to in- 
quire into the grounds of the people's uneasiness, and to seek a 
radical redress of their grievances. Indeed, it is natural lo expept 
that while the terror of arms continues in the province, the laws 
will be, in some degree, silent. But when the channels of justice 
shall be again opened, and the law can be heard, the person who 
has complained to your honour will have a remedy. We yet en- 
tertain hope, that the military power, so grievous to the people, 
will soon be removed from the province : till ihen, we have nothing 
to expect, but that tyranny and confusion will prevail, in dedtince 
of the laws of the land, and the just and constitutional auiliority of 
government." 



206 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



by his instructions ; that his commission required it 
of him : and that it was competent for him at any 
time to fix the place, as well as the day, for the 
meeting of the general court. To this statement the 
liouse made a long, elaborate, and able reply ; but the 
lieutenant-governor asserted his authority, and abso- 
lutely refused to yield to the request of the assembly. 
kSnch was the situation of public affairs, that the 
house concluded it the most prudent to proceed to 
consult upon the common concerns of the province ; 
but resolved, " that they were induced thereto from 
absolute necessity," and declared, " that it was not to 
be considered as the renunciation of their claim to 
the legal right of sitting in general assembly, at its 
ancient place, the court-house in Boston." The ge- 
neral court closed its session in November by proro- 
gation, after having resolved, among other things, to 
promote industry and frugality, and to encourage the 
use of domestic manufactures throughout the pro- 
vince ; and having appointed a committee of corres- 
spondence to communicate with the agents in Great 
Britain, and with the committees of the colonies. 
The first of these resolutions of the Massachusetts 
assembly, namely, to discourage the use of foreign 
articles, had been adopted in consequence of a deter- 
mination of the merchants of Boston, made during 
the present session, by which they agreed to alter 
their non-importation agreement, and to adopt the 
plan, which had been for some time followed in New 
York and in Philadelphia, of importing all the usual 
articles of trade, except tea, which it was unanimously 
agreed should not be brought into the country, unless 
it could be smuggled.* 

During the year 1771, nothing of moment occur- 
red either in Boston or the colonies. The encourage- 
ment given by the agreement of the merchants to 
smuggling, occasioned continual contests with reve- 
nue officers ; and it appears that the magistrates, when 
appealed to, refused to interfere. One circumstance, 
however, transpired, which must not be omitted. 
Early in this year, Mr. Hutchinson received his ap- 
pointment to the office of governor of Massachusetts, 
an office which his political opponents allege to have 
always been the darling object of his ambition ; 
while he maintains, that, however, in ordinary times, 
he might have desired it, he now " determined not 
only to desire to be excused from the honour intend- 
ed for him, but to be superseded in his place of lieu- 
tenant-governor ; and he wrote to the secretary of 
state accordingly."t 

The occnrrences of the year 1772, afforded new 



• Allen's History of the American Revolution, vol. i. p. 149. 



sources of mutual animosity. The destruction of 
his majesty's revenue schooner, Gaspee, was one of 
those popular excesses which highly incensed the 
British ministry. Lieutenant Doddington, who com- 
manded that vessel, had become very obnoxious to 
the inhabitants of Rhode Island, by his extraordinary 
zeal in the execution of the revenue laws. On the 
9th of June, the Providence packet was sailing into 
the harbour of Newport, and Lieutenant Doddington 
thought proper to require the captain to lower his co- 
lours. This the captain of the packet deemed repug- 
nant to his patriotic feelings, and the Gaspee fired at 
the packet to bring her to : the American, however, 
still persisted in holding on her course, and by keep- 
ing in shoal water, dexterously contrived to run the 
schooner aground in the chase. As the tide was upon 
the ebb, the Gaspee was set fast for the night, and 
afforded a tempting opportunity for retaliation ; and 
a number of fishermen, aided and encouraged by 
some of the most respectable inhabitants of Provi- 
dence, being determined to rid themselves of so uncivil 
an inspector, in the, middle of the night manned seve- 
ral boats, and boarded the Gaspee. The lieutenant 
was wounded in the affray ; but, with every thing 
belonging to him, he was carefully conveyed on 
shore, as were all his crew. The vessel, with her 
stores, was then burnt ; and the party returned unmo- 
lested to their homes. When the governor became 
acquainted with this event, he offered a reward of 
five hundred pounds for the discovery of the offenders, 
and the royal pardon to those who would confess 
their guilt. Commissioners were appointed also to 
investigate the offence, and bring the perpetrators to 
justice ; but, afler remaining some time in session, 
they reported that they could obtain no evidence, and 
thus the affair terminated ; a circumstance which 
forcibly illustrates the inviolable brotherhood which 
then united the people against the government. 

While the conduct of the American populace thus 
continued to aggravate the exasperation of the British 
court, the measures of the government had an equal 
tendency to keep alive the feeling of hostility in the 
breasts of the Americans. It is vain, and unworthy 
of the character of any statesman, to urge that the 
measures adopted would not have given oflence in 
other times ; the enactment of laws will ever be regard- 
ed not with a view to the principles of abstract pro- 
priety, but to the immediate object for which they are 
promulgated. This plea, however, in extenuation of 
the plan of rendering the governor, judges, and other 
officers of the crown, independent of the general court, 

t Hutchinson, p. 290. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



207 



could only be raised* by persons inattentive (as, in- 
deed, most English politicians appear to have been) 
to the political history of tlie colonies. The arrange- 
ment which was now ordered to be carried into eflect, 
that the governor and other officers sliould receive 
their salaries from the crown, had hitherto been suc- 
cessfully opposed. The old contest on this subject was 
not yet forgotten, and tiie people, now greatly increased 
in numbers, were as little disposed as their ancestors 
to yield on this point. Opposition to this measure 
was not confined to the assembly, but numerous meet- 
ings of the people themselves in various towns were 
held on the subject. At these meetings, not only this 
particular measure, but all the late ministerial and 
parliamentary proceedings in relation to the colonies, 
were examined and discussed with great freedom 
and boldness. At the suggestion of Samuel Adams, 
a committee, consisting of twenty-one, was appointed 
" to state tlie rights of the colonies, and of this pro- 
vince in particular, as men, as Christians, and as sub- 
jects." This committee was also directed to publish 
the same to the several towns in the province, and to 
the world, as the sense of the town of Boston on the 
subject oftlieir rights, with the various infringements 
and violations which had occurred. In this report, 
drawn with great ability, they claimed those natural 
and unalienable rights of man, with which no govern- 
ment could interfere without their consent. As Bri- 
tish subjects, they claimed equal rights with their 
fellow-subjects in Eng-land, rights secured to them by 
the constitution. The Christian religion, they said, 
not only sanctioned their views of civil liberty, but, 
m spiritual concerns, secured to them all the freedom 
and self-direction which they and their fathers had 
long enjoyed. In their letter to the several towns, 
the committee tell their fellow-citizens, that they had 
abundant reason to appreliend that a plan of despot- 
ism had been concerted, and was hastening to a 
completion ; that the late measures of administration 
had a direct tendency to deprive them of every thing 
valuable as men, as Christians, and as subjects enti- 
tled to the rights of native Britons. " We are not 
afraid of poverty," say the committee, in conclusion, 
" bnt we disdain slavery. Let us consider we are 

• Sleadman's History of the American War, p. 81. 

t Pitkin, vol. i. p. 2-17—250. 

t Mr. Hutchinson himself states that he " was greatly alarmed 
with so sudden and unexpected a change in the state of affairs ; and 
he was greatly perplexed with doubts concerning his own conduct 
npon the occasion. He had avoided engaging in a dispute upon 
the authority of parliament, having good reason to think, that ad- 
ministration in England expected that the colonies would return to 
tlieir former stale of submission to this authority, by lenient mea- 
sures, vathoat discussing points of right; and he knew that great 
pains had been taken to persuade the people in England, as well as 

27 



struggling for our best birthrights and inheritance, 
which, being infringed, renders all our blessings pre- 
carious in their enjoyment, and trifling in their value." 
Most of the towns held meetings, appointed committees 
of correspondence, and passed resolutions similar to 
those of Boston, and some of them even in still bolder 
language.t These proceedings greatly alarmed the 
governor and his political friends, who had hoped 
that the opposition to the. British ministry would 
gradually cease ; and that, through fear of ministerial 
and royal resentment, the people would be induced 
to submit.* After the votes and the circular address 
of Boston were adopted, and before the other towns 
had meetings to act upon them, endeavours were 
made in many places to prevent the people from ap- 
proving the statement and report of the patriots in 
the capital. But thee attempts were generally with- 
out effect. There were in every town some intelli- 
gent men, who perfectly understood the nature of the 
dispute with Great Britain, and who saw the evil ten- 
dency of the claims of administration to govern the 
colonies. " They were," says Mr. Bradford, " also a 
sober, moral, and religions people, who were actuated 
by principle ; and who, while they contended earn- 
estly for that portion of liberty secured to them by their 
charter, and which they had long enjoyed, were 
indisposed to all unconstitutional means of redress. "5 
In his speech at the opening of the assembly, in .Tan- 
uary, 1773, the governor declared these meetings of 
the inhabitants to be unwarrantable and of dangerous 
tendency ; and he called upon the assembly " to join 
in discountenancing such irregularities and innova- 
tions." Alluding to these proceedings, and to the 
disordered state of the province, he says, " at length 
the constitution has been called in question, and the 
authority of the parliament of Great Britain to make 
and establish laws for the inhabitants of this pro- 
vince has been by many denied." He maintained in 
the most explicit manner the supremacy of parliament 
over the colonies, agreeably to the principles of the 
declaratory act ; and his speech was conceived to be 
a challenge to the assembly on- the great question 
between the two countries. This drew answers from 
the council and house in vindication of the proceedings 



the ministry, that this was all the people in America expected or 
desired ; and that suspicions of other views, either in the body of 
the people, or in men who had inHuenee over them, were ground- 
less, and had been caused by misrepresentations of governors, and 
other crown officers in the colonies, in order to promote their own 
sinister views. But now, a measure was engaged in, which, if 
pursued to effect, must cause, not a return of the colonies to their 
former submission, hut a total separation from the kingdom, by 
their independency upon parliament, the only band which couli 
keep them united to it."— Hutchinson's History, p. 370. 
S History nf Massachusetts, from 1764 to 1775, p. 262. 



208 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



of the towrs, and of the rights of the colonies, and of 
Massachusetts in particular ; to these the governor 
replied, and to this reply hoth the council and house 
rejoined. These state papers, as they may be justly 
called, were drawn with no ordinary ability on both 
sides. The governor was a gentleman of talents, as 
well as research, and no one was better acquainted 
with the history of the province over which he presid- 
ed. The answers of the council and house were 
prepared by committees composed of men of the first 
talents in the assembly. They evinced not only a 
thorough knowledge of the rights of the colonists ge- 
nerally, but of their own provincial history, and the 
various controversies that had subsisted between the 
parent country and the people of Massachusetts from 
their first settlement, as well as the views entertained 
and expressed at different times by their ancestors on 
the subject of their rights. 

Active resistance to the measures of the British go- 
vernment in relation to the colonies, had for some 
time been principally confined to Massachusetts. 
The other colonists, however, had not been idle or 
indifferent spectators of the scenes that had passed in 
Massachusetts. The leading patrfots of America, no 
doubt, now began seriously to contemplate the mighty 
struggle to which the present state of things must 
finallj'lead. The parent country seemed determined 
not to relax, and the colonists were equally determin- 
ed not to submit. To remain lone in their present 
state seemed impossible ; and in the event of an op- 
position by force, unity of action, as well as of senti- 
ment, was all important. To promote this object, 
the house of burgesses in Virginia originated what 
ultimately proved a powerful engine of resistance — 
a committee for corresponding with the legislatures 
of the several colonies. It was resolved that it should 
be the business of this committee, " to obtain the most 
early and authentic intelligence of such acts and re- 
solutions of the British parliament, or proceedings of 
administration, as may relate to or affect the British 
colonies ; and to keep up and maintain a correspond- 
ence and communication with our sister colonies, re- 
specting these impcrtant considerations, and the re- 
sult of their proceedmgs from time to time, to lay be- 
fore the house." It was also resolved, " that the 
speaker of this house do transmit to the speakers of 
the different assemblies of the British colonies on this 
continent, copies of the said resolutions, and desire 
that they will lay them before their respective as- 
semblies, and request them to appoint some person or 
persons, of their respective bodies, to communicate 
from time to time with the said committee." The 
request of Virginia was complied with by the dif- 



ferent assemblies ; and by this means a confidential 
communication and interchange of opinions was kept 
up between the colonies. 

The appointment of Lord Dartmouth in the room 
of Lord Hillsborough, as secretary of state for the 
American department, a person supposed to be more 
favourable to the colonies, revived the hopes of the 
colonists for a reconciliation on terms compatible with 
their rights. Animated with these hopes, both houses 
of the Massachusetts assembly addressed a letter to 
the new secretary, in which they declare they should 
"rejoice at the restoration of the harmony and good 
will that once subsisted between the parent state and 
them." This happiness, however, they should e.xpcct 
in vain, they observed, during the continuance of 
their grievances, and while their chartered rights, one 
after another, were wrested from them. " If your 
lordship should condescend to ask," they say, " what 
are the measures of restoring the harmony so much 
desired, we should answer, in a word, that we are 
humbly of opinion, if things were brought to the ge- 
neral state in which they stood at the conclusion of 
the late war, it would restore the happy harmony 
which at that time subsisted ;" and, in conclusion, 
they most earnestly request his lordship's influence 
in bringing about this happy event. But to retrace 
their steps was too humiliating to the pride of the 
British cabinet and nation. A change of men did 
not produce a change of principles, or any permanent 
change of measures. 

The British government, having determined to car- 
ry into execution the duty on tea, attempted to eflect 
by policy what was foimd to be impracticable by con- 
straint. The measures of the colonists had already 
produced such a diminution of exports from Great 
Britain, that the warehouses of the East India Com- 
pany contained about seventeen millions of pounds of 
tea, for which a market could not readily be pro- 
cured. The unwillingness of that company to lose 
their commercial profits, and of the ministry to lose 
the expected revenue from the sale of the tea in Ame- 
rica, led to a compromise for the security of hoth. 
The East India Company were authorized by law to 
export their tea, free of duties, to all places whatover ; 
by which regulation, tea, though loaded with an ex- 
ceptionable duty, would come cheaper to America 
than before it had been made a source of revenue. 
The crisis now approached, when the colonies were 
to decide whether they would submit to be taxed liy 
the British parliament, or practically support their 
own principles, and meet the consequences. One 
sentiment appears to have pervaded the entire conti- 
nent. The new ministerial plan was universally 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



209 



consiilered as a direct attack on tlie liberties of the 
colonists, which it was the duty of all to oppose. A 
violent ferment was every where excited ; the cor- 
responding committees were extremely active and it 
was very generally declared, that whoever should, 
directly or indirectly, countenance this dangerous in- 
vasion of their rights, would be an enemy to his 
country. The East India Company, confident of 
finding a market for their tea, reduced as it now 
was in its price, freighted several ships to the colo- 
nies with that article, and appointed agents for the 
disposal of it. Cargoes were sent to New York, 
Philadelphia, Charleston, and Boston. The inhabit- 
ants of New York and Philadelphia sent the ships 
back to London, " and tliey sailed up the Thames to 
proclaim to all the nation that New York and Penn- 
sylvania would not be enslaved." The inhabitants 
of Charleston unloaded the tea, and stored it in cel- 
lars, where it could not be used, and where it finally 
perished. 

At Boston, before the vessels arrived with it, a 
town-meeting was called to devise measures to pre- 
vent the landing and sale within the province. The 
agreement not to use tea while a duty was imposed, 
was now solenmly renewed ; and a committee was 
chosen to request the consignees of the East India 
Comp.in^' neither to sell nor unlade the tea which 
should be brought into the harbour. They com- 
municated the wishes of the town to the merchants, 
who were to have the custody and sale of the tea ; 
but they declined making any such promise, as 
they had received no orders or directions on the sub- 
ject. On the arrival of the vessels with the tea in 
the harbour af Boston, another meeting of the citizens 
was immediately called. " The hour of destruction," 
it was said, "or of manly opposition, had now come ;" 
and all who were friends to the country were invited 
to attend, " to make a united and successful resist- 
ance to this last and worst measure of the administra- 
tion." A great number of people assembled from the 
adjoining towns, as well as from the capital, in the 
celebrated Fanueil Hall, the usual place of meeting 
on such occasions, but the meeting was soon ad- 
journed to one of the largest churches in the town. 
Here it was voted, as it had been at a meeting before 
Ihe tea airived, that they would use all lawful means 
to prevent its being landed, and to have it returned 
immediately to England. After several days spent 
in neffotiations, the consignees still refused to return 
the tea, and, fearing the vengeance of an injured peo- 
ple, they retired to the castle. The owner of the 
ship which brought the tea was unable to obtain a 
MS;.' for her sailing, as the officer was in the interest 



of the British ministers. Application was then made 
to the governor, to order that a pass be given for the 
vessel ; but he declined interfering in the affair. 
When it was found no satisfactory arrangement 
could be effected, the meeting broke up ; but, late in 
the evening, a number of men, disguised as Mohawk 
Indians, proceeded to the vessels, then lying at the 
wharf, which had the tea on board, and in a shori 
time every chest was taken out, and the contents 
thrown into the sea ; but no injury was done to any 
other part of their cargoes. The inhabitants of the 
town, generally, had no knowledge of the event until 
the next day. It is supposed, the number of those 
concerned in the affair was about fifty ; but who they 
were has been only a matter of conjecture to the pre- 
sent day. 

This act of violence, which, in its effects, rapidly 
advanced the grand crisis, appears rather to liave 
been the result of cool determination, than of a sudden 
ebullition. The populace appear to have been fiilly 
warned by their leaders as to the important conse- 
quences which would result from any destruction of 
the property of the East India Company. " One of 
the citizens,* equally distinguished as a statesman and 
a patriot," says Bradford, " addressed the meeting 
with unusual warmth and solemnity. He seemed 
deeply impressed with a sense of the serious conse- 
quences of their proceedings on this interesting occa- 
sion. The spirit then displayed, and the sentiments 
then avowed, he warned them, should be such as they 
would be ready to approve and maintain at any future 
day. For, to retreat from the ground they should 
then take, would bring disgrace on themselves, and 
ruin on the country." That Mr. Quincy did not 
overrate the importance of that memorable day, will 
be very apparent in the sequel. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE RKVOLUTION. FROM THE BOgTON PORT BILL 

TO THE DECLARATION OP INDEPENDENCE. 

The British ministry appear to have been highly 
gratified that the town of Boston, which they ever 
regarded as the focus of sedition in America, had ren- 
dered itself, by the violent destruction of the property 
of the East India Company, obnoxious to their se- 
verest vengeance. On the 7th of March, Lord North 
presented a message from his majesty to both houses 
of parliament, in which it was stated, that, " in con- 

• Josiah ftuincy. 



210 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



sequence of the unwarrantable practices carried on in 
North America, and particularly of the violent and 
outrageous proceedings at the town and port of Bos- 
ton, with a view of obstructing the commerce of this 
kingdom, and upon grounds and pretences immedi- 
ately suljversive of its" constitution, it was thought fit 
to lay the whole matter before parliament, recom- 
mending it to their serious consideration what further 
regulations or permanent provisions might be neces- 
sary to be established." The minister, on presenting 
the papers, represented tiie conduct of Boston in the 
darkest colours. He said, " that the utmost lenity on 
the part of the governor, perhaps too much, had been 
already shown ; and that this town, by its late pro- 
ceedings, had left government perfectly at liberty to 
adopt any measures they should think convenient, not 
o.ily for redressing the wrong sustained by the East 
India Company, but for inflicting such punishment 
fis their factious and criminal conduct merited; and 
that the aid of parliament would be resorted to for this 
purpose, and for vindicating the honour of the crown, 
so daringly and wantonly attacked and contemned." 
In reply to the royal message, the house voted, " that 
an address of thanks should be presented to the king, 
assuring his majesty that they would not fail to exert 
every means in their power of effectually providing 
for the due execution of the laws, and securing the 
dependence of the colonies upon the crown and par- 
liament of Great Britain." In a few days a bill was 
introduced "for the immediate removal of the officers 
concerned in the collection of customs from Boston, 
and to discontinue the landing and discharging, la- 
dins: and shipping of goods, wares, arid merchandise, 
at Boston, or within the harbour thereof" The bill 
also levied a fine upon the town, as a compensation 
to the East India Company for the destruction of their 
teas, and was to continue in force during the pleasure 
of the king. The opposition to this measure was 
very slight, and it was finally carried in both houses 
without a division. 

This, however, was only a part of Lord North's 
scheme of coercion. He proposed two other bills, 
which were intended to strike terror into the province 
of Massachusetts, and to deter the other colonies from 
following her example. By one of these, the consti- 
tution and charter of the province were completely 
subverted, all power taken out of the hands of the 
people, and placed in those of the servants of the 
crown. The third scheme of Lord North was the 
introduction of " a bill for the impartial administra- 
tion of justice in Massachusetts." By this act, per- 
sons informed against or indicted for any act done for 
thr, support of the laws of the revenue, or for the sup- 



pression of riots in Massachusetts, might, by the go- 
vernor, with the advice of the council, be sent for 
trial to any other colony, or to Great Britain ; an en- 
actment which, in efl'ect, conferred impunity on the 
officers of the crown, however odious might be their 
violations of the law. 

Some distinguished statesmen opposed these plans 
of administration with great eloquence and zeal. 
The celebrated Burke declared that " it was only op- 
pressive and unjust laws which the people had op- 
posed ; that it was most unreasonable to condemn 
them without a hearing ; and that constitutional 
principles were not to be settled by the military arm." 
Pownall observed, that " it M'as no longer a matter of 
opinion with the citizens of Massachusetts ; that 
things had come to action ; that the Americans would 
resist all attempts to coerce them, and were prepared 
to do it ; and that if there should be a rebellion in 
that province, the question would be, who caused it 1" 
The Duke of Richmond, the Marquis of Rockingham, 
and other peers, insisted that the charter was a solemn 
contract, which neither the king nor parliament could 
justly annul or alter, without the consent of the sub- 
jects in Massachusetts, unless they had forfeited their 
rights by an infraction of its provisions. Lord Chat- 
ham also opposed the.se plans of the administration 
with all 'his former energy and spirit; although at 
this time he was in such a debilitated state that he 
seldom took part in the debates in parliament. He 
declared himself most decidedly in favour of concilia- 
tory measures ; for he was of opinion that the pro- 
vince had been oppressed, and the liberties of the 
subject therein most flagrantly violated. He believed 
that just measures on the part of ministers would 
quiet the colonies, and restore harmony b(;tween them 
and the parent state. He denounced the proposed 
system as unconstitutional and tyrannical, and pre- 
dicted that the people of Massachusetts would never 
submit to such palpable and repeated violations of 
their political rights. Colonel Barre also addressed 
the ministry on the last bill, in the following bold 
and energetic language : " You have changed your 
ground. You are becoming the aggressors, and of- 
fering the last of human outrages to the people of 
i America, by subjecting them to military execution. 
Instead of sending them the olive branch, you have 
sent the naked sword. By the olive branch, I mean 
a repeal of all the late laws, fruitless to you, and 
oppressive to them. Ask their aid in a constitu- 
tional manner, and they will give it to the utmost of 
their ability. They never yet refused it, when pro- 
perly required. Your journals bear the recorded ac- 
knowledgments of the zeal with which they have con- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



iribnted to the general necessities of the state. What 
madness is it that prompts you to attempt obtainino- 
that by force, which you may more certainly procure 
by requisition ? They may be flattered into any 
thing, but they are too much like yourselves to be 
driven. Have some indulr,rence for your own like- 
ness ; respect theii sturdy' English virtue; retract 
your odious exertions of authority ; and remember, 
that the first step toward making them contribute to 
your wants, is to reconcile them to your crovernment." 
These measures of the British ministry originated 
partly in mistaken views of the opinionsand temper 
of the people. Great misrepresentations had been 
made for several years to the administration in 
England, respecting the state of the colonies. It was 
declared by the officers of the crown and some other 
individuals, that it was only a few ambitious persons 
who objected to the policy of the parent state,, while 
the friends and agents of the people were not 
permitted to be heard in their attempts to show the 
general dissatisfaction. It is also true that Lord 
North, and several other members of the British 
cabinet at this period, possessed high notions of the 
supremacy of parliament, and of the sovereign power 
of the king : the more correct and just principles of 
civil liberty, recognised in 1689, and still received by 
many eminent statesmen in England, were not in 
fashion with the court party. Assuming the doctrine 
of the supreme and unlimited authority of parliament 
over all parts of the empire, (which, in a certain 
sense, restricted and qualified, however, by great 
constitutional principles, had been generally admitted 
in the colonies,) ministers insisted that the power of 
the parent government was entirely without control ; 
and contended for the legitimacy of measures which 
(he patriots in both countries considered most arbitrary, 
and wholly destructive of the liberties of the subject.' 
With these views of government, they maintained that 
any measures were justifiable for supporting the 
authority of the king and parliament ; and ' they 
calculated upon bringing the refractory and disaffect- 
ed to ready submission by severity and force. It will 
soon be apparent, however, that it was not a faction 
m Boston by which opposition was kept alive in 
America; and that through this and the other 
provinces but one sentiment prevailed as to the 
oppressive and arbitrary conduct of the parent 
government, and one determination to oppose and 
prevent the continuance of such a system of policy. 

Notwithstanding these successive measures, from 
which such important results were professedly ex- 
pected, it is evident that the goveyiment entertained 
semjus apprehensions that an appeal to arms was by 



211 

no means improbable. The English cabinet souffht, 
therefore, to ingratiate themselves with the newly 
acquired province of Canada, and the proceedings 
they adopted with this view appear to have been the 
only measures which were characterized by the slight- 
est indications of wisdom. The Canadian noblesse had 
enjoj^ed great authority under the dominion of their 
native country, and they had recently been complain- 
ing of the abridgment of their privileges, while the 
inhabitants, who were chiefly catholic, had Icen 
viewing with jealousy the superior privileges of the 
proteslants ;* Lord North, therefore, did not suffer 
the session to close without introducing a bill calcu- 
lated to insure the affections of the Canadians. It 
erected a legislative council, nominated by the crown, 
on whom very extensive powers were conferred, 
which was highly gratifying to the Canadian nobility ; 
the catholic clergy were established in their privileo-es, 
and a perfect equality between tlieir religion and that 
of protestants was established ; the French laws 
were confirmed, and tiinl without jury permittfid in 
all except criminal cases. To afford a wider field 
for ministerial manoeuvres, the limits of the province 
of Quebec were extended to the river Ohio. To 
these prudent concessions to the sentiments of the 
Canadians may be attributed, in a great measure, the 
singular fact of their remaining attached to the 
British government during the revolutionary contest, 
when it might not unreasonably have been antici- 
pated that they would have been the first to throw 
off a foreign yoke, and declare their independence. 

As a measure indicative of a determination to con- 
duct the proceedings against the refractory colonists 
with the utmost vigour. General Gage was appointed, 
with powers of th^e most unlimited extent, to super- 
sede Governor Hutchinson. The offices of governor 
of the province of Massachusetts and commander of 
I his majesty's forces in America were united in hi,« 
person. The intelligence of the passing of the Boston 
I port bill had preceded General Gage a few days. 
The new governor, though it appeared that he 
entertained serious apprehensions of some disorderly 
or disrespectful conduct on the part of the people, 
was received by them with every mark of civility. 
He had soon occasion to perceive, however, that their 
pohteness to him did not proceed from any fear of his 
authority, or from any relaxation in their purposes 
of resistance. On the day after his arrival, the 
general court having been dissolved by the late 
governor, a town-meeting was convened and very 
numerously attended. They declared and resolved, 



• Botta, edit. Franc, vol. i. p. 270. 



'412 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



"That the impolicy, injustice, inhumanity, and 
cruelty of the act, exceed all their powers of expres- 
sion ; and, therefore," they say, " we leave it to the 
censure of others, and appeal to God and the world."* 
They also declared it as their opinion, that, " if the 
other colonies come into a joint resolution to stop all 
importations from, and exportation to. Great Britain, 
and every part of the West Indies, till the act be re- 
pealed, the same would prove the salvation of North 
America and her liberties." 

The idea was probably entertained by the British 
ministry, that the other colonies would be inclined 
rather to avail themselves of the commercial advan- 
tages which the closing of one of the chief sea-ports 
would open to them, than to make common cause 
with Boston, at the hazard of incurring a similar 
penalty. In this instance, as in most others, the go- 
vernment made a great miscalculation of the American 
character. The several colonies lost no time in ex- 
pressing the deepest sympathy for the sufferings of 
the inhabitants of Boston, and in contributing to their 
pecuniary necessities, as well as in affording them 
moral countenance. In this patriotic course Virginia 
took the lead : her house of burgesses was in session 
when the act arrived, and they proceeded to pass an 
order, which, for the sentiments it expresses, well de- 
serves to be introduced at length. 

" Tnesdai/, the 2\th of May, 14 Geo. III. 1774. 

"This house being deeply impressed with appre- 
hension of the great dangers to be derived to British 
America, from the hostile invasion of the city of Boston, 
in our sister colony of Massachusetts Bay, whose 
commerce and harbour are, on the first day of June 
next, to be stopped by an armed force, deem it highly 
necessary that the said first day t)f June next be set 
apart by the members of this house, as a day of fasting, 
humiliation, and prayer, devoutly to implore the Di- 
vine interposition for averting the heavy calamity 
which threatens destruction to our civil rights, and 
the evils of civil war ; to give us one heart and one 
mind, firmly to oppose, by all just and proper means, 

» " The Boston port bill," says Mr. auincy, in his celebrated 
obser\'ations on the act, "■condemns a whole town unheard, nay, 
uncited to answer; involves thousands in ruin and misery, without 
thesufrj^cstion of any crime by them committed; and it is so consti- 
tuted, that enormous pains and penalties must ensue, notwithstand- 
ing the most perfect obedience to its injunctions. The destruction 
of the tea, which toolc place without any illegal procedure of the 
town, is the only alleged ground of consigning thousands of its in- 
habitants to ruin, misery, and despair. Those charged with the 
most aggravated crimes arc not ptinishablc, till arraigned before 
disinterested judges, heard in their own defence, and found guilty 
of the charge; but here a whole people are accused, prosecuted by 
ihey know not whom, tried they know not when, proved guilty 
they know not how, and sentenced to suffer inevitable ruin. Their 
hard fate cannot be averted by the most servile submission, the 



every injury to American rights ; and that the minds 
of his majesty and his parliament may be inspired 
from above with wisdom, moderation, and justice, to 
remove from the loyal people of America all cause of 
danger, from a continued pursuit of measures pregnant 
with their ruin. 

" Ordered, therefore. That the members of this 
house do attend in their places, at the hour of ten in 
the forenoon, on the said first day of June next, in 
order to proceed with the speaker and the mace to the 
church in this city, for the purposes aforesaid ; and 
that the Rev. Mr. Price be appointed to read prayers, 
and to preach a sermon suitable' to the occasion." 

In consequence of this order. Governor Dunmore 
on the following day dissolved the house, with this 
brief speech : 

"Mr. Speaker, and gentlemen of the house of 
burgesses : — I have in my hand a paper published by 
order of your house, conceived in such terms as reflect 
highly upon his majesty and the parliament of Great 
Britain, which makes it necessary to dissolve you, 
and you are dissolved accordingly." 

Tiie members immediately withdrew to the Raleigh 
tavern, where they formed themselves uito a commit- 
tee to consider of the most expedient and necessary 
measures to guard against the encroachments which 
so glaringly threatened them, and immediately adopted 
the following spirited declaration : 

" An association, signed by eighty-nine members 
of the late house of burgesses. We, his majesty's 
most dutiful and loyal subjects, the late representatives 
of the good people of this countjry, having been de- 
prived, by the sudden interposition of the executive 
part of this government, from giving our countrymen 
the advice we wished to convey to them, in a legisla- 
tive capacity, find ourselves under the hard necessity 
of adopting this, the only method we have left, of 
pointing out to our countrymen such measures as, in 
our opinion, are best fitted to secure our dear rights and 
liberty from destruction, by the heavy hand of power 
now lifted against North America. With much grief 



most implicit obedience to this statute. The first intimation of itj ] 
was on the 1 0th of May, and it took place on the 1st of June, 
thence to continue in full force, till it shall sufficiently appear to 
his majesty, that lull satisfaction hath been made by, or in behalf 
of the inhabitants of Boston, to the East India Company, for the 
damage sustained bv the destruction of their tea ; and until it shall 
be certified to his majesty, by the governor or lieutenant-governor 
of the province, that reasonable satisfaction has been made to the* | 
officers of the revenue and others, for the riots and insurrections 
mentioned in it. So short a space is given for staying the torrent 
of threatened evils, that the subject, though exerting his utmost 
energy, must be overwhelmed and driven to madness by terms c* 
deliverance, whict (^ny relief ti' 1 hif ruin is inevitable.'' -Pitkin, 
vol. i. p 270 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



213 



we find, that our dutiful applications to Great Britain 
for the security of our just, ancient, and constitution- 
al rights, have been not only disregarded, but that a 
determined system is formed and pressed, for reducing 
tile inhabitants of British America to slavery, by sub- 
jecting tiiem to tiie payment of taxes, imposed with- 
out the consent of the people or their representatives ; 
and that, in pursuit of this system, we find an act of 
the British parliament, lately passed, for stopping the 
harbour and commerce of the town of Boston, in our , 
sister colony of Massachusetts Bay, until the people 
there submit to the payment of such unconstitutional 
taxes ; and which act most violently and arbitrarily 
deprives them of their property, in wharves erected 
by private persons, at their own great and proper ex- 
pense ; which act is, in our opinion, a most dangerous 
attempt to destroy the constitutional liberty and rights 
of all North America. It is further our opinion, that 
as tea, on its importation into America, is charged 
with a duty imposed by parliament, for the purpose 
of raising a revenue without the consent of the peo- 
ple, it ought not to be used by any person who wishes 
well to the constitutional rights and liberties of Bri- 
tish America. And whereas the India Company 
htive ungenerously attempted the ruin of America, by 
sendioff many ships loaded with tea into the colonies, 
thereby intending to fix a precedent in favour of ar- 
bitrary taxation, we deem it highly proper, and do 
accordingly recommend it strongly to our countrymen, 
not to purchase or use any kind of East India com- 
modity whatsoever, except saltpetre and spices, until 
the grievances of America are redressed. We are 
further clearly of opinion, that an attack made on one 
of our sister colonies, to compel submission to arbitrary 
taxes, is an attack made on all British America, and 
threatens ruin to the rights of all, unless the united 
wisdom of the whole be applied. And for this pur- 
pose it is recommended to the committee of correspon- 
dence, that they cominunicate with their several cor- 
responding committees, on the expediency of appoint- 
ing deputies from the several colonies of British 
America, to meet in general congress, at such place, 
annually, as shall be thought most convenient ; there 
to deliberate on those general measures which the 
united interests of America may from time to time 
require. A tender regard for the interest of our 
fellow-subjects, the merchants and manufacturers of 
Great Britain, prevents us from going further at this 
time ; most earnestly hoping, that the unconstitutional 
principle of taxing the colonies without their consent 

* " A censure of this kind, under the circumstances of the times, 
and by such a character, renders them more deserving of grateful 
remembrance. They were, J. Bowdoin, S. Dexter, J. Winthrop, 



will not be persisted in, thereby to compel us, against 
our -will, to avoid all commercial intercourse with 
Britain. Wishing them and our people free and 
happy, we are their afiectionate friends, the late re- 
presentatives of Virginia. 

" The 27 Ih day of May, 1774." 

To give effect to the recommendation of a congiess 
on the part of this colony, delegates were shortly after 
elected by the several counties, to meet at Williams- 
burgh on the 1st of August following, to consider fur- 
ther of the state of public affairs, and, more particularly, 
to appoint deputies to the aeueral congress, which 
was to be convened at Philadelphia on the 5th of 
September following. The clear, firm, and animated 
instructions given by the people of the several coun- 
ties to their delegates, evince the thorough knowledge 
of the s:reat parliamentary question which now perva- 
ded the country, and the determined spirit of tl)e colo- 
nists to resist the claim of British taxation. 

Similar expressions of determined opposition' to the 
port bill, and assurances of support to the disfranchi- 
sed citizens of Boston, were made wherever the act 
became known. In some places it was printed upon 
mourning paper, and hawked about tlie streets ; in 
others it was publicly burned, with every demon- 
stration of abhorrence. At New York there was a 
considerable struggle between the friends of administra- 
tion and the friends of liberty, but the latter at length 
prevailed by the influence and management of two 
individuals, who had on several occasions manifested 
great activity and zeal in their opposition to the ob- 
noxious measures of the ministry. Addresses were 
also sent from Pennsylvania, the Carolinas, and some 
other provinces, to the committee of Boston, assuring 
themof support, and deciaringthatthey considered the 
cause of Boston as the common cause of the country 

With all these assurances of support and assistance, 
of sympathy and affection, from their sister colonies, 
there was still a fearful foreboding in the hearts of 
the members of the general court, when they as.'^em- 
bled at Boston on the 2.5th of May. ■ Nor was this 
apprehension lessened by the first official acte of their 
new governor. At the opening of the court he gave 
the representatives notice, that, in a few days, he 
should remove them to Salem; and he also gave his 
negative to thirteen of the council chosen by the 
assembly.* The representatives of the people at this 
critical juncture did not shrink from the high and 
imperative dtities which devolved upon them in delcnce 
of political freedom. They had been selected under 



T Danielson, B. Austin, W. Phillips, M. Farley, J. Prescott, J. 
Adams, N. ttuincy, J. Bowers, E. Freeman, and J Foster " -Brad 
ford, p. 327. 



214 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



the belief that a most important crisis was approach- 
ing. They adopted resolutions, recommending to 
the citizens of Boston to be firm and patient, to the 
people through the province to assist their brethren 
in the metropolis, and to all to refrain entirely from 
the use of British goods, and of other foreign articles 
subject to a duty ; conceiving this to be a lawful and 
most efficient means of convincing the parent govern- 
ment of their opposition to the recent oppressive mea- 
siires, and of prevailing on ministers to relax in their 
arbitrary and severe conduct towards Massachusetts. 
They also requested the governor to appoint a day 
for public religious worship and ■pva.yer. And as he 
declined doing it, they recommended the observance 
of a particular day for that solemn service, in imitation 
of their pious ancestors, who, on all occasions of pub- 
lic distress and danger, humbly sought to the Almighty 
for guidance and protection. But the most important 
measure adopted at this eventful period, and in pre- 
paring which a large committee was occupied through 
the greater part of the session, was that of choosing 
five members of the house as delegates to a general 
continental congress ; and of giving immediate inform- 
ation thereof to all the other colonies, with a request 
tliat they would appoint deputies for the same purpose. 
A measure of this kind had been already suggested, 
both in Massachusetts and in several of the other co- 
lonies, but nothing definite or decisive had been done ; 
nor had any committees or deputies been elected with 
this design.* The patriots in this province were 
convinced that the time had arrived for a more effi- 
cient and united stand in defence of their rights. 
They did not, however, even now, contemplate inde- 
pendence ; but they were resolved to show the British 
ministry that a determination prevailed through all 
the colonies to oppose their abitrary and oppressive 
plans of governing America ; hopinsr, probably, for a 
new administration, whose views would be more con- 
ciliatory and just. The preamble to the resolutiont 
for choosing delegates to meet in a general congress 
states concisely the reason which induced the house to 
adopt thiSi important measure. It was as follows : — 
'■ Tliis house, having duly considered, and being 
deeply affected with the unhappy diflerences which 
have lono- subsisted and are increasing between Great 
Britain and the American colonies, are of opinion, that 
a meeting of committees from the several colonies on 
tills continent is highly expedient and necessary, to 
consult upon the present state of the country, and the 

♦ The proceedings of the delegates in Virginia, already referred 
to, were a few days subsequent to those of the general court of 
Mar.sachusetts. 

t The lesolulioQ was adopted by a vote of one hundred jmj six- 



miseries to which we are and must be reduced by the 
operation of certain acts of parliament ; and to deli- 
berate and determine upon wise and proper measures, 
to be by them recommended to all the colonies, for 
the recovery and establishment of our just rights and 
liberties, civil and religious ; and the restoration of 
union and harmony between Great Britain and Ameri- 
ca, which is most ardently desired by all good men.' 

While the house were engaged in considering this 
measure, the governor received notice of their design 
from one of the members politically attached to him, 
and immediately directed that they should be dis- 
solved. The door-keeper was ordered to admit no 
person into the house ; but soon after the secretary 
proceeded, by his excellency's command, to the dooi 
of the room in which the representatives were sittins, 
and read a proclamation for dissolving the assembly; 
and when the resolutions were adopted respecting the 
delegates to congress, and an order was passed for 
their compensation, the house separated. In this 
measure, it was easy to perceive the commencement 
of a general and open opposition to the parent go- 
vernment ; which, without either a great change in 
the policy of the English cabinet, or servile submis- 
sion on the part of the colonies, through an appre- 
hension of a more wretched condition under a pow 
erful military force, woTild produce a struggle, to be 
determined only by superior physical power. 

The two last of the coercive enactments of the 
British legislature, did not reach Boston till July. 
By one, the governor alone was authorized to appoint 
all civil officers ; and by the other, the counsellors 
were to be selected by the king and his ministers in 
England. A list of those appointed was soon made 
known, and gave great dissatisfaction, as they were 
the most unpopular characters in the province. To 
add to the anxiety which now pervaded every breast, 
a large military force was ordered into the province, 
an act of parliament having been passed, which di- 
rected the governor to provide quarters for them in 
any town he might choose. " Thus the charter, the 
palladium of their rights and privileges, under the 
shelter of which they had formerly felt themselves 
safe, at least from systematic tyranny, was wantonly 
violated by the arbitrary will of a favourite minister. 
They were to be governed entirely by strangers, and 
those in whom they had no confidence ; and foreign 
mercenaries were provided to stifle the murmurs oc- 
casioned by oppression, and to check the efforts of a 

teen to twelve, and the following distinguished citizens, whose 
talents and patriotism placed them high in tht esteem and confi- 
dece of the people, were then appointed : T. Gushing, S, Adams, 
R. T. Paine, J. Bowdoin, and J. Adams. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



2Io 



generous patriotism, Vhich ministerial threats had 
not been able to silence or prevent. The intelligent 
citizens, who composed the committees of correspond- 
ence, and others distinguished by their activity and 
firmness, were openly tin'eatened by the servile tools 
of despotism, and marked out as victims to appease a 
tyrannical administration. But, happily for their 
countrymen, and happily for posterity, they were not 
moved from their high purpose by the menaces of the 
corrupt or powerful. Satisfied of the justice of their 
cause, they resolved to attempt every thing, and ha- 
zard every thing for its support."* 

It had besn agreed by the delegates which had 
now been appointed by most of the colonies, that they 
should meet in general congress in September ; and 
the desire to await the result of its determinations pre- 
vented any violent proceedings during the interim ; 
while, however, great attention was given by the in- 
habitants to military discipline. Independent compa- 
nies were formed, who elected their own ofiicers, many 
of whom had served during the French war, and were 
well able to instruct their pupils in military tactics. 
On the other hand. General Gage was no less active 
in adopting measures calculated, in his estimation, to 
overawe the inhabitants, and to deter them from 
having recourse to force. With this view, although 
ostensibly for the purpose of preventing desertion, he 
fortified the isthmus which connects Boston with the 
main land, called Boston Neck, the only entrance by 
land into the town of Boston, and therefore the only 
route by which, according to the port bill, the mer- 
chants and traders could carry on their business. 
This measure, however, served only the more to ex- 
asperate the people, and the subsequent seizure of the 
gunpowder at Charlestown, added to their alarm. 

Before day-break, on the 1st of September, General 
Gage despatched a party of soldiers to bring into his 
own custody a cpiantity of provincial powder from 
the arsenal at Charlestown. Immediat&ly this trans- 
action became generally known ; the inhabitants of 
the neighbouring towns flew to arms, and agreed on 
Cambridge as a general rendezvous ; and it was with 
great difficulty that they were dissuaded, by their more 
prudent leaders, from marching at once to Boston, to 
require the restoration of the powder, or, in case of 
refusal, to attack the garrison. Their presence at 
Cambridge, however, induced several gentlemen to 
resign their appointments as counsellors under the 
late act of parliament, and to declare they would not 
take any part in carrying into execution the obnox- 
ious measures of the ministry. Before the agitation 



• Bradford's History from 1764 to 1775, p. 332. 

28 



occasioned by this movement was tranquillized, a ru- 
mour was, probably not without design, rapidly cir- 
culated throughout the whole province, that the gar- 
rison and fleet were firing on the town of Boston ; 
and in a few hours between thirty and forty thousand 
men, of all arms, were in motion towards the capital; 
and althouffh they retired when satisfied of the falsity 
of the rumour, the readiness with which so powerful 
a demonstration of physical force was efl!ected, gave 
additional boldness to the leaders of the patriotic 
cause. 

It was under the excitement of these circumstances 
that, in defiance of the act of parliament, and the go- 
vernor's proclamation founded upon it, prohibiting 
public assemblies, the county of Suflblk, of whicli 
Boston was the capital, elected delegates to meet for 
the purpose of taking into consideration the most 
proper course to be adopted in the present state of af- 
fairs. With a boldness and decision surpassing that 
of any former assembly, they passed resolutions de- 
claring themselves constitutionally exempt from all 
obedience to the late measures of the British parlia- 
ment, that the government of the province was in 
fact dissolved, and that they should consider all per- 
sons who dared to act in any official capacity under 
the new regulations as open enemies of their country. 
They sent a copy of their resolutions, and of their 
letter to the governor, with his answer, to the gene- 
ral congress, upon whose judgment they rested the 
decision of their future conduct. 

This congress, which will ever be celebrated in 
the page of history, and held sacred in the annals of 
liberty, met at Philadelphia, on the 5th of September. 
Representatives from eleven of the colonies were 
present at the opening, and those from North Caro- 
lina arrived shortly after ; Georgia alone having de- 
murred to send delegates. Peyton Randolph, of 
Virginia, was elected president, and Charles Thomp- 
son, of Philadelphia, secretary ; and after a brief 
controversy on the mode of voting, which resulted in 
the determination that each province should have 
only one vote, whatever number of delegates might 
be present, the assembly proceeded to business with 
all the solemnity of an organized legislature. " The 
most eminent men of the various colonies were now, 
for the first time, brought together. They were 
known to each other by fame, but they were person- 
ally strangers. The meeting was awfully solemn. 
The object which had called them together was of 
incalculable mnsrnitude. The liberties of no less 
than three millions of people, with that of all their 
posterity, were staked on the wisdom and energy of 
their councils. No wonder, then, at the long and 



216 



HISTORY OF THE UiSTTED STATES. 



deep silence wliich is said to have followed upon 
their organization ; at the anxiety with which the 
members looked round upon each other ; and the reluc- 
tance which every individual felt to open a business 
so fearfully momentous. In the midst of this deep 
and death-like silence, and just when it was begin- 
ning to becorne painfully embarrassing, Mr. Henry 
arose slowly, as if borne down by the weight of the 
subject. After faltering, according to his habit, 
through a most impressive exordium, in which he 
merely echoed back llie consciousness ofevery other 
heart, in deploring his inability to do justice to the 
occasion, he launched gradually into a recital of the 
colonial wrongs. — Rising, as he advanced, with the 
grandeur of his subject, and glowing at length with 
all the majesty of the occasion, his speech seemed 
more than that of mortal man."* Mr. Henry was 
followed by Mr. Richard Henry Lee, in a speech 
scarcely less powerful, and still more replete with 
classic eloquence. One spirit of ardent love of liber- 
ty pervaded every breast, and produced a unanimity 
as advantageous to the cause they advocated, as it 
was unexpected and appalling to their adversaries. 

One of the first acts of this assembly was the 
appointment of a committee, consisting of two from 
each colony, to state the rights of the colonies in 
general, the several instances in which those rights 
had been violated, and the means most proper to 
be pursued for obtaining a restoration of them. 
While these important subjects were before the com- 
mittee, the proceedings of the delegates of the county 
of Suffolk, to which we have before alluded, were 
laid before congress ; and on the 8th of October that 
assembly adopted the following resolutions : 

" Resolved, — That this congress do approve of the 
opposition made by the inhabitants of Massachusetts 
Bay to the execution of the late acts of parliament ; 
and if the same shall be attempted to be carried into 
execution by force, in such case all America ought 
to support them in their opposition. 

" Resolved, — That it is the opinion of this body, 
that the removal of the people of Boston into the 
country, would be not only extremely difficult in tlie 
execution, ITut so important in its consequences as 
to require the utmost deliberation before it is adopt- 
ed. But in case the provincial meeting of that 
colony shall judge it absolutely necessary, it is the 
opinion of this congress, that all America ought to 
contribute towards recompensing them for the injury 
they may thereby sustain ; and it will be recom- 
mended accordingly. 



♦ Wirt's Life of Henry, p. 105, 106. 



" Resolved, — That this congress do recommend to 
the inhabitants of the colony of Massachusetts Bay, 
to submit to a suspension of the administration of 
justice, when it cannot be procured in a legal and 
peaceable manner, under the rules of the charter, and 
the laws founded thereon, until the eifects of our ap- 
plication for a repeal of the acts, by which their 
charter rights are infringed, is known. 

" Resolved, unanimously, — That every person or 
persons whosoever, who shall take, accept, or act 
under any commission or authority, in any wise de- 
rived from the act passed in the last session of parlia- 
ment, changing the formof government and violating 
the charter of the province of Massachusetts Bay, 
ought to be held in detestation and abhorrence by all 
good men, and considered as the wicked tools of that 
despotism which is preparing to destroy those rights 
which God, nature, and compact, have given to 
America." 

The congress proceeded with great deliberation ; 
its debates were held with closed doors, and the 
honour of each member was solemnly engaged not 
to disclose any of the discussions till such disclosure 
was declared advisable by the majority. It was not 
till the 14th of October that the following: series of 
resolutions, which may be regarded as their grand 
declaration of rights and of grievances, was passed 
and promulgated. To abridge or analyze them 
would be an equal injustice to the memory of their 
authors, and to the fidelity of history ; we therefore 
present them entire. 

" Resolved, unanimously, — That the inhabitants of 
the English colonies in North America, by the immu- 
table laws of nature, the principles of the English 
constitution, and the several charters or compacts, 
have the following rights : 

" 1. That they are entitled to life, liberty, and pro- 
perty ; and they have never ceded to any foreign 
power whatever a right to dispose of either without 
their consent. 

" 2. That our ancestors, who first settled these 
colonies, were, at the time of their emigration from 
the mother country, entitled to all the rights, liberties, 
and immunities of free and natural-born subjects with- 
in the realm of England. 

" 3. That by sAch emigration they by no means 
forfeited, surrendered, or lost, any of those rights, 
but that they were, and their descendants now are, 
entitled to the exercise and enjoyment of all such of 
them as their local and other circumstances enable 
them to exercise and enjoy. 

" 4. That the foundation of English liberty, and of 
all free governments, is a right in the people to parti- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



217 



cipate in their legislative council : and as the English 
colonists are not represented, and from their local and 
other circumstances cannot properly be represented, 
in the British parliament, they are entitled to a free 
and exclusive power of legislation in their several 
provincial legislatures, where their right of represent- 
ation can alone be preserved, in all cases of taxation 
and internal policy, subject only to the negative of 
their sovereign, in such manner as has been hereto- 
fore used and accustomed. But from the necessity 
of the case, and a regard to the mutual interest of 
both countries, we cheerfully consent to the operation 
of such acts of the British parliament as are, bo?ta 
fide, restrained to the regulation of our external com- 
merce, for the purpose of securing the commercial 
advantages of the whole empire to the mother coun- 
try, and the commercial benefit of its respective mem- 
bers ; excluding every idea of taxation, internal or 
external, for raising a reveime on the subjects in 
America, without their consent. 

" 5. That the respective colonies are entitled to the 
common law of England, and, more especially, to the 
great and inestimable privilege of being tried by their 
peers of the vicinity, according to the course of that 
law. 

" 6. That they are entitled to the benefit of such 
of the English statutes as existed at the time of their 
colonization, and which they have, by experience, re- 
spectively found to be applicable to their several local 
and other circumstances. 

" 7. That these, his majesty's colonies, are like- 
wise entitled to all the immunities and privileges 
granted and confirmed to them by royal charters, or 
secured by their several codes of provincial laws. 

■•'8. That they have a right peaceably to assemble, 
consider of their grievances, and petition the king ; 
and that all prosecutions, prohibitory proclamations, 
and commitments, for the same, are illegal. 

" 9. That the keeping a standing army in these 
colonies, in times of peace, without the consent of the 
legislature of that colony in which such army is 
kept, is against law. 

" 10. It is indispensably necessary to good govern- 
ment, and rendered essential by the English constitu- 
tion, that the constituent branches of the legislature 
be independent of each other ; that therefore the ex- 
ercise of leofislative power, in several colonies, by a 
council appointed during, pleasure by the crown, is 
unconstitutional, dangerous, and destructive to the 
freedom of American legislation. 

" All and each of which the aforesaid deputies, in 
behalf of themselves and their constituents, do claim, 
demand, and insist on, as their indubitable rights and 



liberties, which cannot be legally taken from them, 
altered, or abridged, by any power whatever, withoni 
their consent, by their representatives in their several 
provincial legislatures. 

'• In the course of our inquiry," they proceed to 
say, " we find many infringements and violations ol 
the foregoing rights, which, from an ardent desire that 
harmony and nmtual intercourse of aflection and in- 
terest may be restored, we pass over for the present, 
and proceed to state such acts and measures as have 
been adopted since the last war, which demonstrate 
a system formed to enslave America. 

" Resolved, — That the following acts of parliament 
are infringements and violations of the rights of the 
colonists, and that the repeal of them is essentially 
necessary, in order to restore harmony between Great 
Britain and the American colonies ; viz. the several 
acts of 4 Geo. III. c. 15 and 34, 5 Geo. III. c. 25, G 
Geo. HI. c. 52, 7 Geo. HI. c. 41 and 4G, 8 Geo. HI. 
c. 22, which impose duties for the purpose of raising 
a revenue in America, extend the power of the admi- 
ralty courts beyond their ancient limits, deprive the 
American subject of trial by jury, authorize the judgeV 
certificate to indemnify the prosecutor from damages 
that he might be otherwise liable to, requiring op. 
pressive security from a claimant of ships and goods 
seized before he shall be allowed to defend his pro- 
perty ; and are subversive of American rights. 

" Also, 12 Geo. HI. c. 24, entitled, ' An act for the 
better securing his majesty's dock yards, magazines, 
ships, ammunition, and stores,' which declares a new 
ofience in America, and deprives the American sub- 
ject of a constitutional trial by jury of the vicinage, 
by authorizing the trial of any person, charged with 
the committing any offence described in the said act, 
out of the realm, to be indicted and tried for the same 
in any shire or county within the realm. 

" Also, the three acts passed in the last session of 
parliament, for stopping the port and blocking up the 
harbour of Boston, for altering the charter and go- 
vernment of Massachusetts Bay, and that which is 
entitled, ' An act for the better administration of jus- 
tice,' (fee. 

" Also, the act passed in the same session, for es- 
tablishing the Roman Catholic religion in the pro- 
vince of Quebec, abolishing the equitable system of 
English laws, and erecting a tyranny there, to the 
great danger (from so total a dissimilarity of reli- 
gion, law, and government) of the neighbourinn 
British colonics, by the assistance of whose blood 
and treasure the said country was conquered from 
France. 

" Also, the act passed in the same session, for the 



218 



HISTORY OF THE UMITED STATES. 



better providing suitable quarters for officers and 
soldiers in his majesty's service in North America. 

" Also, that the keeping a standing army in seve- 
ral of these colonies, in time of peace, without the 
consent of tlie legislature of tiiat colony in wJiich 
such army is kept, is against law. 

" To these grievous acts and measures, Americans 
cannot submit ; but in hopes their fellow-subjects in 
Great Britain will, on a revision of them, restore us to 
tiiat state in wliich botli countries found happiness 
and prosperity, we have, for the present, only resolved 
to pursue the following peaceable measures : 1. To 
enter into a non-importation association ; 2. To pre- 
pare an address to the people of Great Britain, and a 
memorial to the inhabitants of British America ; and, 
3. To prepare a loyal address to his majesty, agreea- 
bly to resolutions already entered into."* 

An agreement to abstain from commercial inter- 
course with Great Britain, was signed by all tlie 
jiiembers of this congress. By this instrument they 
were bound not to import, directly or indirectly, any 
foods from Great Britain or Ireland, after the 1st of 
December, 1774 ; and in case the acts complained of 
should not be repealed by the 10th of September, 1775, 
they agreed not to export to Great Britain, Ireland, or 
the West Indies, any commodities or merchandise 
. whatever, except rice to. Europe. They at the same 
time agreed to encourage frugality, economy, and in- 
dustry, and to promote the agriculture, arts, and ma- 
nufactures of their own country, especially wool. 
Committees were to be appointed in every county, 
city, or town, to see that the agreement was observed; 
and the names of the violators of it were to be pub- 
lished in the gazettes, as enemies to the rights of 
America ; and in that case no dealings were to be had 
with them. 

Upon the principles, and in the spirit of the pre- 
ceding resolutions, was composed an address to the 
people of Great Britain, as also one to the king ; a 
statement to the aggrieved colonies, and an address 
■^ to the inhabitants of Canada. These documents 
were drawn up with great ability. The gentlemen 
selected from the several colonies for this memorable 
congress, were no less distinguished for their talents 
than their patriotism ; and when perusing these state 
papers, no one can fail to regret that the speeches de- 
livered on that occasion, by such distinguished states- 
men and orators as John Adams, John Jay, Richard 
Henry Lee, Patrick Henry, John Dickinson, Samuel 
Chase, John Rutledge, and many others of that illus- 
trious band of patriots, are lost to the world. 

• Journals of Congress, vol. i. p. 28—30. Pitkin, vol. i. p. 285— 
288. Allen, vol. i. p. 210. 



In their address to the people of Great Britain, lifter 
enumerating the several acts of parliament deemed to 
be violations of their rights, they appeal, with peculiar 
force of language, to the generosity, to the virtue, and 
to the justice of the nation, for relief "You have 
been told," say they, " tliat we are seditious, impatient 
of government, and desirous of independency. Be 
assured that these are not facts, but calumnies. Per- 
mit us to be as free as yourselves, and we shall ever 
esteem a imion with you to be our greatest glory, and 
our greatest happiness ; we shall ever be ready to 
contribute all in our power to the welfare of the 
whole empire ; we shall consider your enemies as our 
enemies, and your interest as our own. But if you 
are determined that your ministers shall wantonly 
sport with the rights of mankind ; if neither the voice 
of justice, the dictates of the law, the principles of the 
constitution, or the suggestions of humanity, can re- 
strain your hands from shedding human blood in svich 
an impious cause, we must then tell you, that we will 
never submit to be hewers of wood or drawers of 
water for any ministry or nation in the world." 

The address of congress to the king was couclird 
in language respectful, and even alfectionate ; nor is 
there any just ground to suspect its authors of hy- 
pocrisy ; they liad not yet been driven to familiarize 
themselves with the idea of separation from the Bri- 
tish crown. One extract will afibrd a specimen of 
that union of firmness and affection which pervades 
the whole. " Permit us, then, most gracious sove- 
reign, in the name of all your faithful people in Ame- 
rica, with the utmost hrmiility, to implore you, for the 
honour of Almighty God, whose pure religion our 
enemies are undermining ; for your glory, which can 
be advanced only by rendering your subjects happy, 
and keeping them united ; for the interests of your 
family, depending on an adherence to the principles 
that enlhroncd it ; for the safety and welfare of your 
kingdoms and dominions, threatened with almost un- 
avoidable dangers and distresses ; that your majesty, 
as the loving father of your whole people, connected 
by the same bonds of law, loyalty, faith, and blood, 
though dwelling in various countries, will not suffer 
the transcendent relation formed by these ties to be 
further violated, in uncertain expectations of eHects 
that, if obtained, never can compensate for the ca- 
lamities through which they must be gained." 

In their address to the inhabitants of Quebec, con- 
gress endeavoured to convince them that the late act 
respecting that province had deprived them of many 
of their rights and privileges, and to persuade them 
to unite in obtaining redress, as well as to join the 
confederacy ; while to the inhabitants of the ag- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



219 



grieved colonies they presented a detailed account of 
the violations of their rig-hts since the year 1763, as 
well as the reasons for the pacific mode of redress 
adopted by them ; and concluded by observing, 
" From the detail of facts herein before recited, as 
well as from authentic intelligence rc<?feived, it is 
clear beyond a doubt, that a resolution is ibrmed„and 
now carrying into execution, to extinguish the free- 
dom of these colonies, by subjecting them to a des- 
potic government." 

Finally, they resolved upon the expediency of hold- 
ing another congress at the same place, on the 10th 
of May, 1775, unless it should be rendered unneces- 
sary by a previous redress of grievances. Having 
thus completed their important transactions in a ses- 
sion of fifty-two days, they dissolved themselves on 
the 26th of October. 

A majority of tlie members of this congress had 
little doubt that the measures taken by them, if sup- 
ported by the American people, would produce a re- 
dress of grievances. Richard Henry Lee said to Mr. 
Adams, " We shall undoubtedly carry all our points. 
You will be completely relieved ; all the offensive acts' 
will be repealed ; the army and fleet will be recalled ; 
and Britain will give up her foolish projects." George 
Washington was of opinion, that with the aid of both 
the non-importation and the non-exportation system, 
America would prevail. Patrick Henry concurred 
in opinion with Mr. Adams, that the contest must ul- 
timately be decided by force.* " The proceedings of 
this celebrated congress, the tone and temper of their 
various resolutions, the style of their addresses, the 
composition of the several papers that were drawn np 
by them, v/ere in every particular calculated to excite 
the admiration of the world. That an assembly of 
fifty-two meil, born and educated in the wilds of a 
new world, unpractised in the arts of polity, most 
of them unexperienced in the arduous duties of legis- 
lation, coming from distant aud distinct governments, 
dilFering in religion, manners, customs, and habits, as 
they did in their views with regard to the nature of 
their connexion with Great Britain ; that such an as- 
sembly, so constituted, should display so much wis- 
dom, sagacity, foresight, and knowledge of the world, 
such skill in argument, such force of reasoning, such 
firmness and soundness of judgment, so profound an 
acquaintance with the rights of man, such elevation 
of sentiment, such genuine patriotism, and, above all, 
such unexampled union of opinion, was indeed a po- 
litical phenomenon, to which history has yet furnish- 
ed no parallel. Nor is it less wonderful that the 



• Pitkin's Political aud Civil History, vol. i. p. j^Ol. 



whole people of the colonies represented, should have 
regarded the simple recommendations of this congress 
with the reverence and obedience due to the strongest 
ties of law. Even in those colonies where law and 
authority had been set at defiance, the injunctions of 
the congress were scrupulously obeyed. The whole 
country was in that awful calm of expectation, which 
precedes the bursting of a storm. They were willing 
to wait. the issue of their petitions, but ready to enforce 
their rights at the risk of life."t 

During the session of the congress most of the colo- 
nies had adopted the plan of instituting provincial as- 
semblies, reg-ardless of their old form of government. 
In Massachusetts, General Gage had convoked a 
general court, to assemble at Salem, on the 5th of 
October ; but events which subsequently transpired, 
induced him to issue a proclamation dissolving the 
assembl/. The members, however, regarded that 
proclamation was illegal, and met at Salem on the 
day apfiointed. After waiting in vain the whole day 
for the governor's appearance to administer the oaths, 
they resolved themselves into a provincial congress, 
and adjourned to Concord. After appointing John 
Hancock president, and addressing a communication 
to the governor, they again adjourned, to meet at Cam- 
bridge on the 17th. Here they appointed a committee 
of safety, and a committee of supplies. They also vo- 
ted to enlist one fourth of the militia as minute-men, to 
be frequently drilled, and held in readiness for service 
at a minute's warning ; and after appointing three 
general officers, they adjourned to the 23d of November. 
In the mean time the situation of the citizens of Boston 
was in every respect disagreeable ; General Gage, how- 
ever, seemed to have no disposition to risk an imme- 
diate attack upon the Americans. His intention of 
remaining quiet for the present was evinced by his de- 
mand of materials for the construction of winter quar- 
ters for his men ; but so great was the general de- 
testation of him and his men, that he could procure 
neither workmen, materials, clothing, nor provi- 
sions. 

Before the close of the year the busy note of pre- 
paration resounded through almost every colony. 
The Massachusetts committees were indefatigable in 
providing for the most vigorous defence in the spring. 
They had procured all sorts of military supplies for 
the service of twelve thousand men, and had engaged 
the assistance of the three neighbouring provinces of 
New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. 

While these hostile preparations were proceeding 
in America, the British monarch was meeting a new 

t Allen's History of the American Revolution, vol. i. p. 223 



220 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



parliament. Happily for the independence of America, 
it proved equally servile, and it must be said equally 
purblind, with its predecessor. The king informed 
his parliament, that a most daring resistance and dis- 
obedience to the law still prevailed in Massachusetts, 
and had broken out in fresh violences ; that these 
proceedings had been countenanced and encouraged 
in the other colonies, and that unwarrantable attempts 
had been made to obstruct the commerce of the king- 
dom, by unlawful combinations ; and he expressed his 
firm determination to withstand every attempt to 
weaken or impair the supreme authority of parlia- 
ment over all the dominions of the crown. Addresses 
in answer to the speech, concurring in the sentiments 
expressed by the king, were carried in both houses, 
by large majorities. 

The cabinet had determined on coercive measures, 
in case the colonies persisted in their claims. Mr. 
Quincy, not long after his arrival in England, had 
an interview with Lord North, as well as Lord Dart- 
mouth, at their special request. The former, on the 
19th of November, in conversation on the subject of 
American affairs, reminded Mr. Q,uincy of the power 
of Great Britain, and declared that they were deter- 
mined " to exert it to the utmost in order to effect the 
submission of the colonies." "We must try," said 
he, "what we can do to support the authority we 
claim over America. If we are defective in power, 
we must sit down contented, and make the best terms 
we can ; and nobody can blame us after we have done 
our utmost ; but till we have tried what we can do, we 
can never be justified in receding." Knowing the prin- 
cipal object of Mr. Q,uincy's visit to England, it was 
not to be expected that the minister would use the 
language of concession to him, even if concession 
were intended ; but rather endeavour to impress him 
with the idea, that it would be impossible for the colo- 
nies to resist with any prospect of success : Mr. 
Quincy, however, from information obtained from 
other sources, as well as this conversation with the 
prime minister, was convinced that the Americans 
had nothing to hope but from forcible resistance. 
This conviction was communicated to some of his 
particular friends in America. " I cannot forbear 
telling you," says Mr. Q,uincy, in one of his letters 
of this date, " that I look to my countrymen with the 
feelings of one who verily believes they must yet seal 
their faith and constancy to their liberties with 
blood." 

After the recess, parliament met on the 20th of 
January, and on the same day Lord Chatham moved, 
" That an humble address be presented to his majesty, 
most humbly to advise and beseech his majesty, that, 



in order to open the way towards our happy settle- 
ment of the dangerous troubles in America, by begin- 
ning to allay ferments and soften animosities there ; 
and, above all, for preventing, in the mean time, any 
sudden and fatal catastrophe at Boston, now suffering 
under dail)> irritation of an army before their eyes, 
posted in their town; it may graciously please his 
majesty that immediate orders may be despatched to 
General Gage for removing his majesty's forces from 
the town of Boston, as soon as the rigour of the sea- 
son and other circumstances, indispensable to the 
safety and accommodation of the said troops, may ren- 
der the same practicable." This motion was sup- 
ported by one of the most eloquent and impressive 
speeches ever delivered by that distinguished states- 
man and orator. " My lords," said that patriot peer, 
" these papers from America, now laid by administra- 
tion for the first time before your lordships, have been, 
to my knowledge, five or six weeks in the pocket of 
the minister ; and, notwithstanding the fate of this 
kingdom hangs upon tlie event of this great contro- 
versy, we are but this moment called to a considera- 
tion of this important subject. My lords, I do not 
wish to look into one of these jjapers, I know their 
contents well enough already ; I know that there is 
not a member in this house but is acquainted with 
their purport also. There ought, therefore, to be no 
delay in entering upon this matter ; we ought to pro- 
ceed to it immediately ; we ought to seize the first 
moment to open the door of reconciliation. The 
Americans will never be in a temper or state to be 
reconciled — they ought not to be, till the troops are 
withdrawn. The troops are a perpetual irritation to 
those people ; they are a bar to all confidence and all 
cordial reconcilement. The way must be immedi- 
ately opened for reconciliation. It will soon be too 
late. I know not who advised the present measures ; 
I know not who advises to a perseverance and en- 
forcement of them ; but this I will say, that whoever 
advises them ought to answer for it at his utmost 
peril. I know that no one will avow that he advised, 
or that he was the author of these measures ; every 
one shrinks from the charge. But somebody has ad- 
vised his majesty to these measures, and if he con- 
tinues to hear such evil counsellors, his majesty will 
be undone ; his majesty may indeed wear his crown, 
but, the American jewel out of it, it will not be worth 
the wearing. What more shall I say ? I must not 
say the king is betrayed ; but this I will say, the 
nation is ruined. What foundation have we for our 
claims over America ? What is our right to persist 
in such cruel and vindictive measures against that 
loyal, respectable people ? They saj" you have no 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



221 



right to tax them without their consent. They say- 
truly. Representation and taxation must go together ; 
they are inseparable. Yet there is scarcely a man 
in our streets, though so poor as scarcely to be able 
to get his daily bread, but thinks he is the legislator of 
America. ' Our American subjects' is a common phrase 
in the mouths of the lowest orders of our citizens ; but 
property, my lords, is the sole and entire dominion of 
the owner : it excludes all the world besides the owner. 
None can intermeddle with it. It is a unity, a mathe- 
matical point. It is an atom ; untangible by any but 
the proprietor. Touch it, and the owner loses his 
whole property. The touch contaminates the whole 
mass, the whole property vanishes. The touch of 
another annihilates it ; for whatever is a man's own 
is absolutely and exclusively his own. How have 
this respectable people behaved under their griev- 
ances ? With unexampled patience, with imparal- 
leled wisdom. They chose delegates by their free 
suffrages ; no bribery, no corruption, no influence 
there, my lords. Their representatives meet with the 
sentiments and temper, and speak the sense of the 
continent. For srenuine sagacity, for singular mo- 
deration, for solid wisdom, manly spirit, sublime sen- 
timents, and simplicity of language, for every thing 
respectable and honourable, the congress of Phila- 
delphia shine unrivalled. This wise people speak 
ont. They do not hold thi; language of slaves ; they 
tell you what they mean. They do not ask you to 
repeal your laws as a favour ; they claim it as a 
right — they demand it. They tell you they will not 
submit to tljem ; and I tell you the acts must be re- 
pealed ; they will be repealed ; you cannot enforce 
them. The ministry are checkmated : they have a 
move to make on the board ; yet not a move, but 
they are ruined. Repeal, therefore, my lords, I say. 
But bare repeal will not satisfy this enlightened and 
spirited people. What ! repeal a bit of paper ! repeal 
a piece of parchment ! That alone will not do, my 
lords. You must so through the work — you must 
declare you have no right to tax — then they may 
trust you ; then they will have some confidence in 
you. My lords, deeply impressed with the import- 
ance of taking some healing measures at this most 
alarming, distracted state of our affairs, though bow- 
ed down with a cruel disease, I have crawled to this 
house to give you my best counsel and experience; 
and my advice is, to beseech his majesty to withdraw 
his troops. This is the best I can think of. It will 
convince America that you mean to try her cause, in 
the spirit, and by the laws of freedom and fair in- 
quiry, and not by codes of blood. How can she now 
trust you, with the bayonet at her breast ? She has 



all the reason in the world now to believe you mean 
her death, or her bondage. Thus entered on the 
threshold of this business, I will knock at j^our gates 
for justice without ceasing, unless inveterate infirmi- 
ties stay my hand. My lords, I pledge myself never to 
leave this business. I will pursue it to the end in 
every shape. I will never fail of my attendance on 
it at every step and period of this great matter, unless 
nailed down to my bed by the- severity of disease. 
My lords, there is no time to be lost; every moment 
is big with dangers. Nay, while I am now speaking, 
the deci-sive blow may be struck, and millions invol- 
A^ed in the consequences. The very first drop of 
blood will make a wound that will not easily be skin- 
ned over. Years, perhaps ages, may not heal it. It 
will be immedicabilc vubnis : a wound of that ran- 
corous, mialignant, corroding, festering nalure, that, 
in all probability, it will mortify the whole body. 
Let us, then, my lords, set to this business in earnest; 
not take it up by bits and scraps as formeily, just as 
exigencies pressed, without any regard to general re- 
lations, connexions, and dependencies. I would not. 
by any thing I have said, my lords, be thoiight to en- 
courage America to proceed beyond the right line. 
I reprobate all acts of violence by her mobility. But 
when her inherent constitutional rights are invaded, 
those rights which she has an equitable claim to en- 
joy by the fundamental laws of the English constitu- 
tion, and which are engrafted thereon by the unaltera- 
ble laws of nature, then I own myself an American, 
and feeling myself such, shall, to the verge of my life, 
vindicate those rights against all men who strive to 
trample upon or oppose them." 

Lord Chatham's motion was seconded by Lord 
Camden, who affirmed that " whenever oppression 
begins, resistance becomes lawful and right ;" and 
it was ably supported by the Marquis cf Rockingham 
and Lord Shelburne ; but, like all other motions 
opposed to the views of the ministry, it was lost by a 
large majority. The administration declared their 
determination never to relax in their measures of 
coercion, until America was forced into obedience. 
This, however, did not prevent Lord Chatham from 
presenting to the house, soon afterwards, a bill, con- 
taining his favourite plan " for settling the troubles, 
and for asserting the supreme legislative authority 
and superintending power of Great Britain over the 
colonies." Though this bill, as it contained a direct 
avowal of the supreme authority of parliament over 
the colonies, in all cases except that of taxation, could 
never have received the assent of the Americans, yet, 
as it expressly denied the parliamentary power of 
taxing the colonies, without the consent of their as- 



222 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



« Lord Chatham had shown this bill to Dr. Franldin, before he 
submilled it to the house of lords, but the latler had not an oppor- 
tunity of proposing certain alterations which he had sketched. 
Dr. Franklin, however, at the special request of Lord Chatham, 
was present at the debjtes upon it. Lord Dartmouth was at first 
disposed to have the bill lie upon the table ; but Lord Sandwich 
opposed its being received, and moved that it be immediately " re- 
jected with the contemjil it deserved. He could never believe," he 
said, " that it was the production of a British peer ; it appeared to 
him rather the work of some American." Turning his face to- 
wards Dr. Franklin, then standing at the bar, " He fancied," he 
said, " he had in his eye the person who drew it up, one of the 
bitterest and most mischievous enemies this country had ever 
known." To this part of the speech of Lord Sandwich, the great 
Chathain replied, by saying, " that it was entirely his own. This 
declaration," he said, " he thought himself the more obliged to 
make, as many of their lordships appeared to have so mean an 
opinion of it ; for if it was so weak or so bad a thing, it was proper 
in him to take care that no other person should unjustly share in 
the censure it deserved. It had been .heretofore reckoned his vice 
not to be apt to take advice ; but he made no scruple to declare, 



semblies, and made other concessions, it was rejected 
by a large majority on its first reading.* 

Immediately after the rejection of Lord Chatham's 
bill, the minister proposed, in the house of commons, 
a joint addiess to the king on American afiairs. In 
this address, which was carried by large majorities, 
parliament declared that Massachusetts was in a 
state of rebellion ; and that this colony had been sup- 
ported by unlawful- combinations and engagements 
entered into by several of the other colonies, to the 
great injury and oppression of his majesty's subjects 
ill Great Britain. Assuring his majesty of their 
determination never to relinquish the sovereign au- 
thority of the king and parliament over the colonies, 
they requested him to take the most effectual mea- 
sures to enforce obedience to that authority, and pro- 
inised him their support at the hazard of their lives 
and property. Opposition to the address was matle 
in both houses, but in vain. The king, in his an- 
swer, declared his firm determination, in compliance 
with their request, to enforce obedience to the laws 
and authority of the supreme legislature of the empire. 
His answer was followed by a message, requesting 
an increase of his forces by sea and land. The 
restriction of the trade of the colonies, and a prohibi- 
tion of the use of the fisheries, was also a part of the 
ministerial system of measures. The minister began 
this part of his system with Massachusetts, Connecti- 
cut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, as being the 
most obstinate and refractory. On the 10th of Feb- 
ruary he presented a bill, which soon became a. law, 
restricting tlie trade of these colonies to Great Britain, 
Ireland, and the British West Indies, and prohibiting 
their carrying on any fislieries on the banks of New- 
foundland, and other places, for a limited time ; and 
the same restrictions were soon after extended to all 
the colonies represented in the congress at Philadel- 



I phia, with the exception of New York and North 
Carolina. These bills were opposed by the minority 
in both houses, as unjust and cruel towards the colo- 
nists, involving the innocent with the guilty, and 
unwise and impolitic in regard to the people of Great 
Britain. By the loss of their foreign trade and the 
fisheries, the colonists, it was said, particularly those 
of New England, would be unable to pay the large 
balances due from them to the British merchants. 
But every argument, however just or reason 
able, was urged in vain against the measures pro- 
posed by the minister. An idea prevailed in Great 
Britain, that the people of New England were depen- 
dent on the fisheries for subsistence, and that, w+ien 
deprived of these, they would be starved into obe- 
dience and submission. 

It would appear, that at this period there were 
some individuals in the confidence of the ministry 
engaged in conferences with Dr. Franklin, having for 
their object to ascertain whether terms of reconcilia- 
tion could be devised. Dr. Franklin acted with his 
usual prudence in this affair, as was very manifest 
in the title of the plan he sketched for the persons 
who consulted him, which he termed, " Hints for con- 
versation, upon the subject of terms that might pro- 
bably produce a durable union between Great Britain 
and the colonies." This plan embraced, in seventeen 
propositions, the principal points in dispute ; but, as 
the negotiations were not avowedly official, and led 
to no practical result, we shall not enter upon the de- 
tail of them.t 

On the 20th of February, Lord North astonished 
both his friends and his opponents, by introducing 
into the house of commons a proposition of a con- 
ciliatory character. It provided, " that when the go- 
vernor, council, and assembly, or general court of any 
of his majesty's colonies in America, shall propose to 

that if he were the first minister of this country, and had the care 
of settling this momentous business, he should not he ashamed of 
publicly calling to his assistance a person so perfectly acquainted 
with the whole of American affairs, as the gentleman alluded to, 
and so injuriously reflected on ; one whom all Europe held in es- 
timation for his knowledge and wisdom, and ranked with our 
Boyles and Newtons; who Vas an honour, not to the English na 
tion only, but to human nature."— Franklin's Works, vol. i. p. 222 
323. Pitkin, vol. i. p. 312. Among the papers which had been 
laid before the house by Lord Dartmouth, was the petition of the 
congress to the king, in behalf of which the American agents, Dr. 
Franklin, Mr. Bollan, and Mr. Lee, petitioned to be heard at the 
bar of the house. But this privilege was refused to ihem by the 
ministers, on the ground that the congress was an illegal body, and 
their petition was rejected by an unusually large majority. 

t Those of our readers who may be desirous of pursuing this sub- 
ject further, we refer to Pitkin's Political and Civil History, vol. 
i. p. 315 — 322. We take this opportunity of acknowledging our 
obligations to that very valuable work; certainly the most satis- 
factory extant, in the department which it occupies. 



^1 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



223 



make prov sion, according to the condition, circum- 
stances, and situation cf such province or colony, for 
contributing their proportion for the common defence, 
(such proportion to be raised under the authority of 
the general court or assembly of such colony, and dis- 
posable by parliament,) and shall engage to make 
provision also for the support of the civil government 
and the administration of justice in such colony, it 
will be proper, if such proposal shall be approved by 
his majesty and the two houses of parliament, and 
for so long as such provision shall be made accord- 
ingly, to forbear, in respect to such colony, to levy 
any duty, tax, or assessment, except only such duties 
as it may be expedient to levy or impose for the regu- 
lation of commerce ; the net proceeds of the duties 
last mentioned to be carried to the account of such 
colony respectively." 

This unexpected proposition was at first opposed 
by those who usually acted with the minister, as to- 
tally inconsistent with the course of measures just 
adopted ; and they would probably have voted against 
it, had they not been quieted by explanations, as to 
its real object, made by his particular friends. By 
these explanations, in which the minister, whatever 
might have been Ins original intentions, concurred, it 
appeared that the object was to cause a division among 
the colonies, or, if this should not be the efiect, and 
the reasonable terms offered should be rejected by 
them, to unite the people of England in strong coer- 
cive measures. 

The adoption of Lord North's conciliatory scheme 
did not prevent Mr. Burke and Mr. Hartley from pre- 
senting to the house their respective plans of recon- 
ciliation. That of the former, founded on the prin- 
ciple of expediency, was to permit the colonies to tax 
themselves in their assemblies, according to ancient 
usage, and to repeal all acts of parliament imposing 
duties in America. Mr. Hartley proposed, that, at 
the request of parliament, the secretary of state should 
require a contribution from the colonies for the gene- 
ral expense of the empire, leaving the amount and ap- 
plication to the colonial assemblies. These proposi- 
tions, though supported by all the eloquence and 
powerful talents of Mr. Burke, were rejected by the 
usual ministerial majorities. 

[" The resolution of the colonists was soon put to 
a more serious test. A considerable quantity of mili- 
tary stores having been deposited at Concord, an in- 
land town, about eighteen miles from Boston, General 
Gage purposed to destroy them. For the execution 
of this design, he, on the night preceding the 19th of 
April, detached Lieutenant-Colonel Smith and Major 
Pitcairn, with 800 grenadiers and light-infantry, who. 



at eleven o'clock, embarked in boats at the bottom of 
the common, in Boston, crossed the river Charles, and 
landing at Phipps' farm, in Cambridge, commenced a 
silent and expeditious march for Concord. Although 
several British officers, who dined at Cambridge the 
preceding day, had taken the precaution to disperse 
themselves along the road leading to Concord, to in- 
tercept any expresses that might be sent from Boston, 
to alarm the country ; yet messengers, who had been 
sent from that town for the purpose, Iiad eluded the 
British patrols, and given an alarm, which was rapidly 
spread by church bells, signal guns, and volleys. On 
the arrival of the British troops at Lexington, toward 
five in the morning, about 70 men, belonging to the 
minute company of that town, were found on the pa- 
rade, under arms. Major Pitcairn, who led the van, 
galloping up to them, called out, " Disperse, disperse, 
you rebels ; throw down your arms, and disperse." 
The sturdy yeomanry not instantly obeying the or- 
der, he advanced nearer, fired his pistol, flourished 
his sword, and ordered his soldiers to fire. A dis- 
charge of arms from the British troops, with a huzza, 
immediately succeeded ; several of the provincials 
fell, and the rest dispersed. The firing continued 
after the dispersion, and the fugitives stopped and re- 
turned the fire. Eight Americans were killed, three 
or four of them by the first fire of the British ; the 
others, after they had left the parade. Several were 
also wounded. 

" The British detachment proceeded to Concord. 
The inhabitants of that town, having received the 
alarm, drew up in order for defence ; but, observing 
the number of the regulars to be too g-resit for them 
to encounter, they retired over the north bridge, at 
some distance beyond the town, and waited for re- 
enforcements. A party of British light-infantry fol- 
lowed them, and took possession of the bridge, while 
the main body entered the town, and proceeded to 
execute their commission. They disabled two 24 
pounders, threw 500 pounds of ball into the river 
and wells, and broke in pieces about 60 barrels of 
flour. The militia being re-enforced, Major ButtncK, 
of Concord, who had gallantly ofiered to command 
them, advanced toward the bridge ; but, not knowing 
of the transaction at Lexington, ordered the men not 
to give the first fire, that the provincials might not be 
th§ aggressors. As he advanced, the light-infantry 
retired to the Concord side of the river, and began to 
pull up the bridge ; and, on his nearer approach, they 
fired, and killed a captain and one of the privates. 
The provincials returned the fire ; a skirmish ensu- 
ed ; and the regulars were forced to retreat, with some 
loss. They were soon joined by the main body, and 



224 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



the whole detachment retreated with precipitancy. 
All the people of the adjacent country were by this 
time in arms ; and they attacked the retreating troops 
in every direction. Some fired from behind stone 
walls and other coverts ; others pressed on their rear ; 
and, thus harassed, they made good their retreat six 
miles back to Lexington. Here they were joined by 
Lord Piercy, who, most opportunely for them, had ar- 
rived with a detachment of 900 men, and two pieces 
of cannon. The enemy, now amounting to about 
1800 men, having halted an hour or two at Lexing- 
ton, recommenced their march ; but the attack from 
the provincials was renewed at the same time ; and 
an irregular, yet very galling fire, was kept up on 
each flank, as well as in the front and rear. The 
close firing from behind stone walls, by good marks- 
men, put them in no small confusion ; but they kept 
up a brisk retreating fire on the militia and minute- 
men. A little after sunset, the regulars reached 
Bunker's Hill, where, exhausted with excessive fa- 
tigue, they remained during the night, under the pro- 
tection of the Somerset man-of-war ; and the next 
morning went into Boston." If the Salem and Mar- 
blehead regiments had arrived in season to have cut 
off their retreat, in all probability but few of the de- 
tachment would ever have reached Boston. Still the 
great doctrines of humanity were so deeply impressed 
upon the minds of the people, already much oppress- 
ed, that they forgot, in their sympathy for the distress- 
ed, their animosity ; and the people of Charlestown, 
all whigs, still oifered the exhausted and dying British 
soldiers, the same hospitality that they would have af- 
forded friends in distress. 

The first act of the great drama was now opened. 
Blood had flowed, and flowpd copiously. The peo- 
ple had now no more doubts on their minds what 
course they had to pursue. Every workshop, every 
dwelling-house, every church, was a shrine in which 
the vows of freemen were made to the God of battles. 
Cambridge, by a sort of common consent, was fixed 
upon as a place of g-eiieral rendezvous, and in a few 
days twenty thousand freemen were seen in arms, to 
avenge their wrongs 

The provincial congress of Massachusetts met the 
next day after the battle of Lexington, and determined 
the number of men to be raised ; fixed on the pay- 
ment of the troops ; voted an issue of paper money ; 
drew up rules and regulations for the army ; and all 
was done in a business-like manner. The other co- 
lonies caught the spirit of New England, and the 
watch-fires of liberty blazed along the whole coast from 
Falmouth to Charleston. Activity and enterprise 
were every where conspicuous. A party from Con- 



necticut, under the authority of Governor Trumbull, 
proceeded to the Canada frontiers, and took many 
pieces of cannon, and, at the same time, the fort at 
Ticonderoga. Arnold, Allen, and Easton, were con- 
spicuous in this bloodless enterprise ; but all agreed 
that it was one of spirit and discretion. This fort, 
although in a somewhat dilapidated state, command- 
ed, as it was thought, all our passes to Canada. At 
this time it was the opinion of several of the officers 
of the British army, that it would not require a large 
body of troops to put all things at rest in America. 
These men reasoned upon general principles, and so 
far they were correct. An unarmed force, without 
system or concert, are, in general, but momentary 
steps to regular troops ; but they underrated the mili- 
tary talents and science of the colonists. 

At this period, the first minds in Massachusetts 
were wrought up to a spirit of martyrdom. Adams 
and Hancock, in the continental congress, instead of 
flinching at their troubles, spoke out more boldly than 
ever ; and their feelings seemed to pervade the whole 
people. Gage, by an indiscreet proclamation, kept this 
fire alive, and little was thought of, but hostile move- 
ments. He offered pardon to all but John Hancock 
and Samuel Adams, whose crimes, he alleged, de- 
served condign punishment. This was to them an 
enviable elevation, and gave them almost the power 
of dictators. The military knowledge which was 
discovered in the provincial officers, astonished the 
experienced commanders in the British army. From 
Mystic river to Dorchester heights, a line of fortifica- 
tions were established, that showed the British that 
our engineers knew something of the art of war ; 
but still they could not be brought to believe, that 
such a mass of men, so suddenly collected, could, for 
a moment, resist British veterans. They were not 
sanguinary, and hoped that all the difliculties would 
soon pass away ; but in this they were deceived. 

The American army had been quartered at Cam- 
bridge nearly two months, and no blow had been 
struck to rid the country of the British troops, or to 
encourage the natives; some uneasiness seemed to 
show itself in the camp, and more abroad, that greater 
energy was not shown ; but the wise thought to con- 
quer by Fabian wisdom, while others were for deci- 
sive measures. The army at Cambridge was known 
to be large enough to demolish the British, if they 
could be ffot at. In this state of feelin?, it was thought 
proper to make some demonstrations of courage, and 
of an intention of acting offensively and fearlessly. 
Col. Prescott was sent with the fragments, or rather, 
the skeletons of three regiments, on the night of the 
16th of June, to occupy a station on Bunker's Hill. 



HISTOHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



236 



On viewinsf thai eminence, he saw at once that it 
was an ineligible spot ; and he looked along to the 
right, and found that a spur of that hill, which was 
now called Breed's Hill, was the most proper situa- 
tion, in every respect, for a battle-ground. Consider- 
ing that they were within the limits of their orders, 
Prescott and Colonel Gridley, the engineers, began a 
redoubt on the right of Breed's Hill. It was about 
one hundred and forty feet square, with two open 
passages for ingress and egress. On the left of the 
redoubt, running north-easterly, was a breast-work of 
sods, not much over four feet high ; but not, as has 
been stated, extending to Mystic river ; it did not ex- 
tend one quarter of the way to it. The line from 
this breast-work was made of two post and rail 
fences, placed about four feet apart, in parallel lines, 
and between them was trode the newly mown grass, 
making quite as good a screen for the militia as the 
redoubt or the breast work. 

General Ward, who commanded the American 
army, concluding from the firing from Copp's Hill, in 
Boston, at the early dawn of the morning of the 17th, 
that the British would make a struggle to get posses- 
sion of the works, offered to relieve Prescott and his 
men," but they unanimously declined the offer, but 
earnestly insisted on re-enforcements. These were 
reluctantly given, as the commander in chief thought 
that an attack on his camp was contemplated ; and 
in such case, his camp at Cambridge, indifferently 
fortified as it was, would be a better place for a gene- 
ral action than Bunker's Hill. 

Early in the morning, from the battery on Copp's 
Hill, one of the men in or near the redoubt was shot, 
and was instantly buried on the spot ; but although 
the roar of the cannon from Copp's Hill was inces- 
sant, no further damage was done by their shots ; 
and in aid of this battery, the Lively, a man-of-war, 
was brought to bear, and in fact she began the can- 
nonade. 

General Gage, wishing to drive the provincials 
from the hill, sent Major-General Howe and Brigadier- 
General Pigot, with ten companies of grenadiers, and 
ten of light-infantry, with some artillery, to perform this 
service. These generals, reconnoitring the American 
forces, on their arrival at Morton's Point, thought best 
to wait for re-enforcements from Boston. For these, 
Howe waited from about noon to three o'clock, P. M. be- 
fore the battle was commenced. The British began a 
slow march up the hill in two lines, stopping at times 
to give the artillery a chance to play. But the angle 
of elevation was such, that it did but little execution. 
The provincials wasted no ammunition ; they had 
but a scanty supply. They were ordered to put four 



buck-shots to a bullet, and to reserve their fire until 
the enemy were at blank-point shot distance. At 
this moment they poured in upon the approaching 
foe a most destructive volley. The effect was not 
more destructive than appalling. The British sol- 
diery, expecting nothing but random shots from un- 
disciplined militia, were astounded at such deadly 
fires, and their line was broken in confusion. Some 
companies had not twenty soldiers fit for duty when 
they were about to rally. The British officers had 
the greatest difficulty to bring their troops into line 
again. At length, they came up a second time to- 
wards the works, but with some wavering ; and in 
less than fifteen minutes, their line broke in still 
greater confusion than before. Clinton saw this 
from Boston, and hastened over to assist Howe. 
Both the generals addressed the soldiers ; called to 
their mind their former wreaths of glory, and the 
everlasting disgrace of being beaten by raw militia. 
Howe swore to them, that he would never survive the 
disgrace, if they were conquered that day. By this 
time, Charlestown, consisting of four hundred houses, 
was in a blaze. This Clinton had done to terrify the 
neighbouring army. On the third attack they were 
under the necessity of resorting to skill, not daring to 
put it on the score of bravery a third time. Pigot, 
with a considerable force, took a circuitous route 
around the south side of the hill, and came upon the 
southwestern angle of the redoubt, and instantly 
scaled the slight works. Pitcairn was with him, and 
was shot through the body as he was about to leap 
into the redoubt. Pigot, being a short man. was 
lifted by his soldiers on to the sods, and jumped into 
the area without harm. The provincials were now 
attacked on the east and on the west ; their ammuni- 
tion was exhausted, and they had but few or no 
bayonets ; and after beating their assailants a while 
with the butts of their guns, Prescott ordered a retreat. 
Those at the breast-work and in the redoubt retreat- 
ed, and those at the rail fence followed, over Charles- 
town neck, northward. 

Until the commencement of the retreat, but few 
of the Americans had been killed. Their unwilling- 
ness to leave tlie ground at the proper time, was the 
cause of the considerable number of the killed and 
wounded. Captain Knowlton having a fine large 
company near Mystic river, moved up in good order, 
and covered the retreat of the Americans. The bat- 
,tle ended between five and six o'clock. The wind, 
during the fight, was brisk and westerly, and drove 
the smoke directly in the face of the enemy ; but as 
the smoke arose over the heads of the British, the 
Americans, as it were, looking under the cloud, saw 



226 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



where to fire. Prescott was all the fight in the re- 
doubt ; the other portion of the Massachusetts militia 
at the breast-works. The New Hampshire troops, 
under Stark, Dearborn, and others, were at the rail- 
fence. They were marching from their native state 
towards Cambridge, and went on to the battle ground 
by their own impulses, not having received any orders 
from the commander in chief 

The British had between three and four thousand 
in the fight. They acknowledged ten hundred and 
fifty-four killed and wounded, with a great proportion 
of oflicers. Their number was most unquestionably 
larger ; for they brought between three and four hun- 
dred of the slain, and buried them in the corner of 
the new burying-ground at the bottom of the common 
in Boston. The others were buried on Breed's Hill, 
where they fell. 

The Americans had fifteen hundred in the fight, 
but perhaps there were a few more at times, for volun- 
teers came on to the ground, expended their powder, 
and retreated, when they could do no more service 
to the cause. The provincials had one hundred and 
lliirty-nine killed, and three hundred and fourteen 
wounded and missing. The officers who fell on 
the American side were, Colonel Gardner of Cam- 
bridge, Lieutenant-Colonel Parker of Chelmsford, 
and Majors Moore and M'Cleary,— all men of dis- 
tinction and value, and heroes in the cause, — with 
Major-General Joseph Warren. 

General Burgoyne was all the time during the battle 
seated in the belfry of the North Church of Boston, a 
most commanding position, to watch the movements of 
either party. His letter describing the scene was, at that 
period, considered as one of very graphic power, but it 
is too general to give the historian much information. 

» Joseph Warren was born in Roxbury, near Boston, in the year 
1741. His father was a respectable farmer in that place, who had 
held several municipal offices to the acceptance of his fellow citi- 
zens. Joseph, with several of his brothers, was instructed in the 
elementary branches of knowledge al the public grammar school of 
the town, which was distinguished for its successive instructers of 
superior attainments. In 17 55 he entered college, where hesus- 
t.ained the character of a youth of talents, fine manners, and of a 
generous, independent deportment, united to great personal courage 
and perseverance. An anecdote will illustrate his fearlessness and 
determination at that age, when character can hardly be said to be 
formed. Several students of Warren's class shut themselves in a 
room to arrange some college affairs in a way which they knew 
was contrary to his wishes, and barred the door so efiectually that 
Le could not, without great violence, force it ; but he did not give 
over the attempt of getting amongst them, for, perceiving that the 
window of the room in which they were assembled was open, and 
near a spout which extended from the roof of the building to the 
ground, he went to the top of the house, slid down to the eav(ft, 
seized the spout, and, when he had descended as far as the widow, 
threw hitnself into the chamber amongst them. At that instant the 
spout, which was decayed and weak, gave way and fell to the 
ground. He looked at it without emotion, said that it had served 
Lis purpose, and began to take his part in the business. A specta- 



Warren assumed no command on that day. He had 
been commissioned as a major-general by the Provincial 
congress, but four days previous, and had not taken 
any command ; nor had he, in fact, been sworn into 
office, except, as every one had an oath in heaven, to 
live free, or die. Warren was, at the moment of his 
fall, president of the provincial congress, and chair- 
man of the committee of safety. He had put some 
one in the chair, and mounted his horse at Water- 
town, where the legislature was in session, to come 
and encourage his fellow-citizens in the fight. When 
he entered the redoubt, Prescott offered him the com- 
mand, but he declined it, saying, " I come to learn 
war under an experienced soldier, not to take any 
command^ He was the martyr of that day's glory. 
His death was felt as a calamity to the cause and to 
the nation. He was in the prime of life, being only 
thirty-five years of age, with a spirit as bold and daunt- 
less as ever was blazoned in legends, or recorded in his- 
tory. He was a prudent, cautious, but fearless states- 
man ; made to govern men, and to breathe into them 
a portion of his own heroic soul. His eloquence 
was of a high order ; his voice was fine, and of great 
compass, and he modulated it at will. His appear- 
ance had the air of a soldier, — graceful and com- 
manding, united to the manners of a finished gentle- 
man. The British thought that his life was of the 
utmost importance to the American army ; of so 
much importance, that they would no longer hold 
together after his fall. They sadly mistook the men 
they had to deal with. His blood was not shed in 
vain ; it cried from, the ground for vengeance ; and 
his name became a watch word in the hour of peril 
and glory.* The name of the humblest individual 
who perished in that fight will be remembered by the 

tor of this feat and narrow escape, related this fact to me in the 
college yard, nearly half a century afterwards, and the impression 
it made on his mind was so strong, that he seemed to feel the same 
emotion as though it happened hut an hour before. 

On leaving college, in 1759, Warren turned his attention to the 
study of medicine, under the direction of Dr. Lloyd, an eminent 
physician of that day, whose valuable life has been protracted al- 
most to the present time. Warren was distinguished very soon 
after he commenced practice; for, when in 1764 the small-pox 
spread in Boston, he was amongst the most successful in his me- 
thod of treating that disease, which was then considered the most 
dreadful scourge of the human race, and the violence of which had 
baffled the efforts of the learned faculty of medicine, from the time 
of its first appearance. From this moment he stood high amongst 
his brethren, and was the favourite of the people ; and what he 
gained in their good will, he never lost. His personal a)ipcarance, 
his address, his courtesy, and his humanity, won the way to the 
hearts of all, and his knowledge and superiority of talents secured 
the conquest. A bright and lasting fame in his profession, with 
the attendant consequences, wealth and influence, were within his 
reach, and near at hand ; but the calls of a distracted country were 
paramount to every consideration of his own interests, and he en- 
tered the vortex of politics, never to return to the peaceful course 
of professional labour. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



227 



town or parish from whence he came, and be generally 
enrolled on the books of the corporation. Young, sub- 
stantial jreomen, or industrious mechanics, they were 

The change in public opinion had been gradually preparing the 
minds of most men for a revolution. This was not openly avow- 
ed ; amelioration of treatment for the present, and assurance of 
kindness in future, were all that the colonies asked from Great 
Britain; but these they did not receive. The mother country mis- 
took the spirit of her children, and used threats when kindness 
would have been the best policy. When Britain declared her 
right to direct, govern, and tax us, in any form, and at all times, the 
colonies reasoned, remonstrated, and entreated, for a while ; and, 
when these means did not answer, they defied and resisted. The 
political writers of the province had been active and busy, and they 
were generally screened by fictitious names, or sent their produc- 
tions anonymously into the world ; but the time had arrived when 
speakers of nerve and boldness were wanted to raise their voices 
against oppression in every shape. Warren possessed first rate 
qualities for an orator, and had early declared, in the strongest 
terms, his political sentiments, which were somewhat in advance of 
public opinion, for he held as tyranny all taxation which could be 
imposed by the British parliament upon the colonies. In times of 
danger the people are sagacious, and cling to those who best can 
serve them, and every eye was on him in every emergency, for he 
had not only the firmness and decision they wished for in a leader, 
but was prudent and wary in all his plans. His first object was to 
enlighten the people, and then he felt sure of engaging their feel- 
ings in the general cause. He knew when once they began, it 
would be impossible to tread back — independence only would satisfy 
the country. With an intention of directing public sentiment, 
without appearing to be too active, he met frequently with a con- 
siderable number of substantial mechanics, and others in the mid- 
dling classes of society, who were busy in politics. This crisis re- 
quired such a man as they found him to be — one who could discern 
the signs of the limes, and mould the ductile materials to his will, 
and at the same time seem only to follow in the path of others. 
His letter to Barnard, which attracted the notice of government, 
had been written several years before, in 1768; but in some form 
or other, he was constantly enlightening the people by his pen ; but 
it is now difficult, and of no great importance, to trace him in the 
papers of that period. The public was not then always right in 
designating the authors of political essays. In the different situa- 
tions in which he was called to act, he assumed as many charac- 
ters as fable has ever given to the tutelar god of his profession, and, 
like him, in every one of them he retained the wisdom to guide, 
and the power to charm. At one time he might be found restrain- 
ing the impetuosity, and bridling the fury of those hotheaded poli- 
ticians, who felt more than they reasoned, and dared to do more 
than became men. Such was his versatility, that he turned from 
these lectures of caution and prudence, to asserting and defend- 
ing the most bold and undisguised principles of liberty, jind defy- 
ing in their very teeth the agents of the crown. 

Twice he was elected to deliver the oration on the fifth of March, 
in commemoration of the " massacre," and his orations are amongst 
the most distinguished produced by that splendid list of speakers 
who addressed their fellow citizens on this subject, so interesting 
to them all. In these productions generally the immediate causes 
of this event were overlooked, and the remote ones alone were dis- 
cussed. Here they were on safe ground, for tyranny in its inci- 
pient stages has no excuse from opposition ; but in its march it ge- 
nerally finds some plausible arguments for its proceedings, drawn 
from the veiy resistance it naturally produces. These occasions 
gave the orators a fine field for remark, and a fair opportunity for 
eftecl. The great orators of antiquity, in their speeches, attempted 
nnlj to rouse the people to retain what they possessed. Invective, 
entreaty, and pride, had their effect in assisting these mighty mas- 
ters to influence the people. They were ashamed to lose what 
their fathers had left them, won by their blood, and so long pre- 
served by their wisdom, their virtues, and their courage. Our 
statesmen had a harder task to perform, for they were compelled 
to call on the people to gain what they had never enjoyed — an in- 
dependent rank and standing amongst the nations of the world. 



owners of the soil for which they fought. The battle 
scene was imposing ; — the ground was in the imme- 
diate neighbourhood of a city, whose inhabitants were 

His next oiation was delivered March 6th, 1775. It was at hib 
own solicitation that he was appointed to this duly a second time. 
The fact is illustrative of his character, and worthy ol remem- 
brance. Some British officers of the army then in Boston had 
publicly declared that it should be at the price of the life of any 
man to speak of the event of the 5th of March, 1770, on that anni- 
versary. Warren's soul took fire at such a threat, so openly made 
and he wished for the honour of braving il. This was readily 
granted, for at such a time a man would probably find hut few ri- 
vals. Many who would spurn the thought of personal fear, might 
be apprehensive that they would bo so far ilisconcerlcd as to forget 
their discourse. It is easier to fight bravely, than to think clearly 
or correctly in danger. Passion sometimes nerves the arm to 
fight, but disturbs the regular current of thought. The day came, 
and the weather was remarkably fine. The Old South Meeting 
House was crowded at an early hour. The British officers occu- 
pied the aisles, the flight of steps to the pulpit, and several of them 
were within it. It was not precisely known whether this was ac- 
cident or design. The orator, with the assistance of his friends, 
made his entrance at the pulpit window by a ladder. The officers, 
seeing his coolness and intrepidity, made way for him to advance 
and address the audience. An awful stillness preceded his exor- 
dium. Each man felt the palpitations of his own heart, and saw 
the pale but determined face of his neighbour. The speaker be- 
gan his oration in a firm tone of voice, and proceeded with great 
energy and pathos. Warren and his friends were prepared to 
chastise contumely, prevent disgrace, and avenge an attempt at as- 
sassination. 

The scene was sublime ; a patriot, in whom the flush of youth, 
and the grace and dignity of manhood, were combined, stood armed 
in the sanctuary of God, to animate and encourage the sons of li- 
berty, and to hurl defiance at their oppressors. The orator com- 
menced with the early history of the country, described the tenure 
by which we held our liberties and properly, the affection we had 
constantly shown the parent country, and boldly told them how, and 
by whom, these blessings of life had been violated. There was in 
this appeal to Britain, in this description of suffering, agony, and 
horror, a calm and high-souled defiance, which must have chilled 
the blood of every sensible foe. Such another hour has seldom 
happened in the history of man, and is not surpassed in the records 
of nations. The thunders of Demosthenes rolled at a distance from 
Philip and his host, and TuUy poured the fiercest torrent of his in- 
vective when Catiline was at a distance, and his dagger no longer 
to be feared ; but Warren's speech was made to proud oppressors, 
resting on their arms, whose errand it was to overawe, and whose 
business it was to fight. 

If the deed of Brutus deserved to be commemorated by history 
poetry, painting, and sculpture, should not this instance of patriot- 
ism and bravery be held in lasting remembrance 1 If he "that 
struck the foremost man of all this world," was hailed as the first 
of freemen, what honours are not due to him, who, undismayed, 
beaided the British lion, to show the world what his countrymen 
dared to do in the cause of liberty 1 If the statue of Brutus was 
placed amongst those of the gods, who were the preservers of Ro- 
man freedom, should not that of Warren fill a lofty niche in the 
temple reared to peipetuate the remembrance of our birth as a 
nation 1 

If independence was not at first openly avowed by oar leading 
men, at that time, the hope of attaining it was fondly cherished, and 
the exertions of the patriots pointed to this end. The wise knew 
that the storm, which the political Prosperos were raising, would 
pass away in blood. With these impressions on his mind, Warren 
for several years was preparing himself by siudy and observation 
to lake a conspicuous rank in the military arrangements which he 
knew must ensue. 

On the 18th of April, 1775, by his agents in Boston, he disco- 
vered the design of the British commander to seize or destroy our 
few stores at Concord. He instantly despatched several confiden- 
tial messengers to Lexington. The late venerable patriot, Paul 



228 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



watching the progress of events, anxious for their 
nearest friends ;— the roar of cannon from ships 
of war, and from floating and stationary batteries, 
followed or commingled with incessant volleys of 
musketry — a well-built and compact town, seen in 

Revere, was one of them. This gentleman has given a very inte- 
resting account of the difficulties he encountered in the discharge 
of this duly. The alarm was given, and the militia, burning with 
resentment, weie, at day break, on the 19th, on the road to repel 
insult and aggression. The drama was opened about sunrise, 
within a few yards of the house of God, in Lexington. Warren 
hastened to the field of action, in the full ardour of his soul, and 
shared the dangers of the day. While pressing on the enemy, a 
musket ball took off" a lock of his hair close to his ear. The lock 
was rolled anil pinned after the fashion of that day, and considera- 
ble force must have been necessary to have cut it away. The peo- 
ple were delighted with his cool, collected bravery, and already 
considered him as a leader, whose gallantry they were to admire, 
and in whose talents they were to confide. 

On the 14th of June, 1775, the provincial congress of Massachu- 
setts made him a major-general of their forces; but, previous to the 
date of his commission, he had been unceasing in his exertions to 
maintain order and enforce discipline amongst the troops, which 
had hastily assembled at Cambridge, after the battle of Lexington. 
He mingled in the ranks, and by every method and argument 
strove to inspire them with confidence, and succeeded in a most 
wonderful manner in imparting to them a portion of the flame 
which glowed in his own Ijreast. At such a crisis, genius receives 
its birth-righl, the homage of inferior minds, who for self-preserva- 
tion, are willing to he directed. Previous to receiving the ap- 
pointment of major-general, he had been requested to take the of- 
fice of physician general to the army, but be chose to be where 
wounds were to be made, rather than where they were to be heal- 
ed. Yet he lent his aid and advice to the medical department of 
the army, and was of great service to thein in their organization 
and arrangements. 

He was at this time president of the provincial congress, having 
been elected the preceding year a member from the (own of Boston. 
In this body he discovered his extraordinary powers of mind, and 
his peculiar fitness for responsible offices at such a juncture. Cau- 
tions in proposing measures, he was assiduous in pursuing what he 
thought, after mature deliberation, to be right, and never counted 
the probable cost of a mea.«ure, when he had decided that it was 
necessary to be taken. When this congress, which was sitting at 
Watertown, adjourned for the day, he mounted his horse, and 
hastened to the camp. Every day " he bought golden opinions 
of all sorts of men ;" and when the troops were called to act on 
Breed's Hill, he had so often been amongst them, that his person 
was known to most of the soldiers. 

Several respectable historians have fallen into some errors in de- 
scribing the battle in which he fell, by giving the command of the 
troops, on that day, to Warren, when he was only a volunteer in 
rlie fight. He did not arrive on the battle ground until the enemy 
had commenced their movements for the attack. As soon as he 
made his appearance on the field, the veteran coinmander of the 
day, Colonel Prescott, desired to act under his direction ; but War- 
ren declined taking any other part than that of a volunteer, and 
added, that he came to learn the art of war from an experienced 
soldier, whose orders he should be happy to obey. In the battle he 
was armed with a musket, and stood in the ranks, now and then 
changing his place, to encourage his fellow .soldiers by words and 
example. He undoubtedly, from the slate of hostilities, expected 
soon to act in his high military capacity, and it was indispensable, 
according to his views, that he should share the dangers of the field 
as a common soldier with his fellow citizens, that his reputation 
f)r bravery might be put bevond the possibility of suspicion. The 
wisdom of such a course would never have been doubted, if he had 
returned in safety from the fight. In such a struggle for inde- 
pendence, the ordinary rules of prudence and caution could not 
govern those who were building up their names for future useful- 
ness by present exertion. Some maxims drawn from the republi- 



one mass of flames, — and all this, but the commence- 
inent of troubles, — was a sight appalling to every 
American, and seemed to shake even the enemy, 
in both mind and body. The British troops, in 
considerable numbers, occupied the hill that night. 



can writers of antiquity, were worn as their mottos. Some pre- 
cepts descriptive of the charms of liberty, were ever on their 
tongues, and some classical model of Greek or Roman patriotism, 
was constantly in their minds. Instances of great men mixing in 
the ranks of common soldiers, were to be found in ancient times, 
when men fought for their altars and their homes. The casis 
were parallel, and the examples were imposing. When the bati a 
was decided, and our people fled, Warren was one of the last who 
left the breast-work, and was slain within a few yards of it, as he 
was slowly retiring. He probably felt mortified at the event of the 
day; but, had he known how dearly the victory was purchased, 
and how little honour was gained by those who won it, his heart 
might have been at rest. Like the band of Leonidas, the van- 
quished have received by the judgment of nations, from which 
there is no appeal, the imperishable laurels of victors. His death 
brought a sickness to the heart of the community, and the people 
mourned his fall, not with the convulsive agony of a betrothed vir- 
gin over the bleeding corse of her lover, but with the pride of the 
Spartan mother, who, in the intensity of her grief, smiled to see 
that the wounds whence life had flown, were on the breast of her 
son, and was satisfied that he had died in defence of his country. 
The worth of the victim, and the horror of the sacrifice, gave a 
higher value to our liberties, and produced a more fixed determi- 
nation to preserve them. 

This eminence has become sacred ground. It contains in its 
bosom the ashes of the brave, who died fighting to defend their 
altars and their homes. Strangers from all countries visit this 
.spot, for it is associated in their memories with Marathon and 
Plataia, and all the mighty struggles of determined freemen. Our 
citizens love to wander over this field — the aged to awake recollec- 
tions, and the youthful to excite heroic emotions. The battle- 
ground is now all plainly to be seen — the spirit of modern improve- 
ment, which would stop the streams of Helicon to turn a mill, and 
cause to be felled the trees of Paradise to make a rafter, has yet 
spared this hallowed height. 

If " the days of chivalry be gone for ever," and the high and en- 
thusiastic feelings of generosity and magnanimity be not so widely 
diffused as in more heroic ages, yet it cannot be denied but that there 
have been, and still are, individuals whose bo.soms are warmed with 
a spirit as glowing and ethereal, as ever swelled the heart of '•'mail- 
ed knight," who, in the ecstasies of love, religion, and martial 
glory, joined the war-cry on the plains of Palestine, or proved his 
steel on the infidel foe. The history of every revolution is inter- 
spersed with brilliant episodes of individual prowess. The pages 
of our own history, when fully written out, will sparkle profusely 
with these gems of romantic valour. 

The calmness and indifference of the veteran "in clouds of dust 
and seas of blood, "can only be acquired by long acquaintance with 
the trade of death; but the heights of Charlestown will hear eter- 
nal testimony how suddenly, in the cause of freedom, the peaceful 
citizen can become the invincible warrior ; stung by oppression, he 
springs forward from his tranquil pursuits, undaunted by Opposition, 
and undismayed by danger, to fight even to death for the defence 
of his rights. Parents, wives, children, and country, all the hal- 
lowed properties of existence, are to him the talisman that takes 
fear from his heart, and nerves his arm to victory. In the requiem 
over tho.se who have fallen in the cause of their country, which 
" Time, with his own eternal lips, shall sing," the praises of War- 
ren shall be distinctly heard. 

The blood of those patriots who have fallen in the defence of re- 
publics, has often " cried from the ground," against the ingratitude 
of the country for which if was shed. No monument whs reared 
to their fame ; no record of their virtues written; no fostering hand 
extended to their offspring; btit they and llirir deeds were neirlect- 
ed and forgotten. Towards Warren there was no ingratitude — our 
country is free from this slain. Congress were the guardians of bis 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



229 



and enlarged the redoubt to nearly twice the original 
extent ; yet they did not venture to light their fires, 
but laboured by the sinking, flickering lights, which 
shot up from the smouldering ruins of Charlestown. 
For the Americans, struggling for liberty, the event 
of this battle was most fortunate. Their troops had 
done enough for honour ; enough to produce an 
impression of their prowess on the minds of their 
enemies; enough to give them confidence in them- 
selves ; and to show that they had learnt something 
in the way of preparing themselves to correct the 
errors of judgment in planning a fight. They suf- 
fered enough to feel their loss deeply, and yet not 
sufficiently in any way to weaken their forces. The 
wound received was too deep to be healed at once ; 
the sight was too awful to be soon forgotten. 

If the army had come down from Cambridge and 
Roxbury to the succour, the British would have been 
destroyed altogether ; but from the disposition of the 
king of England at this period, and the spirit of the 
ministry, the whole force of the British nation would 
have been brought to crush the Americans at once. 

Tlie battle was fous^ht on Saturday afternoon. 
Before Sunday night the intelligence was spread more 
than a hundred miles distant from the scene of action. 
All were roused to the highest pitch of resentment, 
and set about preparing themselves for a long and 
bloody struggle. Companies were raised and equipped 
with the utmost despatch ; all hopes of reconcilia- 
tion were lost. Squads of armed men flocked to 
head quarters, some of them having travelled eighty 
miles in twenty-four hours. 

To show the character of the men who had entered 
upon the duties of this important revolution, we need 

honour, and remembered that his children were unprotected or- 
phnns. Wirhin a year after his death, congress pas.sed tlie follow- 
ing resolution : — 

" That a monument be erected to the memory of General War- 
ren, in the town of Boston, with the following inscription : — 

In honour of 

JOSEPH WARREN, 

Major-General of Massachusetts Bay. 

He devoted his life lo the liberties of his country, 

And in bravely defending them, fell an early victim in the 

Batti.e of Bunker Hill, 

June 17, 1775. 

The Congress of the United States, as an acknowledgment of his 

services and distinguished merit, have erected this monument 

to his memory." 

It was resolved, likewise, " that the eldest son of General War- 
ren should be educated from that time at the expense of the United 
Slates." On the first of July, 1780, congress, recognising these 
former resolutions, further resolved, " that it should be recommend- 
ed to Ihe executive of Massachusetts Bay, to make provision for 
tlie maintenance and education of his three younger children, and 
that congress would defray the expense to Ihe amount of the half 
pay of a major-general, to commence at the time of his death, and 



only to notice the fact, that the provincial congress, 
then sitting at Watertown, about six miles from the 
battle-field, proceeded, as usual, with their business ; 
and no mention is made of the battle on their records, 
until three days afterwards, when a member moved 
that the body should proceed to elect a president, as 
it was believed that Doctor Joseph Warren, who had 
filled the chair, had been slain on the 17th, at Bun- 
ker Hill. His place was supplied, and a committee 
was appointed to collect and publish all the circum- 
stances of the fight. This was only partially execu- 
ted at the time. It was reserved for the lapse of half 
a century, to complete the record for history. Whrn 
the Corner stone of Bunker Hill monument was about 
to be laid, the legislature of Massachusetts invited, 
by a resolve of that body, all the survivors of that 
day's fight, to repair, at the expense of the common- 
wealth, to Charlestown, to take a part in the cerenjo- 
nies. This invitation was accepted by more than 
fifty veterans, who, on their arrival, stated, under the 
solemnity of an oath, the circumstances within their 
recollections, of the battle. That which had been 
doubtful and contradictory, was made plain and satis- 
factory from comparing all these statements of these 
honest veterans.] 

While most of the colonies afforded sufficient oc- 
cupation for the watchfulness of the British govern- 
ment, those of New England called forth the most 
visrorous efforts of the royalists, both by sea and land. 
The naval forces were frequently engaged in destroy- 
ing armed American vessels, congress having fitted 
out several, which were very successful in capturing 
store ships sent with supplies of provisions and am- 
munition for the royal army.* At Gloucester, the 

continue till the youngest of the children should be of age." The 
part of the resolutions relating to the education of ihe children, 
was carried into effect accordingly. The monument is not yet 
erected, but it is not too late. The shade of Warren will not re- 
pine at this neglect, while Ihe ashes of Washington repose without 
grave stone or epitaph. — Knapp's American Biogrnphy. 

* After the war had begun in earnest, Washinglon gave com- 
mission and authority to take, and bring in, such vessels as our 
cruisers could capture, belonging to ihe British government, on 
the high seas. By virtue of this aulhorily, several rich prizes 
were taken, some of them loaded with munitions of war, which 
came timely to the American army. Several vessels bcir.g private 
property which had been taketi by these cruisers, were promptly 
released. Congress s.anctioned his proceedings as justifiable and 
proper, and at once turned their allention to a naval force. In 
1776, they appointed twenty-four caplains of the navy, and a few 
lieutenants, leaving it to the naval commillee lo appoint the olhers; 
and, at the same time, authorized the building of si.xleen ships of 
war, and several smaller vessels. This, wilh the force which was 
then already in the possession of the several states, a part of which 
were sold to congress, soon made a respectable naval force. The 
work of building went bravely on, for the merchants were deeply 
interested in it, and readily loaned Ihe money to government for 
their building, or trusted the naiional cnniractor for malerials ne- 
cessary in getting this naval force into effective operation. Some 



2-dO 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Falcon sloop of war having chased an American ves- 
sel into the harbour, despatched three boats, with 
about forty men, to bring her off, when the party 

of the ships were as large as thirty-two's, and from these down to 
four's. After this, larger vessels were built, but only one seventy- 
four, however, and she was never in our service. These were 
commanded by brave men, and there was no act of cowardice 
known in the American navy during the revolutionary war. 
There might have been a few instances of indecorum and want of 
discretion, but none of cowardice. 

But to be a little more minute in this history, as it is important 
to examine our beginnings as a nation, in November, 1775, the le- 
gislature of Massachusetts passed a spirited act, by which they au- 
thorized and encouraged the fitting out of private armed vessels, 
to defend the sea coast of America; and at the same time created 
a court of admiralty, to try and condemn all vessels that should 
be found infesting the same. The preamble to this act was w'ritten 
by the late vice-president, Mr. Gerry, and it is a bold and an in- 
genious exposition of the sovereign rights of the people in such an 
exigency, fo.unded on the royal charter of William and Mary, 
under which the affairs of the province of Massachusetts had been 
administered for more than eighty years. The body of the act 
was penned by Mr. Sullivan, late governor of Massachusetts, an 
early and firm patriot of the revolution. On the 16th of Decem- 
ber of that year, the government of Massachusetts resolved to fit 
out ten vessels to go to the West Indies for military stores. On 
the 29th of this month, John Adams and J. Palmer were appointed 
by the legislature of Massachusetts, a committee to prepare and 
report a plan for fitting out armed vessels. On the 8th of January 
following, eight thousand pounds were voted for the purpose of 
making a respectable marine force for the province. On the 11th 
of January, 1776, it was resolved in council, to build two frigates, 
one of tliirty-six, and the other of thirty-two gims. On the 7th of 
February, it was resolved by the whole court to build ten sloops of 
war, to carry sixteen guns each. Ten thousand pounds were ap- 
propriated to this purpose. Some of these vessels were built, and 
some others were hired, so that Massachusetts soon had quite a re- 
spectable naval force on the high seas at their disposal. At the 
close of the year 1775, congress commissioned several vessels of 
war, six sloops, and thirteen galleys ; but they were restrained to 
the taking of public properly. After the declaration of independ- 
ence, when there was no prospect of peace for a season, or at least 
until Great Britain had tried the strength of the United Colonies, 
the marine was greatly increased, and twenty-four vessels were 
put in commission, and additions were made from time to time to 
this respectable force. These vessels were commanded by high- 
spirited and intelligent men, who were wonderfully successful ; 
for in the course of three years they had taken more than double 
the number of their own guns from the enemy, besides a great 
number of merchantmen of value. More than eight hundred guns 
had been taken from the enemy during this time, by the marine 
which congress had fitted out ; while that of Massachusetts, and of 
the other states, were equally successful. The vessels taken by 
the public and private armed vessels, from the battle of Lexington 
to the 17 th of March, 1776, when the British evacuated Boston, 
amounted to thirty-four, of considerable size and value, with ex- 
cellent cargoes. The tonnage of these captured vessels amounted 
to three thousand six hundred and forty-five tons. In 1776, the 
British vessels captured by the private armed vessels, alone, 
amounted to the great number of three hundred and forty-two, of 
which forty-four were retaken, eighteen released, and five burnt. 
In the following year, 1777, the success of our privateers was .stiU 
greater. Vessels were captured to the amount of four hundred 
and twenty-one. The success continued without any great dimi- 
nution until 1780. At this time the British merchants made so 
strong an appeal to their government, that they provided a convoy 
for every fleet of merchant vessels to every part of the globe. Out 
of the fleet sailing from England to the West Indies, consisting of 
two hundred in number, in the year 1777, one hundred and thirty- 
seven were taken by our privateers; and from a fleet from Ireland 
to the West Indies, of sixty sail, thirty-five were taken. Taking 
the years 1775, 6, 7, 8, and 9, say for the first year, thirty-four; 



were so warmly received by the militia who had col- 
lected on the shore, that the captain thought it ne- 
cessary to send a re-enforcement, and to commence 



second, three hundred and forty-two; third, four hundred and 
twenty-one; and for the fourth, which has not been accurately 
given, I believe, in any work, say, and this within bounds, two hun- 
dred ; and for the fifth, the same, two hundred ; and allowing biit 
one hundred for the balance of the time during the war, will make 
twelve hundred and ninety-seven, without including those taken by 
public vessels from 1776 to the close of the war ; and this latter 
number, if it could be precisely given, would add greatly to the list 
of captures. The marine, undoubtedly, fell off' towards the close of 
the war, from several causes ; one, the diflScuIties in the finance of 
the country, and from the great exertions of the Admiralty of Eng- 
land in capturing our privateers. They had become alarmed from 
the complaints of their merchants, and the rise of insurance against 
capture, which reached an extent unknown before or since. The 
French navy, after that time, joined us in the war, and was in itself 
so powerful, that our smaller vessels were not wanted to co-operate 
with the land forces as before. Besides the defence of Charleston 
and Philadelphia, which were engagements that ought to be ranked 
among the most memorable events in our revolutionary contest, 
there were others all along the seaboard, of less note, but in them- 
selves spirited afl^airs. Rhode Island, Philadelphia, and Charles- 
ton, have high claims for naval distinction, and for constant efforts 
on the high seas, during the war. 

Our naval affairs were managed by a marine committee in con- 
gress, who were as active and efficient as their limited means would 
allow. They had the admiralty code of England and Holland be- 
fore them, and took such parts of it as would answer the purpose 
of their design. The committee of congress did wonders, consider- 
ing their means, and the difficulties they had to encounter. John 
Adams was an efficient member of this committee ; and, delighted 
with the course pur.sued by the merchants of the Netherlands, in 
gaining their independence and raising their national character, he 
studied their state papers, ruminated upon their history, and found- 
it wise to copy their policy. He was born and educated among a 
mercantile people, and was well acquainted with their true interests. 
He saw an extended seaboard, and knew it were folly to defend our 
harbours and seaports without a naval force. To him and his co- 
adjutors are we indebted for the shape our infant navy took, and 
for the Herculean tasks she performed, as it were, in the cradle. 
It is not to be denied, however, that he had the cordial co-operalion 
of all the efficient members in congress in every state, whether 
more or less maritime ; for these enlightened men saw what a 
mighty engine of power this force might be made in a foreign 
war; and they soon saw, too, how much a matter of gain it was 
in that day. John Adams has deservedly been considered the fa- 
ther of the American navy. His disposition was of that prompt, 
effective, and daring character, that made him delight in the naval 
glories of his country. He knew that Great Britain was hence- 
forth to be separated from us, and that it was only by cherishing a 
desire for naval distinction, that we were ever to contend upon 
equal ground with her. This he declared almost as soon as he 
saw the conflict gathering, and the storm ready to burst, long be- 
fore he had assisted the people, or their representatives, lo brace 
themselves up for the declaration of independence. A naval force 
was thought by all to be necessary at that day. It was long since 
that period, that the establishment of this great engine of national 
defence, was considered of questionable policy. Then the repre- 
sentatives of all the states concurred most heartily in doing every 
thing in their power to encourage the increase of our naval force. 
The success of the privateers gave an elasticity and spirit to the 
people, that nothing else could have given. It gave them wealth ^ 
also, through the medium of enterprise and valour. The seaports ^ 
were full of the bustle of preparation for cruising and reception of 
prizes. Articles of merchandise were common, and of a quality 
the frugality and economy of our people had never permitted them 
to think of before. These articles were of use to citizens and 
soldiers, and the sale and purchase gave a specious form to busi- 
ness, A great part of the capital on which they were obtained, 
was the hardihood and daring of the people. This success inspired 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



231 



cannonading the town. A very smart action en- 
sued, which was kept up for several hours, but re- 
sulted in the complete defeat of the assailants, lea- 
ving upwards of thirty prisoners in the hands of the 
Americans. This repulse excited the British to 
deeds of revenge upon several of the defenceless 
towns on the const, and to declare that many of 
them should be reduced to ashes, unless the inhabit- 
ants consented to an unconditional compliance with 
all their demands. Another occurrence also tended 
to mutual exasperation. In compliance with a re- 
solution of the provincial congress to prevent tories 
from conveying out their effects, the inhabitants of 
Falmouth, in the north-eastern part of Massachusetts, 
had obstructed the loading of a mast ship. The 
destruction of the town was therefore determined on, 
as an example of vindictive punishment. Captain 
Mowat . detached for that purpose with armed vessels by 
Admiral Greaves, arrived off the place on the evening 
of the 17th of October, and gave notice to the in- 
habitants that he Avould allow them two hours '• to 
remove the human species." Upon being solicited 
to afford some explanation of this extraordinary 
summons, he replied, that he had orders to set on 
fire all the seaport towns from Boston to Halifax, 
and that he supposed New York was already 
in ashes. He could dispense with his orders, he 
said, on no terms but the compliance of the inhabit- 
ants to deliver up their arms and ammunition, and 
their sending on board a supply of provisions, and 
four of the principal persons in the town, as hostages 
that they should engage not to unite with their 
country in any kind of opposition to Britain ; and 

the army likewise ; for they saw that sailors of a new creation 
could meet, and dared fight, the hardy sons of Neplnne born in old 
England, and educated in the best of fleets in the world ; and that 
these veterans were often found to yield to American sailors, of 
buta few months discipline on the high seas. 

In the bustle that privateering created, the loss of lives and 
limbs was forgotten, and the pride of conquest, and the joy of the 
possession of property won by daring, concealed the pain of many 
wounds, and perhaps healed a great many that a want of .success 
might have festered and rendered immedicable. In an army, in- 
dividual bravery seldom finds an opportunity for display, while in 
these sea-fights almost every one had an opportunity of showing 
his prowess. These mariners on board a privateer were sharers 
in the success of every enterprise, often a hietter, or stronger mo- 
tive, for brave deeds, than the sound of a name. It was often that 
they had on opportunity of selecting the commander under whom 
they would serve ; and men so situated, are generally sagacious 
in discerning the merits of their superiors; particularly when that 
merit, in a good measure, consisted in overt acts, of wliich they 
were as good judges as men of higher grades of mind, and of 
higher rank in society. Several of these commanders of privateers 
were men of original and commanding talent, and deserve to be 
handed down to posterity, as well as the leaders of small bands in 
the primitive wars of the classical ages. Manly, Mugford, Jones, 
Waters, Young, Tucker, Talbot, Nicholson, Williams, Biddle, 
Hopkins, Robinson, and many others, who were either in the ser- 
vice of cue of the state sovereignties at that time, or in the servire 

30 



he assured them, that, on a refusal of these condi- 
tions, he should lay the town in ashes within three 
hours. Unprepared for the attack, the inhabitants, 
by entreaty, obtained the suspension of an answer 
till the morning, and employed this interval in re- 
moving their families and effects. The next day. 
Captain Mowat commenced a furious cannonade and 
bombardment ; and a great number of people, stand- 
ing on the heights, were spectators of the conflagra- 
tion, which reduced many of them to penury and 
despair. More than four hundred houses and stores 
were burnt. Newport, Rhode Island, being threat- 
ened with a similar attack, was compelled to stipu- 
late for a weekly supply to avert it. 

Warlike operations were not confined to the sea 
ports. Their success in the reduction of Ticonde- 
roga and Crown Point stimulated the Americans to 
more extensive operations in the north ; and the 
movements of Sir G. Carleton, the governor of Cana- 
da, appeared to call for them, congress having rea- 
son to believe that a formidable invasion was intend- 
ed from that quarter. The management of military 
affairs in this department had been committed to the 
Generals Schuyler and Montgomery. On the 10th 
of September, about one thousand American troops 
effected a landing at St. John's, the first British port 
in Canada, lying one hundred and fifteen miles only 
to the northward of Ticonderoga, but found it ad- 
visable to retreat to Isle aux Noix, twelve miles 
south of St John's. An extremely bad state of 
health soon after inducing General Schuyler to re- 
tire to Ticonderoga, the command devolved on Ge- 
neral Montgomery. That enterprising officer, in a 

of congress, have been noticed by the writers of biography in limes 
past ; but there are many more who are equally worthy of notice, 
who have been neglected, because they were only commanders of 
privateers. It ought, however, to be considered, that our vessels 
of war were small, and did not, in general, carry more guns or 
men than some of our privateers at that lime ; and the commanders 
of both classes of vessels, those of the United Slates and those of 
private citizens, were educated and trained alike, and had equal 
sagacity, skill, and success. Scarcely a day passed, from the sum- 
mer of 1775 to 1780, that the people were not animated with the 
news of some sea fight, and generally victory was on our side; for 
these privateers were built for quick sailing, and when they thought 
the fight would be at odds against them, they out-sailed the enemy, 
and escaped to annoy them in some other quarter. These com- 
manders, in general, were men of standing, honour, and principle, 
and never suflTered themselves to sink into petty tyrants, or lawless 
bucaniers, in their manners or feelings. Instances of the most 
magnanimous conduct among them, might be given. In several 
cases of capture, when they understood the owners were friendly 
to the cause of America, the vessels and crews were suffered to de- 
part without losing a particle of property. In the vessels taken by 
these privateers, as in the public armed ships, the ofl^cers we.re 
never deprived of their baggage, and often were allowed their ad- 
ventures, if their owners liad allowed them such privileges, and 
they bad any on board. Some few of these commanders of priva- 
teers have lived down to our time. — American Editar, 



232 



HISTORY OF 'J'HE UNITED STATES. 



few days returned to the vicinity of St. John's, and 
opened a battery against it ; and the reduction of 
Fort Chamblee, by a small detachment, giving him 
possession of six tons of gunpowder, enabled him to 
prosecute the siege of St. John's with vigour. General 
Carleton advanced against him with about eight hun- 
dred men ; but, in attempting to cross the St. Lawrence, 
with the intention of landing at Longueil, he was 
attacked by Colonel Warner, at the head of" three 
hundred Green Mountain boys, and compelled to 
retire with precipitancy. This repulse induced the 
garrison of St. John's to surrender, on honourable 
terras of capitulation. 

While Montgomery was prosecuting the siege of 
St. John's, Colonel Ethan Allen, who had been des- 
patched- on a service necessary to that object, hear- 
ing that Montreal was in a defenceless state, attempted 
its capture without the knowledge of his superior in 
command ; he was, however, with part of his detach- 
ment, taken prisoner, and. to the disgrace of General 
Carleton, loaded with irons, and in that State sent to 
England. " It is impossible to think of the fate of 
this heroic partisan, without regretting that wild 
spirit of independence which spurned even at the 
most necessary and proper subordination in the revo- 
lutionary fathers. If Colonel Allen had consulted 
the general, as was unquestionably his duty, the 
whole fate of the Canadian expedition might have 
been changed. He would either have received such 
re-enforcements as would have rendered his object 
attainable without hazard, or he would have been 
forbidden to undertake it ; and the assistance of his 
daring courage and skill might have prevented the 
fate which subsequently befell General Montgomery 
before Quebec.'"* After the capture of St. John's, 
Montgomery directed his attention to Montreal, with 
different success. On his approach, the few British 
troops there repaired on board the shipping, in hopes 
of escaping down the river ; but General Prescot, 
and several officers, with about one hundred and 
twenty privates, were intercepted, and made prison- 
ers on capitulation ; eleven sail of vessels, with all 
their contents, fell into the hands of the provincials. 
Governor Carleton was secretly conveyed away in a 
boat with muffled paddles, and arrived safely at 
Quebec. General Montgomery, leaving some troops 
in Montreal, and sending detachments into different 
parts of the province to encourage the Canadians 
and to forward provisions, advanced with his little 
army to Quebec, where he found, to his surprise, 
that a body of American troops had arrived before. 

• Allen's History of the American Revolution, vol. i. p. 292. 



General Washington, foreseeing that the whole 
force of Canada would be concentrated about Mon- 
treal, had projected an expedition against Quebec in 
a different direction from that of Montgomery. His 
plan was to send out a detachment from his camp 
before Boston, to march by way of Kennebeck River ; 
and, passing through the dreary wilderness lying 
between the settled parts of the province of Maine 
and the St. Lawrence, to penetrate into Canada 
about ninety miles below Montreal. This extraor- 
dinary and most arduous enterprise was committed 
to Colonel Arnold, who, with one thousand one 
hundred men, consisting of New England infantry, 
some volunteers, a company of artillery, and three 
companies of riflemen, commenced his march on the 
13th of September. It is almost impossible to con- 
ceive the labour, hardships, and difficulties, which 
this detachment had to encounter in their progress 
up the rapid stream of the Kennebeck, frequently in- 
terrupted by falls, where they were obliged to land 
and carry the boats upon their shoulders, until they 
surmounted them, through a country wholly unin- 
habited, with a scanty supply of provisions, the sea- 
son cold and rainy, and the men daily dropping down 
with fatigue, sickness, and hunger. Arnold was in- 
defatigable in his endeavours to alleviate the distresses 
of his men, but to procure provisions for them was 
not in his power. They were at one time reduced 
to so great an extremity of hunger, that the dogs 
belonging to the army were killed and eaten, and 
many of the soldiers devoured their leather cartouch 
boxes. Arnold and his party at length arrived at 
Point Levi, opposite the town of Quebec ; but in 
consequence of information the British had received, 
by the treachery of the Indian to whom Arnold had 
intrusted a letter to General Schuyler, the boats which 
he expected to find there to transport his troops acrpss 
the river had been removed, and the enemy were no 
longer in a state to be surprised. Arnold, however, 
was not to be deterred from attempting something 
against the town — he calculated strongly upon the 
defection of the inhabitants ; and having supplied 
himself with canoes, he crossed the river in the night, 
and gained possession of the heights of Abraham. 
Here, though he had no artillery, and scarcely half 
the number of men that composed the garrison of 
the to\\m, he made a bold experiment to try the loy- 
alty of the enemy's troops, by sending a flag to sum- 
mon them to surrender. But no message would be 
admitted, and Arnold found himself compelled to 
retire to more comfortable quarters, where he awaited 
the arrival of General Montgomery. 

General Carleton, who it has already been stated 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



233 



arrived at Quebec, had taken the best measures for 
its defence, and was prepared to receive him. In a 
few days, the American general opened a six-gun 
battery within about seven hundred yards of the walls ; 
but his artillery was too light to make a breach, and 
he could do nothing more than amuse the enemy, 
and conceal his real purpose. After continuing a 
siege nearly a month, he resolved on a desperate 
attempt to carry the place by escalade. To distract 
the garrison, two feigned attacks were made on the 
upper town by two divisions of the army under 
Majors Brown and Livingston, while two real attacks 
on opposite sides of the lower town were made by 
two otiier divisions under Montgomery and Arnold. 
Early in the morning of the last day in the year, 
the signal was given, and the several divisions moved 
to the assault in the midst of a heavy fall of snow, 
which covered the assailants from the sight of the 
enemy. Montgomery, at the head of the New York 
troops, advanced along the St. Lawrence, by Aunce 
de Mere, under Cape Diamond. The first barrier to 
be surmounted on that side was defended by a bat- 
tery, in which were mounted a few pieces of artillery, 
in front of which were a blockhouse and picket. 
The guard at the blockhouse, after giving a random 
fire, threw away their arms and fled to the barrier, 
and for a time the battery itself was deserted. Enor- 
mous piles of ice impeded the progress of the 
Americans, who, pressing forward in a narrow defile, 
reached at length the blockhouse and picket. Mont- 
gomery, who was in front, assisted in cutting down 
or pulling up the pickets, and advanced boldly and 
rapidly at the head of about two hundred men, to 
force the barrier. By this time one or two persons 
had ventured to return to the battery, and, seizing a 
slow match, discharged one of the guns. Casual as 
this fire appeared, it Avas fataJ to General Montgo- 
mery and to two valuable young officers near his per- 
son, who, together with his orderly sergeant and a 
private, were killed on the spot. Colonel Campbell, 
on whom the command devolved, precipitately retired 
with the remainder of the division. — In the mean 
time. Colonel Arnold, at the head of about three him- 
dred and fifty men, made a desperate attack on the 
opposite side. Advancing with the utmost intrepi- 

• In Montgomery the Americans lost one of the bravest and 
most accomplished generals that ever led an army to the field. Bnt 
he was not more illustrious for his skill and courage as an officer, 
than he was estimable for his private virtues. All enmity to him 
on the part of the British ceased with his life, and respect to his 
private character prevailed over all other considerations. His 
body was taken up the next day, and he was decently interred.— 
Montgomery was a gentleman of good family in Ireland, who, 
having married a lady and purchased an estate in New York, con- 
sic. ered himself as an American, and had served with reputation in 



dity along the St. Charles, through a narrow path, 
exposed to an incessant fire of grape shot and mus- 
ketry, as he approached the first barrier at the Saut 
des Matelots, he received a musket ball in the leg, 
which shattered the bone, and he was carried off to the 
camp. Captain Morgan, who commanded a company 
of Virginia riflemen, rushed forward to the batteries 
at their head, and received a discharge of grape shot, 
which killed one man only. A few rifles were im- 
mediately fired into the embrasures, and the barri- 
cade was mounted ; the battery was instantly desert- 
ed, but the captain of the guard, with the greater 
part of his men, fell into the hands of the Americans. 
Morgan formed his men, but from the darkness of 
the night and total ignorance of the situation of the 
town, it was judged unadvisable to proceed. He 
was soon joined by Lieutenant-colonel Green and 
Majors Bigelow and Meigs, with several fragments 
of companies, amounting collectively to about two 
hundred men. At daylight this gallant party was 
again formed ; but after a bloody and desperate en- 
gagement, in which they sustained the force of the 
whole garrison three hours, they were compelled to 
surrender themselves prisoners of war.* 

After this brave but disastrous assault, the com- 
mander of the American troops did not muster more 
than four hundred effective men : in the hope, how- 
ever, of receiving reinforcements, they maintained a 
position at a short distance from Quebec ; and, al- 
though the garrison was very superior in numbers, 
the bravery the colonists had evinced, and the mixed 
character of his own troops, disinclined General 
Carleton from leaving his ramparts to attack the 
Americans. 

The existence of armed vessels in the service of 
the colonies has already been adverted to. From 
the peculiar situation of Massachusetts, it was per- 
ceived that important advantages might be gained by 
employing armed vessels on the coasts, to prevent 
the British from collecting provisions from any places 
accessible to them, and to capture the enemy's ships 
loaded with military stores. Before the subject of 
a naval armament was taken up by congress, it ap- 
pears that not only Massachusetts, but Rhode Island 
and Connecticut, had each of them two vessels, at 



the late French war. Congress directed a monument to be erected 
to his memory, with an inscription e-xpressive of their veneration 
for his character, and of their deep sense of his " many signal and 
important services; and to transmit to future ages, as examples 
truly worthy of imitation, his patriotism, conduct, boldness of en- 
terprise, insuperable perseverance, and contempt of danger and 
death." A monument of white marble, with emblematic devices, 
has accordingly been erected to his memory, in front of St. Paul's 
church, in New York. 



234 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



least, fitted, armed, and equipped by the colonial autho- 
rities. Subsequently, the general court of Massachu- 
setts passed an act for encouraging the fitting out of 
armed vessels to defend the sea coast of America, 
and for erecting a court to try and condemn all ves- 
sels that should be found infesting the same. Short- 
ly afterwards, a committee of congress, appointed to 
devise ways and means for fitting out a naval arma- 
ment, brouglit in their report, which was adopted. 
It was resolved to fit out for sea thirteen ships, five 
of thirty-two guns, five of twenty-eight, and three of 
twenty-four guns ; a committee was nominated, with 
full powers to carry the report into execution with 
all possible expedition, and Ezekiel Hopkins was ap- 
pointed commander. Thus commenced the Ameri- 
can navy. The advantages that had been anticipa- 
ted from armed vessels were soon experienced. 
Captain Manly, of Marblehead, one of the first who 
put to sea, on the 29th of November took an ordnance 
brig from Woolwich, containing, besides a large 
brass mortar, several pieces of fine brass cannon, a 
large quantity of small arms and ammunition, with 
all kinds of tools, utensils, and macliines, necessary 
for camps and artillery ; and, nine days after, three 
sliips, from London, Glasgow, and Liverpool, with 
various stores for the British army. A brig, with 
fifteen thousand pounds of powder, was captured by 
a vessel fitted out by the council of safety of South 
Carolina. The supplies obtained by these means 
were of vast importance to the American army, 
which was in very great want of ammunition and 
military stores. 

Among other measures tending to promote the 
general welfare, congress resolved that a line of 
posts should be appointed from Falmouth, in New 
England, to Savannah, in Georgia ; and Benja- 
min Franklin was unanimously chosen postmas- 
ter-general. They also directed the establishment 
of an hospital, adequate to the necessities of an army 
consisting of twenty thousand men ; and Dr. Church 
was appointed director and physician of the esta- 
blishment.* 

General Washington, on his first arrival in camp, 
had found the materials for a good army ; but they 
were in the crudest state. The troops having been 
raised by diflferent colonial governments, no uniform- 
ity existed among the regiments ; and imbued by 

» Not long afier his appointment, Dr. Church was detected in a 
traitorous correspondence with the British in Boston. He had 
sustainedva high reputation as a patriot, and w.as at this time a 
member of the Massachusetts house of representatives. He was 
tried, convicted, and expelled from the house of representatives; 
and congress afterwards resolved, that he be closely confined in 
some secure goal in Connecticut, without the use of pen, ink, or 



the spirit of that very liberty for which they were 
preparing to fight, and unaccustomed to discipline, 
they neither felt an inclination to be subject to mi- 
litary rules, nor realized the importance of being so. 
The difficulty of establisliing subordination was 
greatly increased by the shortness of the terms of 
enlistment, some of which were to expire in Novem- 
ber, and none to continue longer than December. 
Various causes operated to lead congress to the al- 
most fatal plan of temporary military establishments. 
Among the most important of these were a prospect 
of accommodation with the parent state, and the 
want of experience in the management of war upon 
an extensive scale. It is true, the revolutionary 
conflict placed the people of America in a situation 
in which all the energies of the human mind are 
brought into action, and in which man makes his 
noblest eflforts ; the occasion called upon the public 
theatre statesmen and warriors, who, by the wise 
and honourable execution of the complicated duties 
of their new characters, surprised the world ; but 
even from them errors of inexperience were inevita- 
ble. The fear of accumulating expenses which the 
resources of the country could not discharge, had 
a further influence to deter the American govern- 
ment from the adoption of permanent military estab- 
lishments ; for, although the recommendations of 
congress, and the regulations of state conventions 
had, in the day of enthusiasm, the force of law, yet the 
ruling power thought it inexpedient to attempt to 
raise large sums by direct taxes, at a time when 
tlie commerce of the country was annihilated, and 
the cultivators of the ground were subjected to 
heavy services in the field of war. The only re- 
course was to a paper medium, without funds for 
its redemption, or for the support of its credit, and 
therefore of necessity subject to depreciation, and, in 
its nature, capable of only a temporary currency ; 
congress, therefore, was justly afraid of the expense 
of a permanent army. Jealousy of a standing army 
had also a powerful influence upon the military ar- 
rangements of America. Indeed this spirit early in- 
sinuated itself into the legislative bodies of the 
colonies, and was displayed in many of their mea- 
sures : an indication of this feeling appears in the 
address presented by the provincial assembly of New 
York to General Washington, while on his journey 

paper; and that no person be allowed to converse with him, ex- 
cept in the presence and hearing of a magistrate, or the sheriff of 
the county. 

Dr. Church was never confined in Connecticut, but was permit- 
ted to sail for the West Indies. The vessel he embarked in was 
lost, and every one on board of her perished. His traitorous in- 
tentions, since that period, have become problematical. — Am. Ed. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



285 



to the Ameiican camp. "We have the fullest as- 
surance," say ihey, " that whenever this important 
contest shall be decided, by that fondest wish of each 
Americaji soul, an accommodation with our mother 
country, you will cheerfully resign the important 
deposit committed to your hands, and reassume the 
character of our worthiest citizen." Cong-ress, as a 
body, unquestionably participated in this jealousy, 
and was afraid to trust a standing army with the 
power necessary to conduct the war, lest, at its suc- 
cessful termination, this- army should become the 
master of the country for whose liberties it had 
fought. 

The want of subordination was by no means the 
only difficuUy with which the commander in chief 
liad to contend ; he soon made the alarming disco- 
very, that there was not more powder than would 
furnish each man with nine cartridges. Although 
this dangerous deficiency was carefully concealed 
from the enemy, yet the want of bayonets, %vhich 
was very considerable, could not be kept secret. The 
army was also so destitute of tents as to be unavoid^^ 
ably lodged in barracks, a circumstance extiemely 
unfavourable to sudden movements, to health, and to 
discipline. * There was no commissary general, and 
therefore no systematic arrangement for obtaining 
provisions ; and a supply of clothes was rendered 
peculiarly difficult by the non-importation agree- 
ments. Added to this, there was a total want of 
engineers, and a great deficiency of working tools. 
The general, happily qualified at once to meet diffi- 
culties and to remove them, took immediate care to 
organize the troops, to fit them for actual service, 
and to make arrangements for the necessary supplies. 
Next to these objects, he considered the re-enlistment 
of the army the most interesting. To this essential 
point he had early solicited the attention of congress, 
assuring that body that he must despair of the liber- 
ties of his country, unless he were furnished with an 
army that should stand by him until the conclusion 
of their enterprise. Congress at length resolved to 
raise a standing army, to consist of about seventy- 
five thousand men, to serve for the term of three 
years, or during the war ; and that it should be com- 
posed of eighty -eight battalions, to be raised in the 
colonies, according to their respective abilities. Re- 
cruiting orders were accordingly issued ; but the 
progress in raising recruits was by no means pro- 
portioned to the public exigencies. On the last day 
of December, when all the old troops not engaged 
on the new establishments were disbanded, there had 
been enlisted for the army of 1776 no more than 
• nine thousand six hundred and fifty men. An ear- 



nest recommendation of General Washington tc con- 
gress to try the influence of a bounty was not acce- 
ded to until laie in January ; but during the winter 
the number of recruits was considerably augmented. 
" The history of the winter campaign," says the bio- 
grapher of Washington, " is a history of continued 
and successive struggles on the part of the American 
general, under the vexations and difiiculties imposed 
by the want of arms, ammunition, and permanent 
troops, on a person in an uncommon degree solicitous 
to prove himself, by some grand and useful achieve- 
ment, worthy of the high station to which the voice 
of his country had called him." 

In the space of time between the disbanding the 
old army, and the constitution of an efi'ective force 
from the new recruits, the lines were often in a de- 
fenceless state ; the English must have known the 
fact, and no adequate reason can be assigned why an 
attack was not made. "It is not," says General 
Washington, in his communications to congress, "in 
the pages of history to furnish a case like ours. To 
maintain a post within musket shot of the enemy, foi 
six months together, without ammunition, and, at the 
same time, to disband one army and recruit another, 
within that distance of twenty odd British regiments, 
is more, probably, than ever was attempted. But if 
we succeed as well in the last as we have heretofore 
in the first, I shall think it the most fortunate event 
of my whole life." Such a measure, with the organ- 
ization and discipline of the men, will be supposed 
to have employed every active power of the general ; 
yet this did not satisfy his mind. He knew that 
congress anxiously contemplated more decisive steps, 
and that the country looked for events of greater 
magnitude. The public was ignorant of his actual 
situation, and conceived his means for ofiensive 
operations to be much greater than they were ; and 
they expected from him the capture or expulsion 
of the Brhish army in Boston. He felt the impor- 
tance of securing the confidence of his countrymen 
by some brilliant action, and was fully sensible that 
his own reputation was liable to suffer if he confined 
himself solely to measures of defence. To publish 
to his anxious country the state of his army, would 
be to acqtiaint the enemy with his weakness, and to 
hazard his destruction. The firmness and patiiotism 
of General Washington were displayed, in making 
the good of his country an object of higher considera- 
tion than the applause of those who were incapable 
of forming a correct opinion of the propriety of his 
measures. On this, and on many other occasions 
during the war, he withstood the voice of the popu- 
lace, rejected the entreaties of the sangume. and re- 



236 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



fused to adopt the plans of the rash, that he might 
ultimately secure the great object of contention. 
While he resohitely rejected every measure which in 
his calm and deliberate judgment he did not approve, 
he daily pondered the practicability of a successful 
attack upon Boston. As a preparatory step, he took 
possession of Plowed-hill, Cobble-hill, and Lechmere's 
Point, and erected foiiifications upon them. These 
prists brought him within half a mile of the enemy's 
works on Bunker's-hill ; and, by his artillery he 
drove the British floating; batteries from their stations 
in Charles's River. He erected floating batteries to 
watch the movements of his enemy, and to aid in 
any oflensive operations that circumstances might 
warrant. He took the opinion of his general officers 
a second time respecting the meditated attack ; they 
again unanimously gave their opinion in opposition to 
the measure, and this opinion was immediately com- 
municated to congress. Congress appeared still to fa- 
vour the attempt, and, that an apprehension of danger 
to the town of Boston might not have an undue influ- 
ence upon the operations of the army, resolved, " That 
if General Washington and his council of war should 
be of opinion that a successful attack might be made 
on the troops in Boston, he should make it in any 
manner he might think expedient, notwithstanding 
the town, and property therein, might thereby be 
destroyed." 

General Howe had, in October, succeeded Gene- 
ral Gage in the command of the British army, and 
through the winter confined himself to measures of 
defence. The inability of the American general to 
accomplish the great object of the campaign, repeat- 
edly pointed out by congress, was doubtless a source 
of extreme mortification to him ; but he indulged the 
hope of success in some military operations during 
the winter that would correspond with the high ex- 
pectations of his country, and procure him honour 
in his exalted station of commander in chief of the 
American army. Early in January he summoned 
a council of war, in which it was resolved, " That a 
vigorous attempt ought to be made on the ministe- 
rial troops in Boston, before they can be reinforced 
in the spring, if the means can be provided, and a 
favourable opportunity shall ofier." 

It was not, however, till the middle of February 
that the ice became suflrciently strong for General 
W ashington to march his forces upon it into Boston ; 
he was then inclined to risk a general assault upon 
the British posts, although he had not powder to 
make any extensive use of his artillery ; but his ge- 
neral officers in council voted against the attempt, 
and in their decision he reluctantly acquiesced. By 



the end of the month the stock of powder was con- 
siderably increased, and the regular army amount- 
ed to fourteen thousand men, which was reinforced 
by six thousand of the militia of Massachusetts. 
General Washington now resolved to take possession 
of the heights of Dorchester, in the prospect that this 
movement would bring on a general engagement 
with the enemy under favourable circumstances ; or, 
should this expectation fail, that from this position 
he would be enabled to annoy the ships in the har- 
bour, and the troops in the 'town. To mask the de- 
sign, a severe cannonade and bombardment were 
opened on the British works and lines for several 
nights in succession. As soon as the firing began 
on the night of the 4th of March, a strong detach- 
ment marched from Roxbury over the neck of land 
connecting Roxbury with Dorchester Heights, and, 
without discovery, took possession of the heights. 
General Ward, who commanded the division of the 
army in Roxbury, had fortunately provided fascines 
before the resolution passed to fortify the place ; 
these were of great use, as the ground was deeply 
frozen ; and, in the course of the night, the party, by 
uncommon exertions, erected works sufficient for 
their defence. When the British discovered these 
works, nothing could exceed their astonishment. 
Their only alternative was either to abandon the town, 
or to dislodge the provincials. General Howe, with 
his usual spirit, chose the latter part of the alterna- 
tive, and took measures for the embarkation on that 
very evening of five regiments, with the light infan- 
try and grenadiers, on the important but most ha- 
zardous service. The transports fell down in the 
evening toward the castle with the troops, amount- 
ing to about two thousand men ; but a tremendous 
storm at night rendered the execution of the design 
absolutely impracticable. A council of war was 
called the next morning, which agreed to evacuate 
the town as soon as possible. A fortnight elapsed 
before that measure was effected. Meanwhile, the 
Americans strengthened and extended their works : 
and on the morning of the 17th of March, the king's 
troops, with those Americans who were attached tc 
the royal cause, began to embark ; before ten, all of 
them were under sail. As the rear embarked, Ge- 
neral Washington marched triumphantly into Bos- 
ton, where he was joyfully received as a deliverer. 

The issue of the campaign was highly gratifying 
to all classes ; and the gratulation of his fellow-citi- 
zens upon the repossession of the metropolis of Mas- 
sachusetts, was more pleasing to the commander in 
chief than would have been the honours of a triumph. 
Congress, to express the public approbation of the 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



237 



military achievements of their ereneral, resolved, 
" That the thanks of congress, in their own name, 
and in tlie name of the thirteen united colonies, be 
presented to his excellency General Washington, and 
the officers and soldiers under his command, for their 
wise and spirited conduct in the siege and acquisi- 
tion of Boston ; and that a medal of gold be struck, 
in commemoration of this great event, and presented 
to his excellency." In his letter, informing congress 
that he had executed their order, and communicated 
to the army the vote of thanks, he says, " They were, 
indeed, at first, a band of undisciplined husbandmen ; 
but it is, under God, to their bravery and attention 
to their duty, that I am indebted for that success 
which* has procured me the only reward I wish to 
receive — the affection and esteem of my countrymen." 
Although Halifax was mentioned as the destined 
place of the British armament. General Washington 
apprehended that New York was their object. On 
this supposition, he detached several brigades of his 
army to that city, before the evacuation of Boston ; 
and as soon as the necessary arrangements were 
made in the latter city, he followed with the main 
body of his army to New York, where he arrived on 
the 14th of April. The situation of New York was 
highly favourable for an invading army, supported 
by a superior naval force ; and General Washington 
doubted the jiracticability of a successful defence ; 
but the importance of the place, the wishes of con- 
gress, the opinion of his general officers, and the ex- 
pectation of his country, induced him to make the 
attempt ; and the resolution being formed, he called 
into action all the resources in his power to effect it, 
and, with unremitted diligence, pushed on his works. 
Hulks were sunk in the North and East rivers ; 
forts were erected on the most commanding situa- 
tions on their banks ; and works were raised to de- 
fend the narrow passage between Long and York 
Islands. The passes in the Highlands, bordering on 
the Hudson, became an object of early and solicitous 
attention. The command of this river was equally 
important to the American and the British general. 
By its possession, the Americans easily conveyed 
supplies of provision and ammunition to the northern 
army, and secured an intercourse between the south- 
ern and northern colonies essential to the success of 
the war. If the river were in the hands of the 
British, this necessary communication would be in- 
terrupted, and an intercourse between the Atlantic 
and Canada opened to them. General Washington 
ordered the passes to be fortified, and made their 
security an object of primary importance through 
every period of his command. 



While these operations were carrying on in New 
England, General Arnold, under all his discourage- 
ments, continued the blockade of Quebec ; but, in 
the month of May, m a council of war, it was unani- 
mously determined, that the troops were in no con- 
dition to risk an assault, and the army was removed 
to a more defensible position. The Canadians at 
this juncture receiving considerable reinforcements, 
the Americans were compelled to relinquish one 
post after another, and by the 18th of June they had 
evacuated Canada. 

In Virginia, the zeal and activity which had been 
excited by the spirited enterprise of Patrick Henry 
still continued to manifest themselves in various 
parts of the colony. The governor's family, alarm- 
ed by the threatening march of Mr. Henry towards 
Williamsburgh, had already taken refuge on board 
the Fowey man-of-war ; and only a few weeks 
elapsed before Lord Dunmore himself adopted the 
same means of personal safety. Soon after fixing 
his residence on board the Fowey, his lordship re- 
quired the house of burgesses to attend, him theie ; 
but instead of obeying the requisition, they pabsed 
sundry resolutions, in which they declared thai his 
lordship's message was " a high breach of the rights 
and privileges of the house," and that his conduct 
gave them reason to fear "that a dangerous attack 
was meditated against the unhappy people of the 
colony." On the 24th of July, the colonial conven- 
tion met ; they appointed a committee of safety, 
passed an ordinance for regulating the militia, and 
for raising a regular force of two regiments, the com- 
mand of which was given to Patrick Henry, who 
was also made the commander of all the forces raised, 
and to be raised, for the defence of the colony. The 
ships of war belonging to his majesty, which had 
been cruising in the .Tames and York rivers during 
the whole summer, had committed many petty acts 
of depredation and plunder along the shores, which 
the people now eagerly desired to resent, and an op- 
portunity of gratification soon oflered. The captain 
of the Otter sloop of war, on the 2d of September, 
ventured upon one of his plundering expeditions in a 
tender, and was driven ashore near Hampton by a 
violent tempest. The crew left the vessel on the 
shore, and made their escape in the night, and next 
morning the people boarded and set fire to her. This 
naturaUy roused Captain Squire's resentment, and he 
threatened instant destruction to the town ; but the 
committee of safety at Williamsburg, having heard 
of the affair, detached Colonel Woodford, with three 
companies, to repel the attack, which was .so effectual- 
ly done, that the assailants were soon glad to make 



2'J8 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



a precipitate flight, with considerable loss. This af- 
fair produced a proclamation from his lordship, (who 
continued to hold his head-quarters on board one of 
the ships,) in which he not only declared martial law, 
but freedom to all the slaves who would join his 
standard. By this means he soon collected a crew 
well suited to his designs ; and having fortified him- 
self at the Great Bridge, near Norfolk, continued for 
some time to commit such acts of wanton barbarity 
and contemptible depredations, as to disgust even 
those who had until now continued friendly to the cause 
of the king. The committee of safety finding them- 
selves called upon to put a stop to his lordship's 
savage warfare, despatched Colonel Woodford to drive 
iiim from his hold. Having arrived within cannon 
shot of Lord Dunmore's position, the Americans halt- 
ed, and threw up some hasty entrenchments. His 
lordship, hearing that the provincials amounted only 
to three hundred men, badly armed, conceived the 
design of surprising them ; and for this purpose 
Captain Leslie, with the regulars and slaves, crossed 
the bridge before day-light, and entered the camp of 
the provincials, just as they were parading under 
arms. Captain Fordyce advanced to the attack with 
the grenadiers, and was among the first that fell. 
The whole number of grenadiers were either killed, 
wounded, or made prisoners, and the rest of the royal 
]jarty were obliged to make a rapid retreat. Disap- 
pointed in their hopes, the governor's party abandon- 
ed their works the following night, and retired to 
their shipping, leaving Woodford, who was now 
joined by Colonel Howe from North Carolina, the 
com.plete command of Norfolk. After continuing to 
assail the coasts of Virginia for a considerable time, 
liut almost every where unsuccessfully,* Lord Dun- 
more was at length compelled to abandon his hostile 
designs against the colonists. Some of his ships were 
driven upon that coast, where the wretched fugitives 
were made prisoners by their own fellow-citizens, 
and immured in dungeons. To escape a similar 
fate, Dunmore burnt the ships of least value ; and 
the miserable remains of soldiers and loyalists, as- 
sailed at once by tempests, famine, and disease, 
sought refuge in Florida, Bermudas, and the West 
Indies. 

Notwithstanding the extent to which hostilities had 
been carried, a large portion of the colonists had 
hitherto continued to entertain some hope of an ami- 
cable termination of the dispute ; and it is evident, 

♦ On the 1st day of January, 1776, the town of Norfolk, in Vir- 
ginia, was set on fire bv the British, under the direction of Lord 
Dunmore and reduced to ashes. On the arrival of the Liverpool 
man-of-war from England, a tiag was sent on shore to put the ques- 
tion, whether the provincials would supply his majesty's ship with 



from the transactions we are about to record, that 
many felt sincerely desirous not to frustrate such a 
result. The want of more regular and stable go- 
vernments had for some time been felt in those colo- 
nies where royal governments had hitherto existed ; 
and in the autumn of 1775, New Hampshire applied 
to congress for their advice and direction on this 
subject. In November, congress advised the con- 
vention of that colony, to call a full and free repre- 
sentation of the people ; when the representatives, il" 
they thought it necessary, should establish such a 
form of government as, in their judgment, would lest 
promote the happiness of the people, and most ef- 
fectually secure peace and good order during the 
continuance of the dispute between Great Britain 
and the colonies. On this question the members of 
congress were not unanimous. It was viewed by 
some as a step necessarily leading to independence ; 
and by some of its advocates it was probably intend- 
ed as such. To render the resolution less excep- 
tionable, the duration of the government was limited 
to the continuance of the dispute with the parent 
country. Soon afterwards, similar directions and 
advice were given to South Carolina and Virginia. 

The last hopes of the colonists for reconciliation 
rested on the success of their second petition to the 
king ; and the answer of their sovereign to this ap- 
plication was expected with extreme solicitude. In- 
formation, however, was soon received from Mr. 
Penn, who was intrusted with the petition, that no 
answer would be given. This intelligence was fol- 
lowed by that of great additional preparations to sub- 
due the " American rebels." The king, in his 
speech at the opening of parliament in October, not 
only accused the colonists of revolt, hostility, and 
rebellion, but stated that the rebellious war carried 
on by them was for the purpose of establishing an 
independent empire. To prevent this, he declared 
that the most decisive and vigorous measures were 
necessary ; that he had consequently increased his 
naval establishment, liad augmented his land forces, 
and had also taken measures to procure the aid of 
foreign troops. He at the same time stated his in- 
tention of appointing certain persons with authority 
to grant pardons to individuals, and to receive the sub- 
mission of whole colonies disposed to return to their 
allegiance. Large majorities in both houses assured 
the king of their firm support in his measures for re- 
ducing the colonists to obedience. The addresses, 

provisions, and a negative answer being returned, it was determin- 
ed to destroy the town. The whole loss was estimated at three 
hundred thousand pounds sterling. The provincial-, themselves 
destroyed the houses and plantations near the water, to deprive the 
ships of every resource of supply. 



.C? 






^ 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



239 



however, in answer to the speech, were opposed with 
great ability. The project of employing foreign 
troops to destroy American subjects, was reprobated 
by the minority in the strongest terms. The plans 
of the ministry, however, were not only approved by 
parliament, but by a majority of the nation. The 
idea of making the colonists share their burdens, 
could not easily be relinquished by the people of 
Great Britain ; and national pride would not permit 
them to yield the point of supremacy. War was 
now, therefore, to be waged against the colonies, and 
a lorce sent out sufficiently powerful to compel sub- 
mission, even without a struggle. For these pur- 
poses the aid of parliament was requisite ; and about 
the last of December an act was passed, prohibiting 
all trade and commerce with the colonies, and au- 
thorizing the capture and condemnation, not only of 
all American vessels, with their cargoes, but all other 
vessels found trading in any port or place in the co- 
lonies, as if the same were the vessels and effects of 
open enemies ; and the vessels and property thus 
taken were vested in the captors, and the crews were 
to be treated, not as prisoners, but as slaves.* The 
passing of this act shut the door against the applica- 
tion of the colonies for a reconciliation. The last 
petition of congress to the king had, indeed, been 
laid before parliament, but both houses refused to 
hear it, or even to treat upon any proposition coming 
from such an unlawful assembly, or from those who 
were then in arms against their lawful sovereign. 
In the house of lords, on the motion of the Duke of 
Richmond, Mr. Penn was examined on American af- 
fairs. He stated, among other things, that the colo- 
nists were desirous of reconciliation, and did not aim 
at independence ; that they were disposed to con- 
form to the acts regulating their trade, but not to 
taxation ; and that on this point a spirit of resistance 

♦ By a most extraordinary clause in the act, it was made lawful for 
the commander of a British vessel to take the masters, crews, and 
other persons, found in the captured vessels, to put them on board 
any other British armed vessel, and enter their names on the books of 
the same ; and from the time of such entry, such persons were to 
be considered in the service of his majesty, to all intents and pur- 
poses, as though they had entered themselves voluntarily on board 
of such vessel. By this means the Americans might be compelled 
to fight even against their own friends and countrymen. This 
clause in the act excited the indignation of many in both houses of 
parliament, and drew from them the strongest epithets of reproba- 
tion. This treatment of prisoners, they declared not only unjust, 
but a. refinement in cruelty unknown among savage nations. No 
man, they said, could be despoiled of his goods as a foreign enemy, 
and at the ^ame time compelled to serve the state as a citizen. 
Such a compulsion upon pri.soners was unknown in any case of 
war or rebellion ; and the only example of the kind that could be 
produced, must be found among pirates, the outlaws and enemies 
of human society. Some of the lords, in their protest against the 
act, described it " as a refinement in cruelty," which, " in a sen- 
tence worse than death, obliged the unhappy men who should be 

31 



was universal. After this examination, the Duke of 
Richmond moved a resolution, declaring that the 
petition of congress to the king was a ground for a 
reconciliation of the differences between the two 
countries. This motion was negatived, after a warm 
debate, by eighty-six to thirty-three. These pro- 
ceedings of the king and parliament, with the em- 
ployment of sixteen thousand foreign mercenaries, 
convinced the leading men in each colony, that the 
sword alone must decide the contest, and that the 
colonists must now declare themselves totally inde- 
pendent of Great Britain. 

Time, however, was still requisite, to convince the 
great mass of the American people of the necessity of 
a complete separation from their parent country, and 
the establishment of independent governments. The 
ablest pens were employed throughout America, in 
the winter of 1775-6, on this momentous subject. 
The propriety and necessity of the measure was en- 
forced in the numerous gazettes, and in pamphlets. 
Among the latter, " Common Sense," from the popu- 
lar pen of Thomas Paine, produced a wonderful ef- 
fect in the different colonies in favour of independ- 
ence. Influential individuals in every colony urged 
it as a step absolutely necessary to preserve the rights 
and liberties, as well as to secure the happiness and 
prosperity of America.t 

When the prohibitory act reached America, con- 
gress, justly viewing it as a declaration of war, di- 
rected reprisals to be made, both by public and pri- 
vate armed vessels, against the ships and goods of 
the inhabitants of Great Britain, found on the high 
seas, or between high and low water mark. They 
also burst the shackles of commercial monopoly, 
which had so long kept them in bondage, and open- 
ed their ports to all the world, except the dominions 
of Great Britain. In this state of things, it was pre- 

made captives in that predatory war, to bear arms against their 
families, kindred, friends, and country; and after being plundered 
themselves, to become accomplices in plundering their brethren." 
The ministry, on the other hand, pretended to view this irealment 
of American prisoners rather as an act of grace and favour than ol 
injustice or cruelty. 

t The chief justice of South Carolina, William Henr) Drayton, 
appointed under the new form of government just adojiled, in his 
charge to the grand jurors, in April, after justifying ihe proceed- 
ings of that colony, in forming a new government, on the princi- 
ples of the revolution in England, in 1688, thus concludes : " The 
Almighty created America to be independent of Great Britain : lei 
us beware of the impiety of being backward lo act as instrumcni.' 
in the Almighty hand, now extended to accomplish his puipose ; 
and by the completion of which alone, America, in Ihe nalure of 
human affairs, can be secure against the crafty and insidious de- 
signs of her enemies, who think her power and prosperily already 
by far too great. In a word, our piety and political safety are so 
blended, that to refuse our labours in this divine work, is lo refuse 
to be a great, a free, a pious, and a happy people." — Pitkin, vol. i 
p. 359. 



240 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



posterous for the colonists any longer to consider 
themselves as holding or exercising the powers of 
government under the authority of Great Britain. 
Congress, therefore, on the 10th of May, recommend- 
ed to the assemblies and conventions of the colonies 
where no sufficient government had been established, 
'• to adopt such government as should, in the opinion 
of the representatives of the people, best conduce to 
the happiness and safety of their constituents in par- 
ticular, and America in general." They also de- 
clared it necessary, that the exercise of every kind 
of authority under the crown should be suppressed, 
and that all the powers of government should be ex- 
ercised " under the authority of the people of the co- 
lonies, for the preservation of internal peace, virtue, 
and good order, as well as for the defence of their 
lives, liberties, and properties, against the hostile in- 
vasions and cruel depredations of their enemies." 
This was a preliminary step to a general declaration 
of independence. Some of the colonial assemblies 
and conventions about the same time began to ex- 
press their opinions on this great question. On the 
22d of April, the convention of North Carolina em- 
powered their delegates in congress " to concur with 
those in the other colonies in declaring independ- 
ency." This, it is believed, was the first direct 
public act of any colonial assembly or convention in 
favour of the measure.* The- convention of Vir- 
ginia soon afterwards expressed itself still more deci- 
dedly. After full deliberation, the following resolu- 
tions were passed unanimously : 

" That the delegates appointed to represent this 
colony in general congress, be instructed to propose 
to that respectable body, to declare the United Colo- 
nies free and independent states, absolved from all 
allegiance to, or dependance upon, the crown or par- 
liament of Great Britain ; and that they give the as- 
sent of this colony to such declaration, and to what- 
ever measures may be thought jwoper and necessary 
by the congress for forming foreign alliances, and a 
confederation of the colonies, at such time and in the 
manner as to them shall seem best. Provided, that 
the power of forming governments for, and the regu- 

» Pitkin's Political and Civil History, vol. i. p. 361. 

t " This measure was followed by the most lively demonstrations 
of joy. The spirit of the times is interestingly manifested by the 
following paragraph from Purdie's paper of the 17th of May, which 
immediately succeeds the annunciation of the resolutions: — 'In 
consequence of the above resolutions, universally regarded as the 
only door which will lead to safely and prosperity, some gentlemen 
made a handsome collection for the purpose of treating the soldiery, 
who next day were para<led in Waller's grove, before Brigadier- 
General Lewis, attended by the gentlemen of the committee of 
safety, the members of the general convention, the inhabitants of 
this city, &c. The resolutions being read aloud to the army, the 
following toasts were given, each of them accompanied by a dis- 



lations of, the internal concerns of each colony, be 
left to the respective colonial legislatures. 

" That a committee be appointed to prepare a de- 
claration of rights, and such a plan of government as 
will be most likely to maintain peace and order in 
this colony, and secure substantial and equal liberty 
to the people."t 

Early in the year the British government had pre- 
pared a considerable expedition to reduce the southern 
colonies to obedience. The command was intrusted 
to Sir Peter Parker and Earl Cornwallis. On the 
3d of May, Admiral Parker, with twenty sail, arrived 
at Cape Fear. They found General Clinton ready 
to co-operate with them. He had left New York, 
and proceeded to Virginia, where he had an inter- 
view with Lord Dunmore ; but finding nothing 
could be efiected in that colony, he repaired to Cape 
Fear, to await the arrival of the armament from 
England. Meanwhile, the Carolinians had been 
making great exertions. In Charleston the utmost 
energy and activity was evinced. The citizens 
pulled down the valuable storehouses on the wharfs, 
barricadoed the streets, and constructed lines of de- 
fence along the shore. Abandoning their commer- 
cial pursuits, they engaged in incessant labour, and 
prepared for bloody conflicts. The troops, amount- 
ing to between five and six thousand men, were sta- 
tioned in the most advantageous positions. Amidst 
all this bustle and preparation, lead was so extremely 
scarce, that the windows of Charleston were stripped 
of their weights, in order to procure a small supply 
of that necessary article for bullets. Early in June, 
the armament, consisting of between forty and fifty 
vessels, appeared ofi" Charleston Bay, and thirty-six 
of the transports passed the bar, and anchored about 
three miles from Sullivan's Island. Some hundreds 
of the troops landed on Long Island, which lies on 
the west of Sullivan's Island, and which is separa- 
ted from it by a narrow channel, often fordable. On 
the 10th of the month, the Bristol, a fifty gun ship- 
having taken out her guns, got safely over the bar ; 
and on the 25th, the Experiment, a ship of equal 
force, arrived, and next day passed in the same way. 

charge of the artillery and small arms, and the acclamations of all 
present: — 1. The American Independent Stales. — 2. The grand 
congress of the United States, and their respective legislatures.^ 
3. General Washington, and victory to the American arms. — The 
union flag of the American states waved upon the capitol diiriiig 
the whole of this ceremony; which, being ended, the soldiers par- 
took of the refreshments prepared for them by the afleclion of their 
countrymen, and the evening concluded with illuminations and 
other demonstrations of joy ; every one seeming pleased that the 
domination of Great Britain was now at an end, so wickedly and 
tyrannically exercised for these twelve or thirteen years past, not- 
withstanding our repeated prayers and remonstrances for redress.' 
—Wirt's Life of Henry, p. 195. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



241 



On the part of the British, every thing was now ready 
for action. Sir Henry Clinton had nearly three 
thousand men under his command. The naval 
force, under Sir Peter Parker, consisted of the Bristol 
and Experiment, of fifty guns ; the Active, Acteon, 
Solebay, and Syren frigates; the Friendship, of 
twenty-two, and the Sphinx, of twenty guns ; the 
Ranger sloop, and Thunder bomb. On the forenoon 
of the 28th of June, this fleet advanced against the 
fort on Sullivan's Island, which was defended by 
Colonel Moultrie, with about three hundred and 
fifty regular troops, and some militia. The Thun- 
der bomb began the battle. The Active, Bristol, Ex- 
periment, and Solebay, followed boldly to the attack, 
and a terrible cannonade ensued. The fort return- 
ed the fire of the ships slowly, but with deliberate 
and deadly aim ; and the contest was carried on 
during the whole day with unabating fury. The 
Sphinx, Acteon, and Syren, were ordered to attack 
the western extremity of the fort, which was in a 
very unfinished state ; but, as they proceeded for 
that purpose, they got entangled with a shoal, called 
the Middle Ground. Two of them ran foul of each 
other : the Acteon stuck fast ; the Sphinx and Syren 
got off; but, fortunately for the Americans, that part 
of the attack completely failed. It was designed that 
Sir Henry Clinton, with his corps, should co-operate 
with the naval operations by passing the narrow chan- 
nel which separates Long Island from Sullivan's 
Island, and assail the fort by land ; but this the ge- 
neral found impracticable, for the channel, though 
commonly fordable, was at that time, by a long pre- 
valence of easterly winds, deeper than usual ; and 
even had the channel been fordable, the British troops 
would have found the passage an arduous enterprise ; 
for Colonel Thomson, with a strong detachment of 
riflemen, regulars, and militia, was posted on the east 
end of Sullivan's Island, to oppose any attack made 
in that quarter. The engagement, which began 
about eleven o'clock in the forenoon, continued with 
unabated fury till seven in the evening, when the 
fire slackened, and about nine entirely ceased on 
both sides. During the night, all the ^hips, except 
the Acteon, which was aground, removed about two 
miles from the island. Next morning, the fort fired 
a few shots at the Acteon, and she at first returned 
them ; but, in a short time, her crew set her on fire, 
and abandoned her. She blew up shortly afterwards. 
In this obstinate engagement both parties fought with 
great gallantry. The loss of the British was very 
considerable, upwards of sixty being killed, and one 
hundred and sixty wounded ; while the garrison lost 
only ten men killed, and twenty-two wounded. Al- 



though the Americans were raw troops, yet they be- 
haved with the steady intrepidity of veterans. One 
circumstance may serve to illustrate the cool but en- 
thusiastic courage which pervaded their ranks. In 
the course of the engagement, the flag-staff of the 
fort was shot away ; but Sergeant Jasper leaped down 
upon the beach, snatched up the flag, fastened it to 
a sponge-staff, and while the ships were incessantly 
directing their broadsides upon the fort, he mounted 
the merlon, and deliberately replaced the flag. The 
fate of this expedition contributed greatly to establish 
the popular government it was intended to destroy, 
while the news of it spread rapidly through the con- • 
tinent, and exercised an equally unfavourable in- 
fluence on the royal cause : the advocates of the ir- 
resistibility of British fleets and armies were mor- 
tified and silenced ; and the brave defence of Fort 
Moultrie saved the southern states from the horrors 
of war for several years. 

In South Carolina, the government took advantage 
of the hour of success to conciliate their opponents 
in the province. The adherents of royal power, who, 
for a considerable time, had been closely imprisoned, 
on promising fidelity to their country, were set at 
freedom, and restored to all the privileges of citizens. 
The repulse of the British was also attended with 
another advantage, that of leaving the Americans at 
liberty to turn their undivided force against the In- 
dians, who had attacked the western frontier of the 
southern states with all the fury and carnage of sa- 
vage warfare. In 1775, when the breach between 
Great Britain and her colonies was daily becoming 
wider, one Stuart, the agent employed in conducting 
the intercourse between the British authorities and 
the Cherokees and Creeks, used all his influence to 
attach the savages to the royal cause, and to inspire 
them with jealousy and hatred of the Americans. 
He found little difficulty in persuading them that the 
Americans, without provocation, had taken up arms 
against Britain, and were the means of preventing 
them from receiving their yearly supplies of arms, 
ammunition, and clothing, from the British govern • 
ment. The Americans had endeavoured to c .n- 
ciliate the good will of the Indians, but their sr anty 
presents were unsatisfactory, and the savages re- 
solved to take up the hatchet. Deeming tbj appear- 
ance of the British fleet in Charleston Bay a fit 
opportunity, the Cherokees invaded the western 
frontier of the province, marking their track with 
murder and devastation. The speedy retreat of the 
British left the savages exposed to the vengeance of 
the Americans, who, in separate divisions, entered 
their country at different points, from Virginia and 



242 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



Georgia defeated their warriors, burned their vil- 
lao;es, laid waste their corn-fields, and incapacitated 
♦he Cherokees for a considerable time from giving 
the settlers further annoyance. Thus, in the south, 
the Americans triumphed both over the British and 
the Indians. 

On the 7th of June, the great question of indepen- 
dence was brought directly before congress, by Rich- 
ard Henry Lee, one of the delegates from Virginia. 
He submitted a resolution, declaring " that the united 
colonies are, and ought to be, free and independent 
states ; that they are absolved from all allegiance to 
the British crown ; and that all political connexion 
between them and the state of Great Britain is, and 
ought to be, totally dissolved." The resolution was 
postponed until the next day, and every member en- 
joined to attend, to take the same into consideration. 
On the 8th it was debated in committee of the whole 
house. No question of greater magnitude was ever 
presented to the consideration of a deliberative body, 
or debated with more energy, eloquence, and ability. 
On the 10th it was adopted in committee, by a bare 
majority. The delegates from Pennsylvania and 
Maryland were instructed to oppose it, and the dele- 
gates from some of the other colonies were without 
special instructions on the subject. To give time 
for greater unanimity, the resolution was postponed 
in the house until the 1st of July. In the mean 
time, a committee was appointed to prepare a declara- 
tion of independence. During this interval, measures 
were taken to procure the assent of all the colonies. 

On the day appointed, the resolution relating to 
independence was resumed in the general congress, 
referred to a committee of the whole house, and as- 
sented to by all the colonies, except Pennsylvania 
and Delaware. The committee appointed to prepare 
a declaration of independence selected Mr. Adams 
and Mr. Jefferson as a sub-committee, and the ori- 
ginal draft, was made by Mr. Jefferson. This draft, 
without any amendment by the committee, was re- 
ported to congress, and, after undergoing several 
amendments, received their sanction. 

The course of time has now brought us to the de- 
cisive hour when a new empire, of a character the 
most extraordinary, springs into being. The world 
has known no rest since this grand confederacy took 
her rank among the nations of the earth ; her exam- 
ple infused a power into the principles of liberty 
which for nearly two centuries had been dormant ; 
although in another hemisphere, it has exercised 
more influence on the state of the public mind in 
Kurope than did the great straggle in the days of the 
commonwealth ; and the world will know rest no 



more, till, under whatever form, the great lessons of 
freedom which American history enforces, have been 
listened to, and embodied in action, by every nation 
of the globe. We are persuaded we shall entirely 
meet the feelings of our readers, by closing this chap- 
ter with that ever memorable document, which gave 
national existence to an empire whose birth has open- 
ed so brilliant a prospect to the world-^ 

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 

" A Declaration by the Representatives of the United 
States of America, in Congress assembled. 

" When, in the course of human events, it becomes 
necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands 
which have connected them with another, and to as- 
sume, among the powers of the earth, the separate 
and equal station to which the laws of nature and of 
nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the 
opinions of mankind requires that they should de- 
clare the causes which impel them to the separation. 

" We hold these truths to be self-evident : that all 
men are created equal ; that they are endowed by 
their Creator with certain unalienable rights ; that 
among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap- 
piness. That to secure these rights, governments 
are instituted among men, deriving their just powers 
from the consent of the governed ; that whenever any 
form of government becomes destructive of these 
ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish 
it, and to institute new government, laying its founda- 
tion on such principles, and organizing its powers 
in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to 
effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, 
will dictate, that governments long established should 
not be changed for light and transient causes ; and 
accordingly, all experience hath shown, that man- 
kind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are suf- 
ferable, than to right themselves, by abolisiiinir the 
forms to which they are accustomed. But when a 
long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing inva- 
riably the same object, evinces a design to reduce 
them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is 
their duty, to throw off such government, and to pro- 
vide new guards for their future security. Such 
has been the patient sufferance of these colonies ; and 
such is now the necessity which constrains them to 
alter their former systems of government. The his- 
tory of the present king of Great Britain is a history 
of repeated injuries and usurpation, all having, in 
direct object, the establishment of an absolute ty- 
ranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be 
submitted to a candid world. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



243 



" He has refused his assent to laws the most whole- 
some and necessary for the public good. 

" He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of 
immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended 
in their operation till his assent should be obtained ; 
and when so suspended, he has utterly;. neglected to 
attend to them. 

" He has refused to pass other la^s for the accom- 
modation of large districts of people, unless those 
people would relinquish the right of representation 
in the legislature ; a right inestimable to them, and 
formidable to tyrants only. 

'■ lie has called together legislative bodies at places 
unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the deposi- 
tory of their public records, for the sole purpose of 
fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. 

" He has dissolved representative houses, repeat- 
edly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions 
on the rights of the people. 

" He has refused, for a long time after such disso- 
, lutions, to cause others to be elected ; whereby the 
legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have re- 
turned to the people at large for their exercise ; the 
state remaining, in the mean time, exposed to all the 
dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions 
within. 

" He has endeavoured to prevent the population of 
these states ; for that purpose obstructing the laws 
for naturalization of foreigners, refusing to pass 
others to encourage their migrations hither, and 
raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands. 

" He has obstructed the administration of justice, 
by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judi- 
ciary powers. 

" He has made judges dependant on his will 
alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount 
and payment of their salaries. 

" He has erected a multitude of new offices, and 
sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, 
and eat out their substance. 

" He has kept among us, in times of peace, stand- 
ing armies, without the consent of our legislatures. 

"He has affected to render the military independ- 
ent of, and superior to, the civil power. 

" He has combined with others to subject us to a 
jurisdiction foreign to our constitutions, and unac- 
knowledged by our laws ; giving his assent to their 
acts of pretended legislation : — 

" For quartering large bodies of armed troops 
among us : 

" For protecting them, by a mock trial, from pun- 
ishment for any murders which they should commit 
on the inhabitants of these states • 



" For cutting off our trade with all parts of the 
world : 

" P^or imposing taxes on us without our consent : 

" For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits 
of trial by jury : 

" For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for 
pretended offences : 

" For aboli''' lag the free system of English laws 
in a neighoouring province, establishing therein an 
arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, 
so as to render it at once an example and fit instru- 
ment for introducing the same absohue rule into 
these colonies : 

" For taking away our charters, abolishing our 
most valuable laws, and altering, fundamentally, the 
forms of our governments : 

" For suspending our own legislatures, and de- 
claring themselves invested with power to legislate 
for us in all cases whatsoever. 

" He has abdicated government here, by declaring 
us out of his protection, and waging war against us. 

" He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, 
burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. 

" He is, at this time, transporting large armies of 
foreign mercenaries, to complete the works of death 
desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circum- 
stances of cruelty and perfidy, scarcely paralleled in 
the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the 
head of a civilized nation. 

" He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken 
captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their 
country, to become the executioners of their friends 
and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands. 

" He has excited domestic insurrections amongst 
us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants 
of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose 
known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruc- 
tion of all ages, sexes, and conditions. 

" In every stage of these oppressions we have pe- 
titioned for redress, in the most humble terms : oui 
repeated petitions have been answered only by re- 
peated injury. A prince, whose character is thus 
marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is 
unfit to be the ruler of a free people. 

" Nor have we been wanting in attentions to oui 
British brethren. We have warned them, from time 
to time, of attempts by their legislature to extend an 
unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have re- 
minded them of the circumstances of our emigration 
and settlement here. We have appealed to their na- 
tive justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured 
them, by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow 
these usurpations, which would inevitably mterrupt 



244 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



our connexions and correspondence. They, too, have 
been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. 
We must therefore acquiesce in the necessity which 
denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold 
the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends. 
" We, therefore, the representatives of the United 
States of America in general congress assembled, ap- 
pealing to the Supreme Judge of t' "• world for the 
rectitude of our intentions, do, in the naiue and by 
authority of the sfood people of these colonies, so- 
lemnly publish and declare, that these United Colo- 
nies are, and of right ought to be, Free and Inde- 

• This declaration was directed to be engrossed, and on the 2d 
of AugUKt, 1776, was signed by all the members then present, and 
by some who were not members on the 4th of July. 



PENDENT States ; that they are absolved from all 
allegiance to the British crown, and that all political 
connexion between them and the state of Great Bri- 
tain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved ; and that, 
as free and independent states, they have full power 
to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, esta- 
blish commerce, and to do all other acts and things 
which independent states may of right do. And for 
the support of tliis declaration, with a firm reliance 
on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually 
pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our 
sacred honour."* 



Authenticated fac-similes of the signatures are given in an en- 
graved plate. 



II 



%m^ f^i 




CHAPTER I. 

PROM THE CAMPAIGN OP 1776 TO THAT OF 1779. 

The noblest employ of the pen of history, is to 
develop facts which illustrate the progress of the hu- 
man mind. The age is passed away, when the re- 
cord of the operations of brute force, even when 
presented in the fascinating garb of military achieve- 
ments, could be dwelt upon with feelings of unmin- 
srled satisfaction and delight. The slaughter of 
man by his fellow-man, the consigning of cities to 
the flames, the substituting of the cries of the widow 
and the orphan for the smiles of domestic peace, are 
deeds which civilized nations would now be well 
content to obliterate from their history ; but if this 
cannot be, it is better that the desolations of war 
should be merely sketched in faithful outline, rather 
than exhibited in a highly wrought picture, tending 
to excite an admiration of its character, and a per- 
petuation of its evils. True it is, that the ardour of 
a disinterested patriot cannot be exhibited in too 
strong a light ; but his glory arises far more from 
the grandeur of the motives which actuate him, than 
from exploits in the field of blood, to which he is 
sometimes inevitably, though reluctantly, borne. 
Having already dwelt at considerable length on the 
devoted patriotism of the inhabitants of the American 
colonies, we shall, in the subsequent pages, rather 
state the results than the details of their military 
operations, which, happily foi the world, terminated 
in the establishment and recognition of a republic 
possessing all the elements of a great empire, and 
exhibiting a rapidity of progress which ought to ex- 
cite the admiration, not the envy, of every civilized 
nation of the earth. We feel the more satisfaction 
in proposing to notice but concisely the details of 



hostilities, as ample justice has already been done to 
them by several writers, both in America and Eng- 
land, while that portion of the history most capable 
of affording moral and political instruction, has, in 
our own country at least, hitherto received a very 
partial and inadequate degree of attention. We shall, 
however, give an outline of military operations amply 
sufficient to answer all the purposes of the history. 

General Washington, after compelling the British 
to abandon Boston, had made every possible prepa- 
ration for the defence of New York, where he had 
fixed his head-quarters. To second his exertions, 
the congress instituted a flying camp, to consist of 
an intermediate corps, between regular soldiers and 
militia ; and called for ten thousand men from the 
states of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware, to 
be in constant service to the first day of the ensuing 
December ; and for thirteen thousand eight hundred 
of the connnon militia, from Massachusetts, Connecti- 
cut, New York, and New Jersey. The command of 
the naval force destined to operate against New York 
was given to Admiral Howe, while his brother. Sir 
William, was entrusted with the command of the 
army; and, in addition to their military powers, the 
brothers were appointed commissioners for restoring 
peace to the- colonies. General Howe, after waiting 
two months at Halifax for expected re-enforcements 
from England, sailed with the force which he had 
previously commanded in Boston; and, directing his 
course towards New York, arrived on the 2.5th of 
June off Sandy Hook. Admiral Lord Howe, with 
part of the re-enforcement from England, arrived at 
Halifax soon after his brother's departure, and, with- 
out droj)piiig anchor, followed, and joined him on 
tlie 12th of July, at Staten Island. General Clinton 
arrived there about the same time, with the troops 



2'i6 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, 



orought back from the expedition of Charleston and 
Soutli Carolina ; Commodore Hotham also appeared 
there with a re-enforcement under his escort ; and in 
a short time tlie British army amounted to about 
twenty-four thousand men, English, Hessians, and 
Waldeckers. The royal commissioners, before they 
commenced military operations, attempted to effect a 
re-union between the colonies and Great Britain. 
Lord Howe announced his pacific powers to the prin- 
cipal magistrates of the several colonies. He pro- 
mised pardon to all, who, in the late times, had de- 
viated from their allegiance, on condition of their 
speedily returning to their duty ; and, in case of their 
compliance, encouraged their expectation of the fu- 
ture favour of their sovereign. In his declaration, 
he observed, " that the commissioners were authori- 
zed, in his majesty's name, to declare any province, 
colony, county, district, or town, to be at peace with 
his majesty ; that due consideration should be had to 
the meritorious services of any who should aid or 
assist in restoring the public tranquillity ; that their 
dutiful representations should be received, pardons 
granted, and suitable encouragement to such as 
would promote the measures of legal government 
and peace, in pursuance of his majesty's most gra- 
cious purposes." These pacific proposals were re- 
garded by the Americans as only an attempt to sow 
dissensions among them, and were never for a mo- 
ment seriously regarded by any of the patriotic party. 
The British forces waited so long to receive acces- 
sions from Halifax, the Carolinas, the West Indies, 
and Europe, that the month of August was far ad- 
vanced before they commenced the campaign. The 
commanders, having resolved to make their first at- 
tempt on Long Island, landed their troops, estimated 
at about twenty-four thousand men, at Gravesend 
Bay, to the right of the Narrows. The Americans, 
to the amount of fifteen thousand, under Major-Ge- 
neral Sullivan, were posted on a peninsula between 
Mill Creek, a little above Red Hook, and an elbow of 
East River, called Wallebout Bay. Here they 
had erected strong fortifications, which were separa- 
ted from New York by East River, at the distance 
of a mile. A line of entrenchment from the Mill 
Creek enclosed a large space of ground, on which 
stood the American camp, near the village of Brook- 
lyn. This line was secured by abattis, and flanked 
by strong redoubts. The armies were separated by 
a range of hills, covered with a thick wood, wliich 
intersects the country from west to east, terminating 
on the cast, near' Jamaica. Through these hills 
there were three roads ; one near the Narrows, a se- 
cond by the Flatbush road, and a third by the Bed- 



ford road ; these were the only passes from the south 
side of the hills to the American lines, excepting a 
road which led to Jamaica, round the easterly end 
of the hills ; and General Putnam, agreeably to the 
instructions of General Washington, had detached a 
considerable part of his men to occupy them. 

On the 26th, the main body of British troops, with 
a large detachment of Germans, landed under cover 
of the ships, on the south-western extremity of Long 
Island, and, advancing in three divisions, took post 
upon the south skirt of the wood ; General Grant 
upon their left, near the coast ; the German general, 
De Heister, in the centre, at Flatbush ; and'General 
Clinton upon their right, ^t Flatland. Only the 
range of hills now separated the two armies, and the 
different posts of the British were distant from the 
American camp from four to six miles. In the 
evening. General Clinton, without beat of drum, 
marched with the infantry of his division, a party of 
light horse, and fourteen field pieces, to gain the de- 
file on the Jamaica road. During the night he sur- 
prised an American party stationed here to give the 
alarm of an approaching enemy, and, imdiscovered 
by Sullivan, seized the pass. At day-break he pass- 
ed the heights, and descended into the plain on the 
side of Brooklyn. Early in the morning, General 
De Heister, at Flatbush, and General Grant upon 
the west coast, opened a cannonade upon the Ameri- 
can troops, and began to ascend the hill ; but they 
moved very slowly, as their object was to dr;iw the 
attention of the American commander from his left, 
and give General Clinton opportunity to gain the 
rear of the American troops stationed on the heights. 
General Putnam, in the apprehension that the seri- 
ous attack would be made by De Heister and Grant, 
sent detachments to re-enforce General Sullivan and 
Lord Stirling at the defiles, through which those di- 
visions of the enemy were, approaching. When Ge- 
neral Clinton had passed the left flank of the Ameri- 
cans, about eight o'clock in the morning of the 27th, 
De Heister and Grant vigorously ascended the hill ; 
the troops which opposed them bravely maintained 
their ground, until they learned their perilous situa- 
tion from the British columns which were gaining 
their rear. As soon as the American left discovered 
the progress of General Clinton, they attempted to 
return to the camp at Brooklyn, but their flight was 
stopped by the front of the British column. In the 
mean time, the Germans pushed forward from Flat- 
bush, and the troops in the American centre, under 
the immediate command of General Sullivan, having 
also discovered that their flank was turned, and thai 
the enemy was gaining their rear, in haste retreated 



II 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



247 



towards Brooklyn. Clinton's columns continuing to 
advance, intercepted them ; they were attacked in 
front and rear, and alternately driven by the British 
on the Germans, and by the Germans on the British. 
Desperate as their situation was, some regiments 
broke through the enemy's columns, and regained 
the foriified camp ; but most of the detachments upon 
the American left and centre, were either killed or 
taken prisoners. The detachment on the American 
right, under Lord Stirling, maintained a severe con- 
flict with General Grant, for six hours, until the van 
of General Clinton's division, having crossed the 
whole island, gained their rear. Lord Stirling per- 
ceived his danger, and found that his troops could 
be saved only by an immediate retreat over a creek 
near the cove. He gave orders to this purpose ; 
and, to facilitate their execution, he in person attack- 
ed Lord Cornwallis, who, by this time, having gained 
the coast, had posted a small corps in a house, just 
above the place where the American troops must 
pass the creek. The attack was bravely made with 
four hundred men ; but his lordship being re-en- 
forced from his ow« column, and General Grant at- 

* Nathaniel Woodhull, a dislinguished martyr to the cause of 
American liberty, was descended from an English family of great 
respectability, among some of the branches of which the ancient 
spelling of the name of Wodhull, is yet preserved. He was the 
eldest son of Nathaniel Woodhull, of Suffolk county, Long Island. 
His great grandfather, Richard Woodhull, Esq. was one of those 
whom an abhorrence of civil and ecclesiastical tyranny drove in 
such numbers to our shores, and he settled at an early period of the 
history of the colony of New York, at Seatalcot, on Long Island. 
After the capture and organization of the province of New York, 
a grant was issued by Gov. Nicolls, (in 1666,) of the town of Brook- 
haven, to Richard Woodhull and others. He served in the magis- 
tracy and principal offices of the town, until his death, which oc- 
curred about thirty years afterwards. 

The subject of the present memoir was bom on the 30th day of 
December, 1722, O. S. on an extensive farm at Mastic, on the south 
side of Long Island, now belonging to his daughter, Mrs. Elizabeth 
Smith, which became the property of his grandfather, Richard 
Woodhull, Jr. partly by purchase from the Indians, and grant from 
the governor, and partly by transfer from the original settler. His 
early life was passed in assisting his father in cultivating the pos- 
sessions which he afterwards inherited. In 1761, he was married 
to Ruth Floyd, a sister of the Hon. William Floyd, one of the 
signers of the declaration of American Independence. 

Being appointed a major in the provincial forces of New York, 
Mr. Woodhull, in 1758, served in that capacity, in the army under 
General Abercrorabie, intended for the reduction of Ticonderoga 
and Crown Foint. He was engaged in the daring, or rather the 
rash assault, ordered by the English general before the arrival of 
his artillery, upon the former place, which, strongly foriified, was 
defended by a garrison of more than five lhou.sand men, and pro- 
tected on its only assailable side by fallen trees, with their branches 
projecting ou ward, so cut as to answer the purpose of chevaux-de- 
frise. After an exposure of four hours to the covered fire of the 
French, during which time every effort of heroic perseverance 
proved ineffectual in making an impression on the enemy's works, 
the assailing force was obliged to retire to the southern side of 
Lake George, with a loss of about 2000 men killed or dangerously 
wounded, 

Desirous of wiping off the slain ol this repulse. Gen. Abercrom- 
bie detached a portion of his armv on an expedition against Cada- 

32 



tacking Lord Stirling in the rear, this brave band 
was overpowered by numbers, and those who sur- 
vived were compelled to surrender themselves pri- 
soners of war ; but this spirited assault gave oppor- 
tunity for a large proportion of the detachment to 
escape. General Washington passed over to Brook- 
lyn in the heat of the action ; but, unable to rescue 
his men from their perilous situation, was constrain- 
ed to be the inactive spectator of the slaughter of his 
best troops. The loss of the Americans on this oc- 
casion, for the number engaged, was great ; General 
Washington stated it at a thousand men ; but his re- 
turns probably included only the regular regiments. 
General Howe, in an oiEcial letter, made the prison- 
ers amount to one thousand and ninety-seven. Among 
these were Major-General Sullivan and Brigadier-Ge- 
neral Lord Stirling. Brigadier-General Woodhull 
(then called UduU) is named as having been taken 
prisoner at the battle. This is howe^^er erroneous, 
he not having been engaged in the conflict, and his 
capture not having occurred until the following day, 
at a different part of the island.* The British loss, 
as stated by General Howe, was twenty-one officers, 

raqui, or Fort Frontenac, (now Kingston,) an important fortress at 
the communication of Lake Ontario wuh the river St. Lawrence. 
Lieut. Col. Bradstreet, with whom the design originated, command- 
ed this enterprise, having a train of eight cannon and three mor- 
tars, and a body of 3000 men, of whom, about l50 only were re- 
gulars. The rest of the detachment was composed of provincials, 
from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and New York, 
Those of the latter province amounted to somewhat more than 110') 
men, of whom, one battalion, of 440 men, was placed under the 
command of Lieut. Col. Charles Clinton, (the grandfather of the 
late De Witt Clinton ;) and the second battalion, of 670 men, was 
confided to Lieut. Col. Cor.sa and Major Woodhull. On the 27th 
of August, 1758, a combined operation against the fort was made 
by land and water; the conduct of the forces in the boats being 
committed to Lieut. Col. Corsa and Major Woodhull, with orders 
to receive the fire of the fort without returning it, until their troops 
hadlandedand formed. The resolution with which the operations 
were conducted, dispirited the enemy, whose forces were insuffi- 
cient to the defence of their works, and after a feeble resistance, 
the garrison struck their colours, and capitulated. Immense stores 
of provisions and merchandise, intended for the supply of the 
French forces in America, sixty pieces of cannon, sixteen mortars, 
and nine armed vessels, some of them carrying eighteen guns, were 
the fruits of this surrender. 

Whether Mr. Woodhull was employed in the campaign of the 
following year, is not ascertained, most of his papers having been 
accidentally destroyed by fire, a few years after his death. It is 
believed, however, that he marched either with the force which 
Gen. Prideaux conducted, in 1759, against Niagara, or with that 
led by Gen. Amherst against Ticonderoga and Crown Point, both 
of which enterprises had a successful issue. In 1760, he served as 
colonel of the third regiment of New York provincials, in the army 
under Gen. Amherst, which marched against Montreal, and effect- 
ed the final reduction of Canada. Upon the capitulation of the 
Marquis of Vaudreuil, Colonel Woodhull, with his troops, returned 
to New York, and he retired to private life. 

The removal of the neighbourhood of French power, so danger- 
ous to the colonists, and the consciousness of the latter that they 
had efficiently contributed to its achievement, were calculated to 
produce among them a more free inquiry into the relative righis of 
the provinces and the mother country, and of their own ability sus- 



248 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



and three hundred and forty-six privates killed, 
wounded, and taken prisoners. 

The British now encamped in front of the Ame- 
rican lines, and on the succeeding night broke 



cessfuUy to assert their privileges. The spirit to which this in- 
quiry gave rise, was stimulated by the pretensions set up at home, 
which, first assuming that America was to be taxed by the British 
parliament, for the expenses of whatever attacks the wars of inte- 
terest, or ambition, in which the parent state engaged, should draw 
upon the colonists, grew into the assertion of a right, to tax them 
in all cases whatsoever. Acts of parliament rashly passed, and 
sometimes timidly repealed, only served to spread the existing dis- 
content, and to hasten the impending crisis. Partaking of the ge- 
neral feeling, the a.ssembly of New York, at the close of December, 
17G8, unanimously resolved, that no tax could, or ought to be im- 
posed, or levied, on the persons or estates of his majesty's subjects 
within that colony, but nf their own free gift, by their representa- 
tives convened in general assembly. The consequence was a dis- 
solution of the body on the 2d of January, 1769, by the royal go- 
vernor. Sir Henry Moore. 

The proceedings of the assembly were highly approved by the 
people of Suffolk, among whom the primitive manners and repub- 
lican feelings of their puritan ancestors, were in a remarkable de- 
gree preserved. 

At the election in the spring of 1769, they returned to that body 
William Nicoll, Esq. who had been one of its former members, and 
Col. Nathaniel Woodhull. In the instructions drawn for their re- 
presentatives, the county emphatically expressed their reliance on 
the exertions of their newly selected members, " to preserve their 
freedom, and the command over their own purses." The injunc- 
tion was faithfully observed by Mr. Woodhull, who, during the six 
years that followed of the continuance of the royal government, 
was constant in his devotion to the rights of his countrymen, and 
his opposition to the party of the court. 

In the convention which met in the city of New York, April 
10th, 1775, to choose delegates to the continental congress, Mr. 
Woodhull appeared as a delegate from the county of Suffolk. Pur- 
suant to a recommendation from the New York local committee, a 
provincial congress was soon afterwards deputed by the several 
counties of the colony, which met in that city. May 22d, 1775. 
This body practically asserted its right to entire sovereignty, su- 
perseding, in effect, from the time of its organization, and ultimate- 
ly dissolving and expelling the royal authority. Colonel Wood- 
hull was placed at the head of the delegation from Suffolk county. 
On the 22d of August, 1775, the provincial congress re-organized 
the militia of the colony into brigades, directing, " that a brigadier- 
general, with a major of brigade, be commissioned to the command 
of each brigade." The militia of Suffolk and Clueens constituted 
one brigade, of which Mr. Woodhull was subsequently appointed 
to be the general, and Jonathan Lawrence, Esq., (a member of the 
provincial congress from Clueens county,) to be major of brigade. 

On the 28lh of August, 1775, Gen. Woodhull was elected presi- 
dent of the provincial congress, and held the same office in the 
body that succeeded it, in 1776. Doubting its powers to conform 
to the recommendation of the continental congress, by erecting a 
new form of government, to the exclusion of all foreign control, 
the piovincial congress, on the 3lst of May, 1776, recommended 
to the electors of the several counties, to vest the necessary powers, 
either in their present delegates, or in others to be chosen in their 
stead. The British army having, on the 30th of June, appeared 
oflf the harbour of New York, the provincial congress, on its ad- 
journment that day, directed that the congress, in which these new 
powers were vested, and which was to assemble on the 8th of July, 
should meet at White Plains. They did not, in fact, as.sembie 
until the 9th day of July, 1776, when General Woodhull was cho- 
sen president. 

The declaration of independence, passed on the 4th instant, had 
not received the unanimous approbation of the colonies in conti- 
nental congress, the delegates from the colony of New York having 
declined to vote, because, although they were personally for the 
measure, and believed their constituents to be so, they were fetlei- 



ground within six hundred yards of a redoubt on 
the left. In this critical state of the American army 
on Long Island, — in front a numerous and victorious 
enemy, with a formidable train of artillery, the fleet 

ed by instructions drawn nearly a twelve month before, when the 
hope of reconciliation was yet cherished. Immediately on their 
meeting, the new provincial congress unanimously adopted the de- 
claration, (Gen. Woodhull presiding,) on the part of the people ol 
New York: thus filling the void occasioned by the want of the ne- 
cessary powers in their delegates at Philadelphia. On the next 
day they assumed the title of " Ike convention of the represenLatives 
of the state of New York," and subsequently formed the first consti- 
tution of the state. 

The invading army under Lord Howe, had landed on Staten 
Island, and by the command which their naval force secured over 
the neighbouring waters, they were enabled to threaten an attack 
from this point, either on Long Island or the island of New York. 
Gen. Washington was therefore obliged to divide the force collect- 
ed to oppose them, a portion of which entrenched themselves at 
Brooklyn, while the residue were stationed at different parts of 
York Island. The New York convention had, on the 20th July, 
ordered one fourth of the militia of Q.ueens and Suffolk to be draft- 
ed, and the two regiments thus obtained had marched under the 
command of Col. Josiah Smith, of Suffolk, and Col. Jeromus Rem- 
sen, of Clueens, within the lines at Brooklyn, then commanded by 
Gen. Sullivan. On the 10th August, Gen. WoodhuH's concerns 
requiring his return home, he obtained leave of temporary absence 
from the convention, whose sittings had been transferred to Har- 
laem, and proceeded to his residence at Mastic, about seventy-five 
miles from New York. On the 22d of August, the uncertainty that 
had prevailed as to the first point of attack on the part of the in- 
vaders, was dispelled by the landing of a portion of their forces 
near New Utrecht. Aware of the increasing want of provisions 
among the enemy, and that, the American army being now con- 
fined to their lines, the whole stock and produce of Long Island 
would be in the power of the hostile troops, unless means were 
taken to prevent it, the convention of New York adopted a policy 
since successfully pursued on a larger scale by the Russians. This 
was to deprive the invading force of supplies, and thus compel their 
abandonment of the island, by removing the stock and other pro- 
visions in the adjacent country, or if that could not be effected, by 
destroying them. Resolutions were accordingly passed on the 24tb 
August, 1776, ordering Gen. Woodhull, or, in his absence. Col 
Potter, (who had served as a captain of the New York provincials 
in the campaigns against the French in 1758 and 1759,) to march 
without delay one half of the western regiment of militia of Suf- 
folk county, with five days' provisions, into the western paits of 
Clueens county ; and that the officers of the militia of Clueens 
should immediately order out the whole militia of that county, to 
effect the desired objects. An express being sent with these direc- 
tions to Brigade-Major Lawrence, Col. Potter, and Gen. Woodhull, 
the latter reached Jamaica on the next day, (Sunday,) apprised the 
convention of his arrival there, and awaited the approa<;h of the 
forces intended for his command. 

The convention were fully aware, that the militia to be collected 
on this emergency, would be wholly insufficient to effect the above 
object, and more particularly to enable the general to station a 
force, agreeably to their wishes, on the high grounds in the western 
part of Clueens county, to repel the ravaging parties of the enemy. 

In the preceding year it had been necessary to despatch from the 
main, some of the troops under the command of Gen. Woosler, to 
Suffolk county, in order to prevent depredations along its exposed 
coast ; and its armed inhabitants were not now more than compe- 
tent lo the same purpose. In Clueens county a majority of the in- 
habitants were disaffected to the patriotic cause. They had, in the 
previous month of December, obtained arms from the Asia man-of- 
war, and had prevented, by superior numbers at the polls, an elec- 
tion, then attempted, of delegates to the provincial congress ; inso- 
much that a military intervention, under the direction of the conti- 
nental congress, had been necessary, to deprive the tories of offen- 
sive weapons, and lo secure to the whigs the freedom of election. 



II 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



249 



indicating an intention to force a passage into East 
River to make some attempt on New York, the troops 
lying without shelter from heavy rains, fatigued and 
dispirited,— it was determined to withdraw from the 

A large number of the whigs of that county were already imbodi- 
f>d in the regiment of Col. Remsen, and many of those at home 
were overawed by the neighbourhood of the British force, or were 
employed in preparations for the flight of their families, if fortime 
should be favourable to the British arms. 

The convention accordingly deputed a committee to Gen. Wash- 
ington, advising him of their objects; of their apprehension of the 
insufficiency of the force they had ordered to join Gen. WoodhuU ; 
and of their conviction, that u would be most conducive to the pub- 
lic welfare, that the regimentsof Colonels Smith and Remsen, should 
be added. The committee reported, on the 26lh, that at the con- 
ference with Gen. Washington, he seemed well pleased, but said 
he was afraid it was too late. He however expressed his willing- 
ness to afford every assistance to the convention consistent with the 
public good, and staled that he would immediately give orders that 
Smitli's and Remsen's regiments should march into Glueens county, 
to join Gen. WoodhuU. Notice of this result was forwarded to the 
latter, as well as of the expectation of the convention, that by the 
time he received their letter, he would have been joined by the pro- 
mised re-enforcement. 

On the same day, the whole militia force that had been collect- 
ed, was assembled at Jamaica, and was found to consist only of 
about one hundred men, led by Col. Potter, from Suffolk county, 
about forty militia from Q.ueens, and fifty horsemen belonging tr 
the troop of Kings and Glueens counties. With this handful of 
men, Gen. WoodhuU advanced to the westward of dueens county, 
agreeably to his orders. Owing probably to the receipt of inform- 
ation, that increased numbers of the British had disembarked on 
the preceding day at New Utrecht, the commanding officer at 
Brooklyn did not detach the two Long Island regiments to join 
Gen. WoodhuU, and by some fatality, the omission was neither 
communicated to the convention, nor e.xplained to the expecting 
geni ral. Disappointed in not meeting the additional troops, with- 
out *hom he could not post any force on the heights, to repel de- 
predations of the enemy, he nevertheless commenced with vigour 
the execution of the rest of his orders, placed guards and sentries 
10 prevent communication between the tories and the enemy, and 
scouring, during this and the succeeding day, the country south- 
ward of the hills in Kings, and a considerable part of the towns of 
Newtown and Jamaica, he sent off an immense quantity of stock, 
collected there, towards the Great Plains, and ordered off a further 
quantity from near flempstead. In the meantime his numbers had 
dwindled by the anxiety of the militia to reach their homes, and 
protect or remove their families, to less than one hundred men, 
who, as well as their horses? were worn down with the fatigue of 
the duty they had performed. What they had effected demonstra- 
ted, that with the force the convenlion had expected to place under 
his command, the object to which they attached so much importance, 
could have been readily accomplished. The subsequent disasters 
to the American arms would, however, have rendered its accom- 
plish mem useless. 

Early on the 27th of August, a pass through the hills m Kings 
county, which had been left unguarded by the American troops, 
was taken possession of by the enemy. The American outposts 
were .surprised, and the American army driven, after a sanguinary 
engagement, within their entrenchments at Brooklyn. Numbers 
of the British troops, during the same day, posted themselves on the 
hills between Newtown and Jamaica, and parlies of the enemy's 
horse made incursions into the country, within a short distance of 
the general's force. In this .state of things he retired to Jamaica, 
sending at different limes two messages to the convention, appri- 
sing them of his situation, of the absolute necessity of re-enforce- 
ments, and of his conviction, that tlie iwo Long Island regiments 
could not join him, >n consequence of the interruption of the com- 
mtmications. Unfortunately, the convention did not sit on that day, 
and the general receiving no answer, despatched his brigade-ma- 
jor, who was also a member of that body, to repeat his represenia- 



island ; and this difficult movement was effected with 

great skill and judgment, and with complete success. 

The defeat of the 27th made a. most unfavourable 

impression upon the army. A great proportion of 



tions, and obtain their ordeis. The convention, al their meeting 
on the 28th, still adhered to their favourite project, believing that 
by cro.ssing the East River to York Island, and making a detour to 
Flushing, the two regiments might still reach Jamaica. They ac- 
cordingly sent Major Lawrence to General Washington, with a 
letter expressing that opinion, and referring him to the brigade- 
major for explanations as to the means. At the same time they 
directed the necessary preparations for the transportation and land- 
ing of the troops, and receiving soon after a reiteration of the call 
for an immediate re-enforcement, they deputed two of their body, 
(John Sloss Hobart and James Townscnd, Esqrs.,) to repair to 
Gen. WoodhuU with instructions and advice. Owing probably to 
the intermediate roads being in possession of the enemy, these gen- 
tlemen, it is believed, never reached him. Whether the express 
despatched by Major Lawrence, as soon as he was ordered on the 
mission to Gen. Washington, was more successful, is not known. 

On the same morning, the convention forwarded a circular to the 
committees of the different towns of Connecticut, lying on the 
Sound, requesting their co-operation in removing the stock from 
Long Island to that state, and 'an application to the governor of 
Connecticut for such force as could be speedily obtained. An ap- 
plication to him had been intermediately made by Gen. Washing- 
ton, to throw over a body of one thousand men upon the island. 

In the afternoon. Major Lawrence returned from the American 
camp, bringing a letter from the commander in chief, declining the 
request of the convention for the desired re-enforcements, because, 
in the opinion of himself and his general officers, the men they had 
were not more than competent to the defence of their lines. The 
retreat across the river, which was effected on that night, might 
have been suspected and thwarted, if the passage of the two regi- 
ments had been attempted in open day. This no doubt formed an 
additional reason for non-compliance. 

In the meantime, General WoodhuU, whose notions of mili- 
tary obedience had been formed in the strictest school, was await- 
ing the expected orders and re-enforcements. His small body of 
troops had been directed to proceed eastward in the perl'oni]- 
ance of their duties; he remaining with a fev! personal attendants 
at a house on the road side, about two miles from Jamaica, to re- 
ceive some definitive reply to his messages. Here he was over- 
taken by a large detachment of the enemy, accompanied by some 
of the most active of the tories. After an ineffectual attempt at 
concealment, he surrendered himself a prisoner of war, giving up 
his sword, as is customary. Elated by the capture of a rebel gene- 
ral, and the president of the rebel convention, they coarsely and in- 
sultingly required him to cry, " God save the King !" His refusal 
to obey the degrading command, was rewarded by a repetition if 
the insult, and an accompanying cut of a sabre. At each succpei'- 
ing denial, a blow of the cutla.ss, or a thrust of the bayonet, was 
aimed at the defenceless victim. No compunction of manly lee I- 
ing, nor sensibility to shame, arose among his captors, to arir^-l 
this savage butchery, until his head and body were covered \iiili 
wounds, when the interference of one of the officers averted lie 
instant fate that had seemed to await him, and reserved him iur 
new indignities and a lingering death. 

He was hurried from the scene of this dastardly altack to Ja- 
maica on foot, and there confined in the stone church, luimeily 
standing in the middle of the road, exposed, in his blood-sinin. d 
garments, to the gaze of all whom curiosity, or malignant feelii,-, 
or concealed svmpalhv, attracted thither. On the following n.r.rn- 
ing he was carried to Gravesend, where, with the late Colonel Ro- 
bert Troup, and other prisoners, he was thrown on board a filihy 
prison ship,' that had been employed to transport cattle for the use 
of the British army. From this situation he was subsequently re- 
leased, and provided with accommodations on shore. 

The wounds of the general had assumed a promising state, and 
hopes were entertained of his recovery, when a mortification of the 
arm ensued, rendering amputation necessary. Believing that this 



250 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



the troops lost their confidence in their officers, and 
in themselves. Before this unfortunate event, they 
met the enemy in the spirit of freemen fighting for 
their highest interests, and under the persuasion that 
their thorough use of arms rendered them equal to 
the disciplined battalions which they were to oppose. 
But on this occasion, by evolutions which they did 
not comprehend, they found themselves encompassed 
with difficulties from which their utmost exertions 
could not extricate them, and involved in dangers 
from which their bravery could not deliver them ; 
and entertaining a high opinion of the adroitness of 
the enemy, in every movement they apprehended a 
fatal snare.* No sooner had the British secured the 
possession of Long Island, than they made disposi- 
tions to attack New York. It was a serious question 
whether that place was defensible against so formi- 
dable an enemy ; and General Washington called a 
council of general officers, to decide whether it should 
be evacuated without delay, or longer defended. 
The general officers, in compliance with the views 
of congress, were very averse from the abandonment 
of the city ; and it was resolved, contrary to the indi- 
vidual opinion of Washington, to endeavour to defend 
the city. The army was accordingly arranged into 
three divisions, one of which, consisting of five thou- 
sand men, was to remain in New York ; another, 
amounting to nine thousand, was to be stationed at 
King's Bridge ; and the residue of the army was to oc- 
cupy the intermediate space, so as to support either ex- 
operation would be unavailing, he nevertheless submitted to it, 
asking leave, at the same time, for his wife to visit him. She ar- 
rived soon enough to attend him in his dying moments, and was 
permitted to remove his dead body, which was opened and pre- 
pared for the purpose by the British surgeon. Poignant as her 
feelings must have been, while accompanying the mangled corpse 
of her husband in its slow progress over a distance of seventy miles, 
she had yet the melancholy satisfaction of reflecting, that it was out 
of the hands of the enemy, and of depositing it on his late posses- 
sions, among the remains of his ancestors. A plain marble stone 
marks the spot, with the following inscription ; — 

In memory of 

GEN. NATHANIEL WOODHULL, 

Who, wounded and a prisoner, 

Died on the 20th day of September, 1776, 

In the 54th year of his age. 

Lamented by all who knew how to value his many private virtues. 

And that pure zeal for the rights of his country, 

To which he perished a victim. 

Hoping to negotiate an exchange of General WoodhuU, the con- 
vention had despatched John Sloss Hobart, Esq., to the camp at 
Kingsbridge, the more readily lo eflfect that object. He had made 
some progress m his mission, when he heard of the decease of his 
colleague, from an inhabitant of Islip, before whose door the sad 
procession passed. 

The massacre of this gallant officer and eminent citizen, aroused 
in every patriotic breast the feelings due to the atrocity of the act, 
and to the qualities and station of its subject. Nor can its circum- 
stances ever be recollected without sympathy and admiration for 



treme. The unexpected movements of the British 
soon evinced the correctness of the opinion of the ge- 
neral-in-chief ; and in a second council it was deter- 
mined, by a large majority, that it had become not only 
prudent, but necessary, to withdraw the army from 
New York. Several English ships of war passed 
up North River, on the one side of York Island, and 
East River on the other side ; Sir Henry Clinton, 
embarking at Long Island, at the head of four thou- 
sand men, proceeded through Newtown Bay, crossed 
East River, and landed, under cover of the ships, at 
Kipp's Bay, about three miles above New York. 
Works of considerable strength had been thrown up 
at this place, to oppose the landing of the enemy ; 
but they were immediately abandoned by the troops 
stationed in them, who, terrified at the fire of the 
ships, fled precipitately toward their main body, and 
communicated their panic to a detachment marching 
to their support. General Washington, to his ex- 
treme mortification, met this whole party retreating 
in the utmost disorder, and exerted himself to rally 
thSm ; but, on the appearance of a small corps of the 
British, they again broke, and fled in confusion. 
Nothing- was now left him but to withdraw the few 
remaining troops from New York, and to secure the 
posts on the heights. The retreat from New York 
was effected with a very inconsiderable loss of men , 
but all the heavy artillery, and a large portion of the 
baggage, provisions, and military stores, were una- 
voidably abandoned. 

the lofty spirit whom no extremity of .suflering could bend to dis- 
honour ; nor without disdain and abhorrence of a coward brutality 
that vainly seeks for extenuation in the bitter aniuiosiiies of the 
times. 

General Woodhull had, by his marriage with Miss Floyd, a son, 
Nathaniel, and a daughter, Elizabeth, the former of whom died :n 
his infancy. The latter, who still survives, was married tirst to 
Henry Nicoll, a member of the bar, and after his death to the lale 
John Smith, one of the senators in the congress of the United 
States, from the state of New York. — Kiuipp's American Biography, 

* These melancholy facts were thus narrated hy General Wash- 
ington, in his letter to congress: — " Our situation is truly distress- 
ing. The check otir detachment sustained on the 27lh ultimo, has 
dispirited too great a proportion of our troops, and filled their minds 
with apprehension and despair. The militia, instead of calling 
forth their utmost eflbrts lo a brave and manly opposition, in order 
to repair our losses, are dismayed, intractable, and impatient to re- 
turn. Great numbers of them have gone off; in some instances 
almost by whole regiments, by half ones, and by companies, at a 
time. This circumstance of itself, independent of others, when 
fronted by a well-appointed enemy, superior in number lo our 
whole collected force, would be sufficiently disagreeable ; but when 
their example has infected another part of the army, — when their 
want of discipline, and refusal of almost every kind of restraint and 
government, have produced a like conduct, but too common to the 
whole, and an entire disregard of that order and subordination ne- 
cessary to the well doing of an army, and which had been inculca- 
ted before, as well as the nature of our military establishment would 
admit of, — our condition is still more alarming; and with the deep- 
est concern I am obliged to confess my want of confidence in the 
generality of the troops." 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



251 



The British, taking possession of New Yorlc, sta- 
tioned a few troops in the capital ; but the main 
body of their army was on York Island, at no great 
distance from the American lines. The day after 
the retreat from New York, a considerable body of 
the British appearing in the plains between the two 
camps, the general ordered Colonel Knowlton, with 
a corps of rangers, and Major Leitch, with three 
companies of a Virginia regiment, to get in their 
rear, while he amused them by making apparent dis- 
positions to attack their front. The plan succeeded ; 
and a skirmish ensued, in which the Americans 
charged the enemy with great intrepidity, and gain- 
ed considerable advantage ; but the principal benefit 
of this action was its influence in reviving the de- 
pressed spirits of the whole army. The armies did 
not long retain their position on York Island. The 
British frigates having passed up North River under 
a fire from Fort Washington and the post opposite 
to it on the Jersey shore, General Howe embarked a 
great part of his army in flat-bottomed boats, and, 
passing through Hell Gate into the Sound, landed 
at Frog's Neck. The object of the British general 
was, either to force Washington out of his present 
lines, or to enclose him in them. Aware of this de- 
sign. General Washington moved a part of his troops 
from York Island, to join those at King's Bridge, and 
detached some regiments to West Chester. A coun- 
cil of war was now calleij and the system of evacua- 
ting and retreating was adopted, with the exception 
of Fort Washington, for the defence of which nearly 
three thousand men were assigned. After a halt of 
six days, the royal army advanced, not without con- 
siderable opposition, along the coast of Long Island 
Sound, by New Rochelle, to White Plains, where 
the Americans took a strong position behind entrench- 
ments. This post was maintained for several days, 
till the British having received considerable re-en- 
forcements, General Washington withdrew to the 
heights of North Castle, about five miles from White 
Plains, where, whether from the strength of his posi- 
tion, or from the British general having other objects 
in view, no attempt at attack was made. 

Immediately on leaving White Plains, General 
Howe directed his attention to Fort Washington and 
Fort Lee, as their possession would secure the navi- 
gation of the Hudson, and facilitate the invasion of 
New Jersey. On the 15th of November, General 
Howe, being in readiness for the assault, summoned 
the garrison to surrender. Colonel Magaw, the com- 

• " On the 7th of December, our army marched from Bruns- 
wick at four o'clock in the morning, and about the same hour in 
the aftTnoon arrived at Princeton. This place, General Wash ing- 



manding officer, in spirited language, replied, that 
he should defend his works to extremity. On the 
succeeding morning, the British made the assault in 
four separate divisions ; and having, after a brave 
and obstinate resistance, surmounted the outworks, 
again summoned the garrison to surrender. His 
ammunition being nearly expended, and his force 
incompetent to repel the numbers which were ready 
on every side to assail him. Colonel Magaw surren- 
dered himself and his garrison, consisting of two 
thousand men, prisoners of war. The enemy lost 
in the assault about eight hundred men, mostly Ger- 
mans. The conquest of Fort Washington made the 
evacuation of Fort Lee necessary. Orders were 
therefore issued to remove the ammunition and 
stores in it ; but, before much progress had been 
made in this business. Lord Cornwullis crossed the 
Hudson, with a number of battalions, with the in- 
tention to enclose the garrison between the Hacken- 
sack and North Rivers. Tliis movement made a 
precipitate retreat indispensable, which was happily 
effected with little loss of men ; but the greater part 
of the artillery, stores, and baggage, was left for the 
enemy. The loss at Fort Washington was heavy. 
The regiments captured in it were some of the best 
troops in the army. The tents, camp-kettles, and 
stores, lost at this place, and at Fort Lee. could not, 
during the campaign, be replaced, and for the want 
of them the men suffered extremely. This loss was 
unnecessarily sustained, as those posts ought, unques- 
tionably, to have been evacuated before Gen. Howe 
was in a situation to invest them ; and this event 
was the more to be deplored, as the American force 
was daily diminished by the expiration of the soldiers' 
term of enlistment, and by the desertion of the militia. 
These successes encouraged the British to pursue 
the remaining American force, with the prospect of an- 
nihilating it. Gen. Washington, who had taken post 
at Newark, on the south side of the Passaic, finding 
himself unable to make any real opposition, withdrew 
from that place as the enemy crossed the Passaic, 
and retreated to Brunswick, on the Rariton ; and 
Lord Cornwallis, on the same day, entered Newark. 
The retreat was still continued from Brunswick to 
Princeton ; from Princeton to Trenton ; and from 
Trenton to the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware. 
The pursuit was urged with so much rapidity, that 
the rear of one army was often within shot of the 
van of the other.* The winter being now set in, the 
British army went into quarters, between the Dela- 

ton, in person, with Stirling's brigade, left not one hour before the 
British arrived. At Princeton, the British general waited seven- 
teen hours, marched at nine o'clock in the morning of the 8th, and 



252 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



ware and the Hackensack. Trenton, the most im- 
portant post and barrier, was occupied by a bris^ade 
of Hessians, under Colonel Rawle. General Howe 
now issued a proclamation, in the name of his brother 
and himself, in which pardon was offered to all per- 
sons who, vvitlini the space of sixty days, should take 
the oath of allegiance, and submit to the authority 
of the British government. The effects of this pro- 
clamation were soon apparent. People from several 
quartei-s availed themselves of it. and threw down 
their arms. No city or town, indeed, in its corpo- 
rate capacity, submitted to the British government ; 
but most of the families of fortune and influence dis- 
covered an inclination to return to their allegiance. 
Many of the yeomanry claimed the benefit of the 
commissioners' proclamation ; and the great body of 
them were too much taken up with the security of 
their families and their property, to make any exer- 
tion in the public cause. Another source of mortifi- 
cation to the Americans, was the capture of General 
Lee, who had imprudently ventured to lodge at a 
house three miles distant from his corps.* 

This was the most gloomy period of the revolu- 
tionary war. It was the crisis of the struggle of the 
United States for independence. The American army, 
reduced in numbers, depressed by defeat, and ex- 
hausted by fatigue, naked, barefoot, and destitute of 
tents, and even of utensils with which to dress their 
scanty provisions, was fleeing before a triumphant 
enemy, well appointed and abundantly supplied. A 
general spirit of despondency through New Jersey 
was the consequence of this disastrous state of public 
affairs. But in this worst of times congress stood 
unmoved ; their measures exhibited no symptoms of 
confusion or dismay ; the public danger only roused 
them to more vigorous exertions, that they might 
give a firmer tone to the public mind, and animate 
the citizens of United America to a manly defence 
of their independence. Beneath this cloud of adver- 
sity, too, General Washington shone with a brighter 
lustre than m the day of his highest prosperity. Not 
dismayed by all the difficulties which encompassed 
him, he accommodated his measures to his situation, 
and still made the good of his country the object of 
his unwearied pursuit. He ever wore the counte- 
nance of composure and confidence, by his own ex- 
arrived at Trenton at four o'clock in the afternoon, just when the 
la?t boat of General Washinj.non's embarkation crossed the river, 
as if he had calculated, it was observed, with great accuracy, the 
exact time necessary I'or his enemy to make his escape." — Stead- 
man's Hisiory of the American War, vol. i. p. 220. 

• General Lee had been a British officer, and had engaged in 
the Ameriean service befcjre the acceptance of the resignation of 
his commission. Sir William Howe, for this reason, pretended to 
riew him as a traitor, and at first refused to admit him to his parole, 



ample inspiring his little band with firmness to strug- 
gle with adverse fortune. 

While Washington was retreating over the Dela- 
ware, the British, under Sir Pelew Parker and Ge- 
neral Clinton, took possession of Rhode Island, and 
blocked up Commodore Hopkins's squadron, and a 
number of privateers at Providence ; but this mea- 
sure was disadvantageous to the British, as it required 
the presence of troops which might have been much 
more advantageously employed. 

The neighbourhood of Philadelphia now becoming 
the seat of war, congress adjourned to Baltimore ; 
resolving at the same time, " that General Washing- 
ton should be possessed of full powers to order and 
direct all things relative to the department and the 
operations of the war." In this extremity, judicious 
determinations in the cabinet were accompanied with 
vigorous operations in the field. The united exer- 
tions of civil and military officers had by this time 
brought a considerable body of militia<,into their ranks. 
General Sullivan, too, on whom the command of Ge- 
neral Lee's division devolved on his capture, prompt- 
ly obeyed the orders of the commander in chief, and 
at this period joined him, and General Heath marched 
a detachment from Peekskill. 

The army, with these re-enforcements, amounted 
to seven thousand men, and General Washington de- 
termined to commence active and bold operations. 
He had noticed the loose fftid uncovered state of the 
winter quarters of the British army, and contempla- 
ted the preservation of Philadelphia, and the recovery 
of New Jersey, by sweeping, at one stroke, all the 
British cantonments upon the Delaware. The pre- 
sent position of his forces favoured the execution of 
his plan. The troops under the immediate command 
of General Washington, consisting of about two thou- 
sand four hundred men, were ordered to cross the 
river at M'Konkey's ferry, nine miles above Trenton, 
to attack that post. General Irvine was directed to 
cross with his division at Trenton ferry, to secure the 
bridge below the town, and prevent the retreat of the 
enemy that way. General Cadwallader received or- 
ders to pass the river at Bristol ferry, and assault the 
post at Burlington. The night of the twenty-fifth 
was assigned for the execution of this daring scheme. 
It proved to be severely cold, and so much ice was 



or to consider him as a .subject of exchange. Congress directed 
Ilic commander in chief to propose lo Sir William Howe to ex- 
change six field officers for General Lee. In case the proposal 
was rejected, that body resolved, thai these officers shonld be closely 
confined, and in every respect receive the treatment thai General 
Lee did. The proposition not being acceded lo, the resolulion of 
congress was carried into eft'ecl, by ihe executives of the slates in 
whose custody the selected field officers were, with a degree of se- 
verity which even the treatment of General Lee did not wariant. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



253 



made in the river, that General Irvine and General 
Cadwallader, after having strennously exerted them- 
selves, found it impracticable to pass their divisions, 
and their part of the plan totally failed. The com- 
mander in chief was, however, more fortunate, and, 
though with much difficulty and considerable loss of 
time, succeeded in crossing the river, and reached 
Trenton by eight o'clock in the morning. The brave 
Ooliinel Rawle, the commanding officer, assembled 
his forces for the defence of his post ; but he was 
mortally wounded by the first fire, and his men, in 
apparent dismay, attempted to file off towards Prince- 
tou. General Washington, perceiving their inten- 
tion, moved a part of his troops into this road, in their 
front, and defeated the design. Their artillery being 
seized, and the Americans pressing upon Iheni, they 
surrendered. Twenty of the Germans were killed, 
and a thousand made prisoners. By the failure of 
General Irvine, a small body of the enemy stationed 
in the lower part of the town, escaped over the bridge 
to Bordentown. Of the American troops, two pri- 
vates were killed, and two frozen to death, and one 
officer and three or four privates were wounded. 
Could the other divisions have crossed the Delaware, 
General AVashington's plan, in its full extent, would 
probably have succeeded. Not thinking it prudent 
to hazard the fruits of this gallant stroke by more 
daring attempts, the general, the same day, recrossed 
the Delaware with his prisoners, wfth six pieces of 
artillery, a thousand stand of arms, and some milita- 
ry stores. 

This display of enterprise and vigour on the part 
of the Americans, astonished and perplexed General 
Howe, and, though in the depth of winter, he found 
it necessary to commence active operations. Such 
was the reviving influence on the minds of the Ame- 
rican soldiers, and such the skill which the com- 
mander in chief exercised, that, after several success- 
ful operations following that of Trenton, he not only 
saved Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, but recovered 
the greatest part of the Jerseys, in defiance of an 
army vastly superior to his, in discipline, resources, 
and numbers. Of all their recent extensive posses- 
sions in the Jerseys, the English retained now only 
the posts of Brunswick and Amboy. These success- 
ful operations on the part of the Americans were im- 
mediately followed by a proclamation, in the name 
or General Washington, absolvinor all those who had 
been induced to take the oaths of allegiance tendered 
by the British commissioners, and promising them 
protection on condition of their subscribing to a form 
of oath prescribed by congress. The effects of this 
proclamation were almost instantaneous. The in- 



habitants of the Jerseys, who had conceived a violent 
hatred to the British army, on account of their un- 
checked course of plundering, instantly renounced 
their allegiance to Great Britain, and attached them- 
selves to the cause of America. Several who were 
resolved to avenge their wrongs, joined the army un- 
der General Washington, while others rendered equal 
service to the side to which they attached themselves, 
by supplying the American army with provisions and 
fuel, and by conveying intelligence of the operations 
of the British army. 

Before entering on the campaign of 1777, it will 
be proper briefly to notice the state of affairs in Ca- 
nada. The Americans still possessed Crown Point 
and Ticonderoga, and were masters of Lake Cham- 
plain. To dispossess them of these posts was an ar- 
duous and a difficult task, inasmuch as the British 
had not a vessel on Lake Champlain to oppose the 
American fleet. Difficult, however, as it was. Gene- 
ral Carleton resolved to use every effort to procure 
an adequate naval force, and at length succeeding in 
the attainment of his object, he acquired a decided 
superiority. On the 11th of October, the British 
fleet discovered that of their opponents very advan- 
tageously posted off the island Valicour, with an in- 
tention of defending the passage between that island 
and the western main. A schooner and some gun- 
boats, being considerably ahead of the rest of the 
fleet, began the engagement, which was continued 
for some hours on both sides, with great intrepidity. 
Brigadier-General Waterbury, in the Washington 
galley, fouglit with undaunted bravery, until nearly 
all his* officers were killed or woundeJ, and his vessel 
greatly injured, when Arnold ordered the remaining 
shattered vessels to retire up the lake towards Crown 
Point, to refit. Two days afterwards they were 
overtaken by the British, and the action was renew- 
ed. The Washington galley, crippled in the first 
action, was soon obliged to strike and surrender. 
General Arnold, having obstinately defended himsel- 
with great judgment and gallantry against a superior 
force, was at length so closely pressed, that he was 
compelled to run on shore his own vessel, the Con- 
gress galley, which, with five gondolas, was aban- 
doned and blown up. Of sixteen American vessels,, 
eleven were taken or destroyed ; of the British, two 
gondolas were sunk, and one blown up, with sixty 
men. The loss of men on each side was supposed 
to be nearly equal ; that of the Americans was esti- 
mated at about a hundred. The British army and 
fleet now established themselves at Crown Point, and 
proceeded to strengthen the old fortifications origi- 
nally erected at this place by the French in 1756 : 



254 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



but they very soon abandoned this station, and re- 
tired into Canada. 

Having secured the Hessian prisoners on the Penn- 
sylvania side of the Delaware, Washington recrossed 
the river two days after the action, and took posses- 
sion of Trenton. Generals Mifflin and Cadwallader, 
who lay at Bordentown and Crosswix, with three 
thousand six hundred militia, were ordered to march 
up in the night of the first of January, to join the 
commander in chief, whose whole effective force, in- 
cluding this accession, did not exceed five thousand 
men. The detachments of the British army v/hich 
had been distributed over New Jersey, now assem- 
bled at Princeton, and were joined by the army from 
Brunswick, under Lord Cornwallis. From this po- 
sition they advanced toward Trenton in great force, 
on the morning of thS second of January ; and, after 
some slight skirmishing with troops detached to ha- 
rass and delay their march, the van of their army 
reached Trenton about four in the afternoon. On 
their approach, General Washington retired across 
the Assumpinck, a rivulet that runs through the 
town, and by some field pieces, posted on its opposite 
banks, compelled them, after attempting to cross in 
several places, to fall back out of the reach of his 
guns. The two armies, kindling their fires, retained 
their positions on opposite sides of the rivulet, and 
kept up a cannonade until night. The situation of 
the American general was at this moment extremely 
critical. Nothing but a stream, in many places forda- 
ble, separated his army from an enemy in every re- 
spect its superior. If he remained in his present 
position, he was certain of being attacked the next 
morning, at the hazard of the entire destruction of 
his little army. If he should retreat over the Dela- 
ware, the ice in that river not being firm enough to 
admit a passage upon it, there was danger of great 
loss, perhaps of a total defeat ; the Jerseys would be 
in full possession of the enemy ; the public mind 
would be depressed ; recruiting would be discoura- 
ged ; and Philadelphia would be within the reach of 
General Howe. In this extremity, he boldly deter- 
mined to abandon the Delaware, and, by a circuitous 
march along the left flank of the enemy, fall into their 
rear at^Princeton. When it was dark, the army, 
leaving its fires lighted, and the sentinels on the 
margin of the creek, decamped with perfect secrecy. 
About sunrise two British regiments, that were on 
their march to join the rear of the British army at 
Maidenhead, fell in with the van of the Americans, 
conducted by General Mercer, and a very sharp ac- 
tion ensued. The advanced party of Americans, 
composed chiefly of militia, soon gave way, and the 



few regulars attached to them could not maintain 
their ground. General Mercer, while gallantly ex- 
erting himself to rally his broken troops, received a 
mortal wound. General Washington, however, who 
followed close in their rear, now led on the main 
body of the army, and attacked the enemy with 
great spirit. While he exposed himself to their 
hottest fire, he was so well supported by the same 
troops which had aided him a few days before in the 
victory at Trenton, that the British were compelled 
to give way, and Washington pressed forward to 
Princeton. A party of the British that had taken 
refuge in the college, after receiving a few discharges 
from the American field-pieces, surrendered them- 
selves prisoners of war ; but the principal part of 
the regiment that was left there, saved itself by a 
precipitate retreat to Brunswick. In this action up- 
wards of a hundred of the British were killed, and 
nearly three hundred were taken prisoners. Great 
was the surprise of Lord Cornwallis when the report 
of tlie artillery at Princeton, and the arrival of breath- 
less messengers, apprised him that the enemy was in 
his rear. Alarmed by the danger of his position, he 
commenced a retreat ; and, being harassed by the 
militia and the countrymen who had suffered from 
the outrages perpetrated by his troops on their ad- 
vance, he did not deem himself in safety till he ar- 
rived at Brunswick, from whence, by means of the 
Rariton, he had communication with New York. 

The successes of the American arms at Trenton 
and at Princeton were followed by important conse- 
quences. The afiairs of the United States, before 
these events, appeared to be desperate. Two thou- 
sand of the regular troops had a right, on the 1st of 
January, to demand their discharge. The recruiting 
service was at an end, and general despondency pre- 
vailed. The triumphs of the British through the 
previous parts of the campaign produced a common 
apprehension, in the citizens of the middle states, 
that any further struggle would be useless, and that 
America must eventually return to her allegiance to 
Great Britain. Many individuals made their peace 
with the commissioners, and took protection from the 
oflicers of the crown ; and more discovered an in- 
clination to do it, when opportunity should present 
itself. General Howe supposed New Jersey restored 
to the British government, and thought the war 
drawing to a close. But these successes were con- 
sidered as great victories, and produced important ef- 
fects upon the public nrind. The character of the 
commander in chief proportionably rijse in the estima- 
tion of the great mass of American people, who now 
respected themselves, and confided in their persever- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



255 



ing efforts to secure the great object of contention — 
the independence of their country. Other causes liad 
a powerful operation upon the minds of the yeoman- 
ry of New Jersey. The British commanders tolera- 
ted, or at least did not restrain, gross licentiousness 
in their army. The inhabitants of the state which 
they boasted was restored to the bosom of the parent 
country, were treated not as reclaimed friends, but 
as conquered enemies. The soldiers were guilty of 
every species of rapine, and with little discrimination 
between those who had opposed or supported the 
measures of Britain. The abuse was not limited to 
the plundering of property. Every indignity was 
offered to the persons of the inhabitants, not except- 
ing those outrages to the female sex which are felt 
by ingenuous minds with the keenest anguish, and 
excite noble spirits to desperate resistance. These 
aggravated abuses roused the people of New Jersey 
to repel that army to which they had voluntarily 
submitted, in the expectation of protection and secu- 
rity. At the dawn of success upon the American 
arms, they rose in small bands to oppose their inva- 
ders. They scoured the country, cut off every sol- 
dier who straggled from his corps, and in many in- 
stances repelled the foraging parties of the enemy. 
Early in this year also the Americans were gratified 
by the arrival of a vessel from France at Portsmouth, 
in New Hampshire, with upwards of eleven thousand 
stand of arms, and a thousand barrels of powder ; 
and about the same time ten thousand stand of arms 
arrived in another part of the United States. 

This supply was, however, in some measure coun- 
terbalanced. In the month of Blarch the British sent 
out two detachments to destroy the American stores 
at Peekskill on the North River, and at Danbury, 
in Connecticut. Both succeeded in their attempt ; 
and although the stores destroyed did not equal in 
quantity the report on which the expeditions were 
planned, yet their loss was sensibly felt by the Ameri- 
cans in the active season of the campaign. 

Sir William Howe, having in vain attempted to 
entice or provoke General Washington to an engage- 
ment, had, in June, retired with his army from the 
Jerseys to Staten Island. After keeping the Ameri- 
can general in long and perplexing suspense concern- 
ing his intended operations, he at length sailed from 
Sandy Hook- with about sixteen thousand men, en- 
tered Chesapeake Bay, and on the 24th of August ar- 
rived at the head of Elk river. Generals Grant and 
Knyphausen having joined him on the 8th of Sep- 
tember with the troops under their command, the 
whole army moved onward in two colunms toward 
Philadelphia, the possession of which was now evi- 
38 



dently the object of the British commander. Wash- 
ington, who regulated his movements by those of the 
enemy, had by this time, with the whole American 
army excepting the light infantry, which remained 
on the lines, taken a position behind Red Clay Creek, 
on the road leading directly from the enemy's camp 
to Philadelphia. The British rapidly advanced until 
they were within two miles of the Americans ; while 
Washington crossed the Brandywine, and took post 
on a height behind that river. At daybreak on the 
morning of the 11th it was ascertained that Sir Wil- 
liam Howe in person had crossed the Brandywine at 
the forks, and was rapidly marching down the north 
side of the river to attack the Americjiii army. The 
commander-in-chief now ordered General Sullivan 
to form the right wing to oppose the column of Sir 
William. General Wayne was directed to remain 
at Chadd's Ford with the left wing, to dispute the 
passage of the river with Knyphausen. General 
Greene, with his division, was posted as a reserve in 
the centre between Sullivan and Wayne, to re-enforce 
either, as circumstances might require. General 
Sullivan marched up the river, until he found favour- 
able ground on which to form his men ; his left was 
near the Brandywine, and both flanks were covered 
with thick wood. At half-past four o'clock, when 
his line was scarcely formed, the British, under 
Lord Cornwallis, commenced a spirited attack. The 
action was for some time severe ; but the American 
right, which was not properly in order when the as- 
sault began, at length gave way, and exposed the 
flank of the troops that maintained their ground to a 
destructive fire, and continuing to break from the 
right, the whole line finally gave way. As soon as 
the firing began. General Washington, with General 
Greene's division, hastened towards the scene of ac- 
tion, but before his arrival, Sullivan was routed, and 
the commanderinchief could only check the pursuit of 
the enemy, and cover the retreat of the beaten troops. 
During these transactions General Knyphausen as- 
saulted the works erected for the defence of Chadd's 
Ford, and soon carried them. General Wayne, by 
this time learning the fate of the other divisions, drew 
off his troops. General Washington retreated witli 
his whole force that night to Chester. The Ameri- 
can loss in this battle was about three hundred killed 
and six hundred wounded. Four hundred were 
made prisoners, but these chiefly of the wounded. 

Perceiving that the enemy were moving into the 
Lancaster-road, towards the city, General Washing- 
ton took possession of ground near the Warren ta- 
vern, on the left of the British, and twenty-three 
miles from Philadelphia. The protection of his 



256 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



stores at Reading was one object of this movement. 
The next morning he was informed of the approach 
of the British army. He immediately put his troops 
in motion to engage the enemy. The advance of the 
two hostile armies met and began to skirmish, when 
a violent storm came on, which prevented a general 
engagement, and rendered the retreat of the Ameri- 
cans absolutely necessary. The inferiority of the 
muskets in the hands of the American soldiery, 
which had been verified in every action, was stri- 
kingly illustrated in this retreat. The gun-locks 
being badly made, and the cartridge-boxes imperfectly 
constructed, this storm rendered most of the arms 
unfit for nse : and all the ammunition was damasfed. 
The army was in consequence extremely exposed, 
and their danger became the greater, as many of the 
soldiers were destitute of bayonets. Fortunately the 
tempest, which produced such serious mischief to the 
Americans, prevented the pursuit of the British. 
Washington still continued to make every effort to 
save the capital : but Sir William Howe, having se- 
cured tire command of the Schuylkill, on the 23d of 
September, crossed it with his whole army ; on the 
26th he advanced to Germantown ; and on the suc- 
ceeding day Lord Cornwallis, at the head of a strong 
detachment, entered Philadelphia in triumph. 

The American army, re-enforced to eight thousand 
continental troops and three thousand militia, took 
a position at Shippack Creek, on the east side of the 
Schuylkill, about twenty miles from Philadelphia, 
and sixteen from Germantown. At the latter place 
was posted the main body of the British army. The 
first object of Sir William Howe was to subdue the 
defences, and remove the impediments of the Dela- 
ware, that a communication might be opened with 
the British shipping. General Washington made 
every effort to prevent the execution of his enemy's 
design, in the hope of forcing General Howe out of 
Philadelphia, by preventing supplies of provisions 
from reaching him. Of the attainment of this im- 
portant object, he had no doubt, could the passage of 
the Delaware be rendered impracticable. For this 
purpose works had been erected on a bank of mud 
and sand in the river, near the confluence of the 
Schuylkill, and about seven miles below Philadelphia. 
The place, from these works, was denominated Fort 
Island, and the works themselves Fort Mifflin. On 
a neck of land on the opposite shore of New Jersey, 
called Red Bank, a fort was constructed and mount- 
ed with heavy artillery, and called Fort Mercer. 
Fort Island and Red Bank were distant from each 
other half a mile. In the channel of the Delaware, 
which ran between them, two ranges of chevaux-de- 



frise were sunk. These consisted of large pieces of 
timber, strongly framed together, and pointed Avith 
iron, and they completely obstructed the passage of 
ships. These works were covered by several gal- 
leys, floating batteries, and armed ships. 

Sir William Howe having detached a considerable 
force from Germantown to operate against the works 
on the Delaware, General Washington thought this 
a favourable opportunity to attack the British army 
in their cantonments. The line of the British en- 
campment crossed the village of Germantown at right 
angles, near its centre, and its flanks were strongly 
covered. The army, having moved from its ground 
about seven in the afternoon of the 3d of October, 
began an attack about sunrise the next morning. 
The advance of the column, led by Sullivan, and ac- 
companied by the commander in chief, encountered 
and drove in a picket, which presently gave way ; 
and his main body, soon following, engaged the light 
infantry and other troops encamped near the picket, 
and forced them from their ground. Though closely 
pursued. Lieutenant-colonel Musgrove, with six com- 
panies, took post in a strong stone house, which lay 
in the way of the Americans, and severely galled 
them by a fire of musketry from the doors and win- 
dows. General Washington immediately ordered a 
brigade to surround the house ; but Colonel Musgrove 
refused to surrender. Four pieces of cannon were 
brought against him, but he sustained the fire of them 
until Major-general Gray, with the third brigade, and 
Brigadier-general Agnew, with the fourth, came to 
his assistance, and attacked the Americans with great 
spirit. In the mean time General, Greene arrived with 
his column, and attacked the right wing of the British. 
Colonel Matthews routed- a party of the British op- 
posed to him ; but being enveloped in a most extra- 
ordinary fog, he lost sight of the brigade to Avhich he 
belonged, and was taken prisoner, with his \vhole 
regiment. At length a part of the right wing of the 
British attacked the Americans on the opposite side 
of the town ; and the embarrassments among the 
American troops, occasioned by the darkness, gave 
the English time to recover from their consternation. 
Sullivan's division had penetrated far into German- 
town ; but the main body of the American army now 
commenced a retreat, and all efforts to rally it proved 
ineffectual. In this battle the loss of the Americans, 
in killed, wounded, and prisoners, was not less than 
twelve hundred men, while that of the British did 
not exceed half that number. The American army 
encamped again on Shippack Creek, bixt soon after 
advanced to White Marsh, while the royal army re- 
moved from Germantown to Philadelphia. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



257 



The works in the Delaware now engaged the at- 
tention of the British and American generals. Lord 
Howe, by continued exertion, having overcome the 
obstructions which the Americans had placed in the 
river at Billingsport, a joint attack by sea and land 
was planned against Red Bank and Fort Island. The 
Augusta, a sixty-four gun ship, the Merlin frigate, 
and several small armed vessels, moved up the Dela- 
ware to assault the works on Fort or Mud Island. 
Count Donop crossed into New Jersey with twelve 
hundred Germans, and in the evening of the 22d ap- 
peared before Fort Mercer, on Red Bank. His as- 
sault was highly spirited, and the defence intrepid 
and obstinate. Colonel Green, the commandant, 
whose garrison did not exceed five hundred men, 
was unable adequately to man the outworks ; but 
he galled the Germans in their advance, and on their 
near approach he quitted them, and retired within 
the inner intrenchments. They pressed forward with 
undaunted bravery, and the Americans poured upon 
them a deadly fire. Count Donop was himself mor- 
tally wounded at the head of his gallant corps ; the 
second in command soon after fell, and the third im- 
mediately drew off his forces. The assailants had 
four hundred men killed and wounded, while the 
garrison, fighting under cover, had only thirty. In 
the mean time, Fort Mifflin was attacked by the 
shipping, and by batteries erected on the Pennsylva- 
nia shore. Incessant volleys of bombs and cannon 
balls were discharged upon it. But at ebb tide the 
Aitgusta and Merlin grounded, and were burnt. The 
garrison supported this tremendous fire without ma- 
terial injury. The resistance of the forts on the 
Delaware far exceeding the expectations of the Bri- 
tish commanders, they adopted measures to overcome 
it without the hazard of a second assault. They 
erected batteries upon Providence Island, within five 
hundred yards of the American fort. They also 
brought up tlieir shipping, gun-boats, &c., and from 
the 10th to the 16th of November, battered the Ame- 
rican works. By this time the defences were entirely 
beaten down, every piece of cannon was dismounted, 
and one of the ships approached so near Fort Mif- 
flin as to throw hand-grenades from her tops into it, 
which killed the men upon the platform. The brave 
garrison received orders to quit the post. Red Bank 
being no longer useful, its garrison and stores were 



• Thaeher's Military Journal, p. 107. 

t It has ever been a source of reproach against the British, that 
tiley employed the sanguinary Indians as their allies. The atro- 
cities they committed might be somewhat exaggerated by General 
Gates and others; but that instances did occur, to the disgrace of 
their civilized associates, cannot be denied. The melancholy case 
of Miss M'Crea will long be remembered. Captain Jones, her 



also withdrawn, on the approach of Lord Cornwallis 
with five thousand men to invest it. 

While these inauspicious operations were carriea 
on in the south, the northern portion of the country 
was a theatre of events ihnt more than countcrbnl 
anced them. A principal object of the British, in the 
campaign of this year, was to open a free communi- 
cation between New York and Canada. The British 
ministry were sanguine in their hopes, that, by cfl'ect- 
ing this object. New England, which they consider- 
ed as the soul of the confederacy, might be severed 
from the neighbouring states, and compelled to sub 
mission. In prosecution of this design, an army of 
British and German troops, amoiuiting to upwards of 
seven thousand men, exclitsive of artillery, was put 
under the command of Lieutenant-General Burgoyne, 
an enterprising and able officer. The plan of opera- 
tions consisted of two parts. General Burgoyne, 
with the main body, was to advance by way of Lake 
Champlain, and force his way to Albany, or, at least, 
so far as to efl'ect a junction with the royal army from 
New York; and Lieutenant-Colonel St. Lcgfer, with 
about two hundred British, a regiment of New York 
loyalists, raised and commanded by Sir John John- 
son, and a large body of Indians, was to ascend the 
St. Lawrence to Lake Ontario, and from that quarter 
to penetrate toward Albany, by the way of the Mo- 
hawk river. General Burgoyne arrived at Quebec 
in May. In the latter end of June he advanced with 
his army to Crown Point, and from thence proceeded 
to invest Ticonderoga, which was soon abandoned 
by the Americans, under General St. Clair, who, 
after a distressing march, joined General Schuyler 
at Fort Edward, on the river Hudson. General 
Burgoyne, having with incredible labour and fatigue 
conducted his army tlirough the wilderness from 
Skenesborough, reached Fort Edward on the 30th 
of July. As he approached tliat place, General 
Schuyler, whose forces, even since the junction of 
St. Clair, did not exceed four thousand four hundred 
men, retired over the Hudson to Saratoga. Early 
in August, St. Leger invested Fort Schuyler, and at 
first obtained some advantages over the Americans ; 
but, by stratagem,* the Indians were induced to desert 
him, and finding himself abandoned by seven or 
eiglit hundred of these important auxiliaries,! he de- 
camped in great confusion, and returned to Montreal. 



lover, an officer in the British army, anxious on her account, en- 
o-agcd some Indians, of two diflerent tribes, to convey her away 
from among the Americans, for the purpose of security; fearing 
for her, probably, on account of her father being interested in the 
royal cause, and of her attachment to himself Having promised 
to reward the person who should bring her safe to him with a bar- 
rel of rum, the two Indians, who had already conveyed her to sorni' 



25S 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



leaving; his tents, witli most of his artillery and stores, 
in the field. While St. Leger was thus unsuccessful 
at Fort Schuyler, a detachment under Colonel Baume, 

distauce, disputed which of Ihem should pie.^em to Captain Jones 
the object of his affection. Each wa^ anxious for the reward ; 
and that the other might not receive it, one of them killed her with 
a blow of his tomahawk. Upon the first intelligence of what had 
happened, Burgoyue obliged the Indians to deliver up the murder- 
er, and threatened to put him to death. Many thought the threat 
would have been e.'iecuted ; but he was pardoned, upon the Indians 
agreeing to terms enjoined them by Burgoyne, which the general 
thought would be more efficacious than an execution, to prevent 
kiniilar mischiefs. — Gordon, vol. ii. p. 514. 

The fate of this young woman has excited the sympathies of her 
friends, and the whole people of the United States. She was the 
daughter of James M'Crea, a clergyman of New Jersey, who died 
before the revolution. After her father's death, she resided with 
her brother, at Albany, who removed to the neighbourhood of Fort 
Edward. There are several versions of this story of blood; but 
the following is drawn from an examination of all of them. Au- 
gust, 1777, is stated to be the time of her death. 

She was a young lady twenty-three years of age, amiable and 
well educated. She was related to one of the American officers 
who was at Fort Edward, but on the alarm given by the retreat of 
the American army from the lakes, she had left her home for a 
.•■afe retreat in Fort Miller; but when the American forces thought 
it prudent to retire from that fortress to Vermont, she did not think 
proper to go with them, and returned to Sandy Hill, the place of 
her usual residence. Rumour after rumour soon reached her here 
of the approach oi* the Indians, and she knew not whither to fly. 
The whole country from the lakes was in great consternation, and 
she set out for Port Edward, with some other females. Her fears 
were increased, fur she felt no confidence in either side. She was 
on American ground, but was betrothed to an American, who had 
taken sides with the British, and had gone to Canada, where he 
was made captain of a company. The lovers had managed to 
keep up a correspondence, and he was informed, when he reached 
Fort Anne, that his inamorata was concealed in a house a few 
miles from Sandy Hill. To go there himself would be dangerous 
to both, as the woods were infe,sted with scouting parties of Ameri- 
can troops, and he, as a tory, would have been harshly dealt with, 
if taken by them ; but, to make all sure, he engaged a party of con- 
fidential Indians, to take his horse and go to her place of conceal- 
ment, and bring her to him in safety. The party reached the 
place, and she received the letter. He urged her in his letter not 
to hesitate a moment in putting herself under their protection, but 
she had some sad misgivings. The Indians had been a terror to 
that part of the country, and the tales she had heard in her child- 
hood, came thickly upon her distracted mind; but the voice of a 
lover is law to a confiding woman. 

She put herself under their guidance, and they had proceeded 
on their journey, she on horseback and they on foot, to near a small 
spring, which may now be seen, when they were met by another 
party of Indians, who had heard of the reward which her lover 
liad offered, or were sent by him, in his impatience to see her out 
of danger. A quarrel aiosc between the parties of Indians, which 
should have the reward, or at least how it should be shared, when 
an American scouting party came in sight, and coiumenced a brisk 
fire on the Indians, who were thus disputing. They instantly fled ; 
but, unwilling she should be taken by the scouting party, one of the 
Indians, while the others had fled to the bushes, pulled the girl 
from the horse, struck his tomahawk into her forehead, tore off 
her scalp, and gashed her breast, and left her under a. huge pine. 
The .scouting parly found her there in that situation, and they co- 
vered her body, and that of an American officer, who had just 
fallen by the fire of the Indians, as well as they could, with leaves 
and earth. Some one of the Indians, with their usual regard to 
truth, marie her lover acquainted with the facts, and another proved 
his assertions by exhibiting the scalp. He knew the long golden 
tresses of Miss M'Crea, and in defiance of all danger, flew to the 
Bpot, to realize the horrid tale. He tore away the thinly .spread 
leaves and earth, clasped the still bleeding body to his arms, and 



despatched to seize a large depot in New Hampshire 
Grants, was also defeated by a body of militia under 
General Stark.* Meanwhile, General Burgoyne, 

wrapping it in his cloak, bore it to the first wagon he could find, 
and there hid it from the sight of the world, until he could dispose 
of it according to his affections. The driver was bribed tosilence. 
The lover sat by the wagon all night, in a slate but little short of a 
quiet delirium, new and then rousing himself to a furious determi- 
nation to immolate the first Indian he could find ; but they were all 
in their lairs. The morning sun arose, and the wagon went on, he 
having determined to take the corse on with him to some spot hal- 
lowed by the graves of others, and there deposit the sacred relics of 
the beloved of his soul. But his neglect of duty, and strange de- 
meanor, caused him to be watched by his superior officers, who 
heard something of the rumour, and they discovered the secret, 
that the corse of Miss M'Crea was in the wagon. They instantly 
ordered the wagon to stop, and the corse to be buried by the way- 
side, kindly allon'ing Captain Jones to stay a few moments, " to see 
her decent limbs composed," and laid in the bosom of the earth, a 
coffin having been procured. The grave is about four miles from 
Fort Edward. 

Captain Jones, it is said, survived her but a few years; and this 
melancholy event is supposed to have brought him to the grave. 
Perhaps the tragical death of this amiable girl has given a degree 
of romance to her virtues and personal charms ; but it is agreed, 
by all who knew her, that she was amiable, virtuous, and accom- 
plished. The tomahawk and the scalping knife have nearly be- 
come extinct, as weapons of dread to the women and children of 
our favoured country. To our primitive mothers they were some- 
thing more than " air drawn daggers," creatures of the imagina- 
tion ; for on their blade and dudgeon were often real gouts of bluod. 
— Americnn Editor. 

* " The colonel was furnished with the following curious in- 
structions, which fell into the hands of General Stark: 'To pro- 
ceed to New Hampshire Grants, cross the mountains, scour the 
country, with Peter's corps (tories) and the Indians, from Rock- 
ingham to Otter Creek, to get hoises, carriages, and cattle, and 
mount Reidesel's regiment of diagoons; to go down Connecticut 
river as far as Bratlleborough, and return by the great road to Al- 
bany, there to meet General Burgoyne; to endeavour to make the 
country believe it was the advanced body of the general's army, 
who was to cross Connecticut river and proceed to Boston, and thai 
at Springfield they were to be joined by the troops from Rhode 
Island. All officers, civil and military, acting under the congress, 
were to be made prisoners. To lax the towns where they halted, 
with such articles as they wanted, and take hostages for the per- 
formance, &c. You are to bring all horses fit to mount the dra- 
goons, or to serve as battalion horses for the troops, with as many 
saddles and bridles as can be found. The number of horses re- 
quisite, besides those for the dragoons, ought to be thirteen hundred ; 
if you can bring more, so mucli the better. The horses must he 
tied in strings of ten each, in order that one man may lead ten 
horses.' This redoubtable commander surely must be one of the 
happiest men of the age, to imagine that such prodigious achieve- 
ments were at his command, — that such invaluable resources were 
within his grasp. But, alas! the wisest of men are liable to dis- 
appointment in their sanguine calculations, and to have tlieir fa- 
vourite projects frustrated by the casualties of war. This is re- 
markably verified in the present instance." — Thaeher's Military 
Journal, p. 109. 

Hinton has dismissed this battle, which deserves a volume, in 
less than three lines; for it was the prelude to the capture of Bur- 
goyne, an incident more important than any that occurred in the 
military history of our country. It settled the treatment of prison- 
ers, a great event in our warfare, and secured our independence. 
John Stark, the hero of this battle, was born at Londonderry, in the 
stale of New Hampshire, in the year 1728. When quite a young 
man, he was taken, while on a hunting excursion, by the St. Fran- 
cis Indians, and carried to Canada. From this captivity he was 
released by the payment of a ransom obtained from his friends. 
He went on hunting expeditions, after his return, in order to re- 
fund the sum paid for his deliverance. When the five companies 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



259 



having collected about thirty days' provision, and 
thrown a bridge of boats over the Hudson, crossed 
that river on the I3th and 14th of September, and 

of rangers were raised by Major Rogers, in 1755, Stark was ap- 
poinled a lieulenanl of a com|jany. Disliiiguishing himself in this 
body, he was made a captain, and increased his reputation by his 
prowess in every campaign. The history of the rangers is full of 
interest; they were the most hardy and invincible of soldiers en- 
gaged in a border war — the proper school for heroes. Prom the 
peace of 1763 to 75, Stark was engaged as a farmer; but hearing 
of the battle of Le.xington, he at once repaired to Cambridge. 
There receiving a commission as colonel, he hastened to raise a 
regiment in his native state, and was marching to join the army at 
Cambridge, when the battle of Bunker Hill was fought. He led 
his troops directly on to the hill, and took his position on the left 
of the breastwork, behind the rail fence. (See battle of Bunker 
Hill, page 225.) His bravery on this occasion was worthy of his 
former reputation. In the campaign of 1776, he proceeded from 
New York to Canada. At the battle of Trenton, he commanded 
the right wing, and was also at Princeton. 

Being overlooked, in a promotion of officers, in the spring of 
1777, he retired from the service of the confederation, to his farm. 
In July of that year, he accepted the command of the New Hamp- 
shire troops, on condition that he should not be obliged to serve 
under any continental officer^ and marched to Vermont, to be in 
readiness to assist in checking Burgoyne in his progress toward 
Albany, where it was supposed the British army expected to 
wintei'. His troops were at Bennington when he received in- 
formation that a German force had been detached by the British 
commander in chief to collect cattle and forage. He lost no time 
in meeting the enemy, and with success. Many accounts of this 
memorable alfair have been given by our historians ; we shall sub- 
join an interesting description of that battle, from the pen of one of 
the officers under Count Baum. It is true in all its general fea- 
tures, and is a compliment to the bravery of General Stark and 
his array. For this fight. Stark received the thanks of eongre.ss, 
and was appointed a brigadier-general by that body; and recruit- 
ing a new force, was in season to assist in the capture of Burgoj'ne. 
General Stark continued in the army until the revolutionary con- 
flict was over, and then retired to his farm again. He enjoyed a 
green old age, living until he was ninety-three years old. He died 
in 1822, and over his ashes a monument has been erected by his 
family. He was a man of robust constitution, and of great firm- 
ness of character. He was brave, honest, and direct. He spoke 
what he thought, without the fear of any one. His mansion was 
as hospitable as a free heart and liberal hand could make it. To 
the last years of his life he conversed upon the events of the revo- 
lution with energy and patriotism. He detailed his border fights 
with graphic minuteness. He abhorred hypocris}' and cowardice, 
and denounced these vices in no measured terms. This race of 
soldier-patriarchs, who led their sons and sent out their grandsons 
to battle, have now become nearly e.xtincl. — American Editor. 

The great object which General Burgoyne sought to obtain, was 
to force his way down the course of the Hudson, and rallying round 
him, as he proceeded, as many loyalists as chose to follow his for- 
tunes, to effect a junction with the army of General Howe, then 
blockaded in New York. To facilitate this measure, by distract- 
ing the attention of the enemy, a smaller expedition, under the 
orders of Colonel St. Leger, had been organized, which, moving 
through the western part of Chester county, threatened Fort Sian- 
wix, a rudely fortified station upon the Mohawk. Colonel St. Le- 
ber's force was extremely weak, particularly in troops of the line, 
of which no more than four hundred, and those composed of de- 
tachments from different regiments, served under him; and the 
whole, including provincials, Canadians, and some hundreds of In- 
dians, barely came up to twelve hundred men. He pushed forward, 
however, with diligence, and on the third of August invested the 
fortress, sending intelligence, at the same time, to the general in 
chief, of his situation ; and in two days afterwards he had the good 
fortune to surprise and cut to pieces a body of eight hundred Ame- 
ricans, when on their march to relieve the garrison. So far all 
things had succeeded according to our wish ; but Colonel St. Leger 



encamped on the heights and plains of Saratoga. 
General Gates, who had recently taken the chief 
command of the northern department of the Ameri- 

gradually found, that in the expectations which he had been led lo 
form respecting the loyally of the inhabitants of the invaded 
district, the grossest impositions had been practised on him. In- 
stead of crowds of volunteers, scarcely an individual came to his 
camp; and of the few who did come, it was more than suspected, 
that by far the greater proportion came with a treacherous in- 
tention. 

That these advantages, trifling as they were, might not be wholly 
wasted, it became incumbent on Gen. Burgoyne to advance without 
delay ; whilst the deplorable deficiency in the means of transjiort 
under which he laboured, seemed to render all attempts at moving 
the army fruitless. Though our troops had toiled without .'rler- 
mission during three whole weeks, there was in comp no greater 
stock of provisions than promised lo suffice for four days' con- 
sumption ; and to move forward with a supply so slender, into a 
desert country, appeared lo a leader of the old school little better 
than insanity. 1 have called it a desert country, not only with re- 
ference to its natural sterility, — and heaven knows it was stfiU 
enough, — but because of the pains which were taken, and unfoi in- 
nately with too great success, to sweep its few cultivated spots of 
all articles likely ;o benefit the invaders. In doing this, the eiieniy 
showed no clemency either to friend or foe. All the fields of 
standing corn were laid waste, the cattle were driven away, and 
every particle of grain, as well as morsel of grass, carefully re- 
moved ; so that we could depend for sub.sistence, both for men and 
horses, only upon the magazines which we might ourselves establish. 
But our draft animals were so inadequate to the conveyance cf 
stores, that no magazine had as yet been formed farther in advance 
than Fort George ; and Fort George was too much in the rear to be 
of service as a base of operations, after we should have quitted the 
position which we now- occupied. 

I have said that the American armv retreated as we advanced, 
cutting up the roads, and devastating the face of the coiinliy over 
which they passed. They were now, according lo the best ac- 
counts which we could receive, at Saratoga, a hamlet, or ralhcr 
farm, on the left bank of the Hudson, and about halfway helween 
Fort Edward and the Mohawk. It seemed advisable to Gcneiid 
Burgoyne to threaten them there : for if they risked on aclion, ha 
had no apprehensions as to the result; if they retired, Colonel St. 
Leger would be in their rear; and should they succeed in escaping 
both divisions, then was the road to Albany thrown open, and the 
principal design of the inroad attained. Increased exertions were 
accordingly used to bring a flotilla iVom the lakes to the nearest 
navigable point in the river; and so unremitiing were they, ihat 
before the close of the first week in August, a considerable iiuniljcr 
of boats and barges, laden with such stores as could be forwarded, 
were launched upon the stream, and ready to accompany the army. 

Whilst these projects were in conlemplaiion, and the above 
means adopted for bringing them to an i.ssue, a piece of informa- . 
tion was obtained at head-quarters, which promised to bring about 
the happiest results, by relieving us at once from all the embarrass- 
ments attendant upon meagre .nipplies and inadequate means of 
transport. About twenty miles to the eastwardof theHudson.lies the 
obscure village of Bennington— a cluster of poor cottages, situated 
in a wild country, between the forks of the Hossac. Here the 
enemy had gathered together a considerable depot of cattle, com, 
horses, and wheel carriages, most of which were drawn across lli'.> 
Connecticut river from the provinces of New England :^and as it 
was understood to be guarded by a party of mililia only, an at- 
tempt to suj-prise it seemed by no means unjustifiable. It is true, 
that between Fort Edward and Bennington, the means of commu- 
nicatinn were exceedingly defective. One prodigious forest, .bot- 
tomed in swamps and morasses, covered the -nhole face of the 
country; through which, no body of men, unless familiarly accus- 
tomed to such expeditions, could hope to make their way, at all 
events with celerity. But the necessities of the army were press- 
in"- • the state of the campaign was a critical one; and the risk, 
though doubtless great, -was considered by no means to outweigh 
the advantages to be derived from success. General Burgoyne 



260 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



can army, advanced toward the British, and en- 
camped three miles above Stillwater. On the night 
of the 17lli, Burgoyne encamped within four miles 

determined to incur it; and a few hours sufficed for the final ar- 
rangement of his plan, and drawing up of his instructions. 

There were attached to our litlle army, two hundred German 
dragoons ; men of tried valour and enterprise, but destitute of 
horses. These the general selected as part of the force to be em- 
ployed in the surprise of Bennington ; not only because he enler- 
t.ained the most perfect confidence in tlieir steadiness, but because 
he conceived, that in the country into which they were about to 
penetrate, they might he able to pick up a sufficient number of 
horses for their own use. In addition to these, the Canadian ran- 
chers, a detachment of provincials, about one hundred Indians, and 
Caplain Fraser's marksmen, with two pieces of light cannon, were 
allotted to this service; and the whole, amounting lo five hundred 
men, were placed under the orders of Lieutenant Colonel Baume. 
The latter officer received special instructions to proceed with ex- 
treme caution. He was particularly enjoined to keep his dragoons 
together, and to feel his way, foot by foot, vi'ith his light troops 
alone ; and whilst it was broadly insinuated that he might look for 
recruits among the well disposed inhabitants, the greatest care was 
taken to impress him with the conviction, that they were not to be 
implicitly trusted. It would have been well both for himself and 
his followers, had these advices been somewhat more carefully re- 
membered. But there was a fatality attending all our measures, 
which soon began to develope itself; and perhaps the fate of the 
present expedition ought to have been taken as a fair warning of 
.the destiny which awaited the army at large. 

Though all these arrangements were completed, and the troops 
destined to fulfil them told off so early as the beginning of August, 
the middle of the month was approaching ere this attempt, on the 
success of which so much was supposed to depend, was made. 
Perhaps there was no great error here, more especially as the co- 
lumn broke up from its bivouac, and advanced to the point where 
the Hudson was fo be crossed. It was a toilsome and a tedious 
march — a little, and but a little enlivened, by a harmless skirmish, 
which some straggling Americans chose to maintain with our de- 
tached Indians. After enduring great privations with a spirit which 
failed not to the last, our army at length reached its destined rest- 
ing place, and took up a position on the eastern bank of the Hud- 
son, immediately opposite to the heights of Saratoga. 

This done, and the enemy having withdrawn as far as Still- 
water, the general proceeded to carry into execution his project- 
ed design against Bennington. At an early hour in the morning 
of the I2th, our little band, unincumbered with any quantity of 
baggage besides that which each man could conveniently carry 
upon his back, set ofl^ in the direction of Batten Kill, where it ar- 
rived, without meeting with any adventure, by four o'clock in the 
afternoon. Here we halted for the night, by which means a com- 
pany of fifty chasseurs overtook us, whom General Burgoyne, dis- 
irttstful of our strength, sent to re-enforce us : but at five next 
morning, we were again in motion, and pushed cautiously, though 
with a quick pace, in the direction of Cambridge. Our journey 
this day proved in many respects more interesting than any which 
we had performed since the pursuit from Ticonderoga. The 
country, as we advanced, exhibited greater signs of cultivation, a 
field or two interposing here and there amidst the plains, and a few 
detached cottages lying by the wayside ; whilst several of the coun- 
try people vol^intarily joined us, and took the oalh of allegiance to 
llie king. From them we learned that a company of Americans 
had been left in Cambridge as a guard over some cattle which were 
on their way to Bennington ; and as it was deemed of importance 
to seize such, wherever they could be found, our scouts were com- 
manded to quicken their pace, and surprise them. 

I was not one of the party thus sent forward, that duly having 
been entrusted to thirty provincials and fifty Indians ; but the latter 
attained their object after a trifling skirmish, in which one man 
only was wounded. Nothing co\ild be finer than the efltct pro- 
duced by the desultory firing which was kept up on that occasion 
by the retreating enemy and our pursuers. It so happened that the 
point where they first met, though covered with a deep and ex- 



of the American army ; and about noon on the 19th 
advanced in full force against it. The right wing 
was commanded by General Burgoyne, and covered 

tensive forest, was not incumbered by brush wood or other deafen- 
ing substances ; and hence each report, as it rolled from tree to 
tree and glade to glade, sounded as if not one, but fiuy muskels, 
had been fired. You will easily believe that the first discharge 
caused us to quicken our pace, and to recover our ranks, which 
had begun to straggle ; but no opportunity was afibrded us of join- 
ing. The enemy fought only to escape; and hence, when we 
reached Cambridge, we found it in full occupation of our advance, 
which had made prizes of no inconsiderable quantity of carls and 
wagons, as well as of cattle and horses. 

The satisfaction arising from this first success was not, however, 
so great as lo render us indilferent to the nature of the inlelligence 
which met us there. Instead of four or five hundred men, it w.as 
accurately ascertained that not fewer ihan eighteen hundred were 
in Bennington; and though some appeared to be of opinion tl.at 
they would not wait to receive us, there were others who scrnphd 
not to foretel a widely different result. Now, in spile of our lale 
re-enforcement, our whole strength fell considerably short of six 
hundred men ; and uf these, a fnll hundred were Indians, on whom 
no great reliance could be placed.. Still, Colonel Eaume appeared" 
to consider his situation secure. He spoke, as far as we could un- 
derstand him, in very contemptuous terms of the Americans, and 
busily employed himself in receiving the submission of (lie inhabit- 
ants, who in great numbers flocked to his standard. Unforlunaie- 
ly. Colonel Baume forgot the cautions which had been so strongly 
impressed upon him. He considered all persons sincere who pro- 
fessed attachment to the royal cause ; alluding in their presence, 
and without reserve, both to his own numbers and designs; and as 
by far the greater proportion were in reality traitors lo lis, every 
circumstance connected with our dispositions and plans became as 
well known to the enemy as lo ourselves. 

It was their leader's intention lo march at once upon Benniiig- 
lon ; for which purpose his little corps was under arms and in co- 
lumn, long before sunrise on the 14lh. For some time our pm- 
gress was, as it had hitherlo been, unimpeded ; but as we ajiproach- 
ed the northern branch of the Hossac, by the farm and bridge of 
Sankoick, the arrangemenis of the enemy began gradually to de- 
velope themselves. 

A flying party of Americans were discovered in front of the 
farm, which, on the approach of our people, spread themselvi.s 
along the underwood ; and they were not dislodged till after a good 
deal of firing, which caused us some loss in several of ihe mo.st 
forward among the savages. At last, however, they retreated, 
abandoning a mill which they had previously fortified, and break- 
ing down the bridge; and long before the latler could be repaired, 
they were safe from further molestation. There was a good deal 
to excite apprehension even in this unimportant renrontie. The 
Americans, though they gave way at last, fought like men con- 
scious of their own prowess, and confident in the strength of the 
support which was behind them; and this, coupled with the ru- 
mours which had reached us relative to the amount of tlie gari isi n 
of Bennington, failed not to startle both Colonel Baume and the 
boldest of his troops. Besides, much time was lost by the desinic- 
tion of the bridge. It required a full hour so far lo repair it as lo 
enable Ihe guns and horses to pass; and when this was done, I he 
day had declined so far as to render any attempt lo reach Ihe point 
of our destination before sunset fruitless. We accordingly biv<iU- 
acked at the farm of Walmscott, about four miles from Sankoick, 
and three from Benninglon ; where the night was spent, if not in 
a sense of absolute security, at all events without the occurrence 
of any accident capable of exciting alarm. 

The morning of Ihe 15th came in with hea\T rains, and a per- 
fect hurricane of wind ; conseqtienlly, Ihe little column, insie.nd of 
pressing forward, was fain to keep under shelter of the farm build- 
ing. But it was not permitted to remain long in a situation so 
comfortable. Our early parade had just been dismi.-i.sed, when ;. 
few shots in the direction of the advanced sentries gave notice thai 
the Americans, instead of waiting to be attacked, were on the 
move ; and in a few minutes afterwards, a general commotion at 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



261 



by General Fraser and Colonel Breyman, with the 
grenadiers and light infantry, who were posted along 

The front and 



some high grounds on the right 



Ihe outposts, indicated more by the shouts of the Indians than the 
report of tlieir arms, warned us to make ready for an immediate 
attack. Colonel Baume lost no lime in preparing to meet it. 
Forming his dismounted dragoons in close column among the 
homestead, he directed the provincials, supported by Fraser's 
marksmen, to advance to the assistance of the pickets, with orders 
to dispute every inch of ground to the utmost, and finally to retire 
upon the reserve, should all their efforts to maintain themselves 
prove ineffectual. 

In an instant we were in motion, and a few minutes sufficed lo 
bring us to the scene of action. We found our Indians threatened, 
rather than seriously as.sailed, by a considerable body of militia 
men, before whom they were falling back, leisurely and in order ; 
but Mich was the violence of the storm, that not one out of a dozen 
muskets would explode, and hence the skirmish was neither very 
animated nor very bloody. On seeing us, our savage allies uttered 
a yell, which seemed to strike panic into the bo.soms of their as- 
sailants: for the latter instantly paused, hung back as it were ir- 
resolute, and hnally retired. We followed for a time, briskly and 
impetuously ; but we likewise felt the bad effects of the weather too 
much to seek a general engagement; and as the movements of Ihe 
enemy seemed to indicate a wish on their parts lo draw us on, we 
were of course exlreinely shy in trusting ourselves beyond our own 
limits. We accordingly hailed as soon as we had recovered the 
ground which the savages had lost, and, lying down behind the 
trees, contented ourselves with watching the result during many 
hours, and striving, as well as we could, lo keep the priming of our 
rifles from the rain. 

Whether the Americans ever entertained any serious intention 
of attacking this day, 1 cannot pretend to determine; but if they 
did, the statue of Ihe weather compelled them lo relinquish it. Yet 
they ventured to advance, from time lo time, in considerable num- 
bers, as if resolved to try how far our position was tenable; and 
on each occasion a little firing look place ; but no impression was 
made upon us, and the rain conlinuing to fall without intermission, 
Ihey at last desislcd from their efforts, and ivithdrew. Their pro- 
ceedings were not, however, of a nature to be disregarded, or held 
in contempi, hy a force so insignificant as ours. Colonel Baume 
immediately despalched a messenger to the rear, for the purpose of 
bringing up an additional corps wliich General Burgoyne had sta- 
tioned at Batten Kill to support us; whilst he set sedulously to the 
task of fortifying a position in which he might await the coming 
up of supplies, of which he began now to be conscious that he stood 
in need. 

The farm of Walmscoll lies upon both hanks of the Hossac, and 
consisted at this time of some six or eighl log built huts, scattered 
here and there over the narrow expanse of cultivated ground. 
To the left was a height, which Colonel Baume hastened to occu- 
py : he posted here the dragoons, with a portion of the marksmen 
on their right, in rear of a little zigzag breastwork, composed of 
logs and loose earth. Such of ihe detached houses as came within 
the compass of his position, he filled with Canadians, supporting 
them with detachments of chasseurs and grenadiers, likewi.se en- 
trenched behind breastworks ; and he kept the whole, with the ex- 
ception of about a hundre<l men, on the north side of the stream, 
holding the woods upon his flanks, in his front and rear, by the In- 
dians. 

To complete these arrangements, and throw up the few works 
which were to render them efficient, occupied Ihe entire day, and 
some portion of the night of the X5th; and seldom have men un- 
dergone hardships more severe than our people endured whilst thus 
employed. Lei it be borne in mind, that the 15th was a day of 
continued rain ; not such rain as we are accustomed to witness in 
this country, but an absolute torrent, to afford shelter against which 
human ingenuity has yet devised no covering. Under this, the 
men toiled on, the earth which they threw up being repeatedly 
washed down again, and the holes and ditches which they dug out 
filled in a moment, and so rendered worse than useless. But their 
paliepce equalled the difficulties which it was called tipon to sur- 



flanks were covered by Indians, provincials, and Cti- 
nadians. The l^ft wing and artillery were com- 
manded by Major-Generals Phillips and Reidesel, 



mount. Each man fell, too, that he was labouring for his own 
personal safety, not less than for the benefit of the whole ; and all 
were, in consequence, inspired with a principle of perfect heroisin 
and self-devotion. Poor fellows! their spirit and perseverance 
were, on the present occasion, of little avail. They sufficed, in- 
deed, lo save their possessors from dishonour, and enabled them lo 
sell their lives dearly; but they were quite inadequate lo secure 
victory, or even to ward off defeat. 

As soon as darkess fairly set in, our corps, which had kept its 
station on Ihe opposite side of Ihe stream, was silenlly willidrawn, 
and took ground beside Reidesel's dragoons, on Ihe little hill 
above alluded to. There we passed the night," not very coniforia- 
bly, as maybe well supposed, seeing that no fires were lighled,and 
Ihal we were all impressed with a powerful sense of inipen(1ing 
danger; but if there was an absence of mirth from amongst u.-. 
Ihere was no approximalion to terror ; for we held our own valour 
at the highest, and rated Ihat of our opponents somewhat loo cheap- 
ly. Yet there were few amongst us that slept very soundly. We 
could not but remember, that we were cut off, by a wide tract of 
desolate country, from all coinmunication with our friends, and 
exposed to attacks on every side from a numerous enemy ; and the 
whoop which ihe savages raised from lime to time, as' well as an 
occasior-1 musket shot, gave notice, Ihat even now that enemy w'os 
not inactive. Our anxiety for ihe return of day was greater by far 
than perliaps any of us would hjve been willing lo acknowledge, 
even to his dealest friend; and the feeling of satisfaclion was ge- 
neral, when the gradual reddening of ihe eastern sky denoted that 
it was fast approaching. 

The morning of the IClh rose beautifully serene. The storm of 
the preceding day having expended itself, not a cloud was left lo 
darken the face of the heavens; whilst the very leaves hung mo- 
tionless, and the long grass waved not, under the influence of a 
perfect calm. Every ohjcct around, too, appeared lo peculiar ad- 
vanlage ; for the fields looked green and refreshed, Ihe river wn.s 
swollen and lumulluous, and ihe branches were all loaded wiih 
dew-drops, which gliltered in the sun's early rays like so many 
diamonds. Nor would it be ea.sy to imagine any scene more rile 
with peaceful and even pastoral beauty. Looking down f-om the 
summit of the rising ground, I beheld immediately benralh me a 
wide sweep of stately forest, interrupted at remote intervals by 
green meadows or yellow corn fields; whilst here and there a col- 
lage, a shed, or some other primitive edifice, reared its modest hend 
as if for Ihe purpose of reminding the spectator, that man liad be- 
gun his inroads upon nature, without as yet taking away fiom hei 
simplicity and grandeur. I hardly recollect a scene which slrucli 
me at Ihe moment more forcibly, or which has left a deeper oi 
more lasting impression on my memory. 

I have said ihat the morning of the 16th roce beautifully serene ; 
and it is not to the operations of the elements alone that my expics- 
sion apjilies. All was perfectly quiet at the oulposis, not an entniy 
having been seen, nor an alarming sound heard, for several hours 
previous to sunrise. So peaceable, indeed, was the aspect which 
mailers bore, that our leaders felt w-armly disposed to resume the 
offensive, without wailing Ihe arrival of Ihe additional corj's fur 
which they had applied ; and orders were already issued for the 
men to eat their breakfasts, preparatory lo more active operations. 
But the arms were scarcely piled, and the havresacks iinslung, 
when symptoms of a stale of affairs diflereni from that which had 
been anticipated, began lo show themselves, and our people were 
recalled to their ranks in all hasle, almost as soon as they had 
quilled them. From more than one quarter scouts came in to le- 
port,that columns of armed men were approaching though whether 
with a friendly or hostile inlention, neither their appearance nor 
actions enabled our informants to ascertain. 

It has been slated, Ihat during Ihe last day's march our little 
corps was joined by many of the country people ; most of whom 
demanded and obtained arms, as persons friendlj lo the loyalcnuse. 
How Colonel Baume became so completely duped as to place leli- 
anee on these men, I kiiow not ; but having listened with compla- 



262 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



who proceeded along the great road. Colonel Mor- 
gan, who was detached to observe their motions, and 
to harass them as they advanced, soon fell in with 



ccncy to iheir previous assurances, that in Bennington a large ma- 
jority of the populace were our friends, he was somehow or other 
persuaded to believe, that the armed hands of whose approach he 
was warned, were hiyalists on their way to make a tender of their 
services to the leader of the king's troops. Filled with this idea, 
he despatched positive orders to the outposts, that no molestations 
should be offered to the advancing columns; but that the pickets 
retiring before them should join the main body, where every dispo- 
sition was made to receive cither friend or foe. Unfortunately for 
us, these orders were but too failhfully obeyed. About half past 
nine o'clock, I, who was not in the secret, beheld,, to my utier 
amazement, our advanced parties withdraw wiihout firing a shot, 
from thickets which might have been maintained for hours against 
any superiority of nu)nbers; and the same thickets quickly occu- 
pied by men, whose whole demeanour, as well as their dress and 
style of equipment, plainly and inconiestably pointed them out as 
Americans. 

I cannot pretend to describe the state of excitation and alarm, into 
which our little band was now thrown. With the solitary e.vcep- 
tion of our leader, there was not a man amonsst us who appeared 
otherwise than satisfied that those to whom he had listened were 
traitors; and that unless some prompt and vigorous measures were 
adopted, their treachery would be crowned with its full reward. 
Captain Fraser, in particular, seemed strongly imbued with the 
conviction, that we were wilfully deceived. He poinjed out, in 
plain language, the extreme improbability of the story which these 
deserters had told, and warmly urged our chief to withdraw his 
confidence from them ; but all his arguments proved fruitless. 
Colonel Bauine remained convinced of their fidelity. He saw no 
renson to doubt that the people who.se approach excited so much 
apprehension, were the same of whose arrival he had been fore- 
warned ; and he was prevented from placing himself entirely in 
their power, only by the positive refusal of his followers to obey 
orders given to that etTecl, and the rash impetuosity of the enemy. 
We might have stood about half an hour under arm.s, watching 
the proceedings of a column of four or five hundred men, who, 
afler dislodging the pickets, had halted just at the edge of the open 
country, when a sudden trampling of feet in the forest on our right, 
followed by the report of several muskets, attracted our attention. 
A patrol was instantly sent in the direction of the sound; Inn be- 
fore the party composing it had proceeded many yards from the 
lines, a loud shout, followed by a rapid though straggling (ire of 
inuskelry, warned us to prepare for a meeting the reverse of friend- 
ly. Instantly the Indians came pouring in, carrying dismay and 
confusion in their countenance and gestures. We were surrounded 
on all sides; columns were advancing everywhere against us, and 
those whom we had hitherto treated as friends, had only waited till 
the arrii'al of their support might justify them in advancing. There 
was no falsehood in these reports, though made by men who spoke 
rather from their fears than their knowledge. The column in our 
front no sooner heard the shout, than they replied cordially and 
loudly to it; then, firing a volley with deliberate and murderous 
aim, rushed furiously towards us. Now ihen, at length, our leader's 
dreams of security were dispelled. He found himself attacked in 
front and flank by thrice his numbers, who pressed forward with 
the confidence which our late proceedings were calculated to pro- 
duce; whilst the very persons in whom he had iriisled, and to 
whom he had given arms, lost no time in turning them against him. 
These fellows no sooner heard their comrades cry, than they de- 
liberately discharged their muskets amongst Reidesel's dragoons; 
and dispersing before any steps could he taken to seize them, esca- 
ped, with the exception of one or two, to their friends. 

If Colonel Baume had permitted himself to be duped into a great 
error, it is no more than justice to confess, that he exerted himself 
manfully to remedy the evil, and avert its consequences. Our little 
band, which had hitherto remained in column, was instantly ordered 
to extend, and the troops lining the breastwork replied to the fire 
of the Americans with extreme celerity and considerable effect. So 
close and destructive, indeed, was our first volley, that the assail- 



their pickets in front of their right wing, attacked 
them sharply, and drove them in. A strong corps 
was brought up to support them, and, after a severe 

ants recoiled before it, and would have retreated, in all probabilily, 
within the wood ; but ere we could take advantage of the confu- 
sion produced, fresh attacks developed themselves, and we ivcre 
warmly engaged on every side, and from all quarters. It became 
evident that each of our detached posts was about to be assailed at 
the same instant. Not one of our dispositions had been concealed 
from the enemy, who, on the contrary, seemed to be aware of the 
exact number of men stationed at each point; and they were one 
and all threatened by a force perfectly adequate to bear down op- 
position, and yet by no means disproportionably large, or such as 
to render the main body inefficient. All, moreover, was done «ith 
the sagacity and coolness of veterans, who perfectly undcrslooil the 
nature of the resistance to be expected, and the difficulties to he 
overcome, and who, having well considered and matured their 
plans, were resolved to carry them into execution at all hazard.s, 
and at every expense of life. 

It «'as at this moment, when the heads of columns began to show 
themselves in rear of our right and left, that the Indians, who had 
hitherto acted with spirit, and something like order, lost all confi- 
dence, and f!ed. Alarmed at the prospect of having their retreat 
cut off, they stole away, after their own fashion, in single files, 
in .spite of the strenuous remonstrances of Baume, and of their 
own oflScers, leaving us more than ever exposed, by the abandon- 
ment of that angle of the intrenchments which they had been aj)- 
pointed to maintain. But even this spectacle, distressing as It 
doubtless was, failed in affecting our people with a feeling at all 
akin to despair. The vacancy which the retreat of the savages oc- 
casioned, was promptly filled up by one of our two field-pieces, 
whilst the other poured destruction among the enemy in front, as 
often as they showed themselves in the open country, or Ihrealcrcd 
to advance. 

In this state things continued upwards of three quarters of an 
hour. Though repeatedly assailed in front, flanks, and rear, ve 
maintained ourselves with so much obstinacy, as to inspire a hope 
that the enemy might even j'et be kept at bay till the arrival of 
Ereyman's corps, now momentarily expected , when an accident 
occurred, which at once put an end to this e.xpeciation, and cs 
posed us, almost defenceless, to our fate. The solitary tumbril 
which contained the whole of our spare ammunition, became igni- 
ted, and blew up with a violence, which shook the very ground 
under our feet, and caused a momentary cessation in firing, both 
on our side and that of the enemy. But the cessation was only lov 
a moment. The American officers, gne-^sing the extent of our ca. 
lamity, cheeied their men on to fresh exertions. They luslicd uf 
the ascent with redoubled ardour, in spite of the heavy volley which 
we poured in to check them ; and finding our guns silent, lliey 
sprang over the parapet, and dashed within our works. For a few- 
seconds the scene which ensued defies all power of language to He. 
scribe. . The bayonet, the butt of the rifle, the sabre, the pike, v eie 
in full play; and men fell, as they rarely fall in modern war, under 
the direct blows of iheir enemies. But such a struggle coulil not, 
in the nature of things, be of long continuance. Outnumbered, 
broken, and somewhat disheartened by late events, our people wa- 
vered, and fell back, or fought singly and unconneclcdly, till they 
were either cut down at their posts, obstinately defending them- 
selves, or compelled to surrender. Of Reidesel's dismounted 
dragoons, few survived to tell how nobly they had behaved ; Co- 
lonel Baume, shot through the body by a rifle bail, fell mortally 
wounded ; and all order and discipline being lost, flight, or submis- 
sion, was alone thought of For my own part, whether the feeling 
arose from desperation or accident I cannot tell, but I resolved not 
to be taken. As yet I had escaped almost unhurt, a slight flesh 
wound in the left arm having alone fallen to my share; and 
gathering around me about thirty of my comrades, we made a rush 
where the enemy's ranks appeared weakest, and burst thrcngh 
This done, each man made haste to shift for himself, wiihoul 
pausing to consider the fate of his neighbour ; and losing one lliird 
of our number from the enemy's fire, the remainder look refuge 
in groups of two or three, within the forest. — Glick. 



m 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



2f)3 



encounter, Morgan was compelled to give way ; but 
;i regiment was ordered to assist him, and the action 
became more general. The commanders on both 
sides supported and re-enforced their respective par- 
ties; and about four o'clock, Arnold, with nine conti- 
nental regiments and Morgan's corps, Avas completely 
engaged with the whole right wing of the British army. 
The engagement began at three o'clock in the after- 
noon, and continued till after sunset, when the Ame- 
ricans thought proper to retire, and leave the British 
masters of the field of battle. The loss on each side 
was nearly equal, six hundred being killed and 
wounded on the part of the British, and the same 
number on the side of the Americans. No advan- 
tages resulted to the British troops from this encoun- 
ter ; while the conduct of the Americans fully con- 
vinced everyone, "that they were able to sustain an 
attack in open plains with the intrepidity, the spirit, 
and the coolness of veterans. For four hours they 
maintained a contest hand to hand ; and when they 
retired, it was not because they were conquered, but 
because the approach of night made a retreat to their 
camp absolutely necessary."* Both armies lay some 
time in sight of each other, each fortifying its camp 
in the strongest manner possible. Meanwhile, the 
difficulties of the British general were daily increa.s- 
ing ; his auxiliary Indians deserted him soon after 
the battle of Stillwater ; and his army, reduced to 
little more than five thousand men, was limited to 
half the usual allowance of provisions ; the stock of 
forage also was en#rely exhausted, and his horses 
were perishing in great numbers ; the American 
army had become so augmented as to render him 
diffident of making good his retreat ; and, to aggra- 
vate his distress, no intelligence had yet been received 
of the approach of General Clinton, or of any diver- 
sion in his favour from New York. In this exigen- 

* Steadman, vol. i. p. 337. 

+ Burg'oyne had, on his entrance into the territory of New York, 
published a manifesto, which did not evince that good taste for 
which the general had been distinguished ; but probably he mistook 
the taste and feelings of those he came to subdue. This manifesto 
was answered by Washington in a very forcible manner. This 
answer contains satire and argument conveyed in the most elegant 
language. Its spirit is also fine and bold; the gasconade of the 
English commander is met with manly defiance, and he was worsted 
before the battle commenced, in a w'ay he hardly expected. Bur- 
goyne was said lo have been a natural son of Lord Bingley ; some, 
however, think that he had still more impoitant relations. In 1762, 
he had a command in Portugal. After his return to England, he 
was chosen a member of parliament, and became a privy counsel- 
lor. Gallant, gay, learned, eloquent, and in the full sunshine of 
patronage, he had taken the command of the northern army, and 
indulged the hope of a brilliant campaign. The fates were against 
him, and he was obliged to give up all his splendid visions of glory, 
and prepare to defend himself before his king and country. In 
this he was able; and one would think that he had offered a suf- 
ficient excuse for every thing but his ignorance of the foe he was 
to meet, and his staying so long on 'he frontiers after St. Clair's 

34 



cy, General Bargoyne resolved to examine the pos- 
sibility of dislodging the Americans from their posts 
on the left, by which means he would be enabled to 
retreat to the lakes, p'or this purpose he drew out 
fifteen hundred men, which he headed himself, at- 
tended by Generals Phillips, Eeidesel, and Fraser. 
This detachment had scarcely formed, within less 
than half a mile of the American intrenchments, 
when a furious attack was made, which, though 
bravely resisted, was decidedly to the advantage of 
the assailants. General Burgoyne now became con- 
vinced that it Avas impossible to conduct any further 
offensive operations, and endeaA-oured to make good 
his retreat to Fort George. Artificers Avere accord- 
ingly despatched, under a strong escort, to repair the 
bridges, and open the roads, but they Avere compelled 
to make a precipitate retreat. The situation of Ge- 
neral Burgoyne becoming every hour more hazard- 
ous, he resolved to attempt a retreat by night to 
Fort Edward ; but even this retrograde movement 
Avas rendered impracticable. While the army Avas 
preparing to march, intelligence was received that 
the Americans had already possessed themseh^es of 
the fort, and that they Avere well provided Avith ar- 
tillery. No avenue to escape noAV appeared. Inces- 
sant toil and continual engagements had Avorn doAvn 
the British army ; its provisions Avere nearly ex- 
hausted, and there Avere no means of procuring a 
supply ; Avhile the American army, Avhich Avas daily 
increasing, Ava.s already much greater than the British 
in point of numbers, and almost encircled them. In 
this extremity, the British general called a council 
of Avar ; and it AA'as unanimously rcsoh'^ed to enter 
into a convention Avith General Gates. Prelimina- 
ries Avere soon settled, and the royal army, to the 
number of five thousand seven hundred and fifty, 
surrendered prisoners of vvar.t 

retieat ; but for this also he had a plausible e.xcuse. The British 
ministry were mortified and disliessed at this unexpected failure ; 
and lo turn the popular indignation from themselves, they were 
obliged to sacrifice their favourite. They ordered him to return 
forthwith to America as a prisoner ; but this was not insisted upon ; 
yet, he was obliged to resign all his oftices and emoluments, which 
"were very considerable. He was still returned to parliament, or 
held his scat there from a previous election, and joined in the op- 
position to the continuance of the war, warmly conteniiing thai 
America would prevail. From the peace of 17S3, he lived a re- 
tired life, until the 4th of August, 1792, when he died, as it was 
stated in the jiapcrs of that day, by a fit of the gout in the stomach. 
An American royalist, who was in England, and resided within a 
few doors of his dwelling, informed me that he fell by his own hand, 
a prey to disappointment and neglect. There never arose a man 
in Great Britain, who for a time held so many important offices, 
and on whom so much reliance was placed, of whom the world 
knew so little. A mystery hung about him from the cradle to the 
grave, and that, loo, in a country where there are but few secrets 
of any domestic or political nature. 

The American army engaged in this enterprise, comaineJ many 
fine oflicers. Schuyler was a man of great good sense and experi- 



264 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



The capture of an entire army was justly viewed 
as an event that must essentially aflect the contest 
between Great Britain and America ; and while it 
excited the highest joy among the Americans, it could 
not ^ut have a most auspicious influence on their 
affairs in the cabinet and in the field. The thanks 

ence, having been an officer in the war of 1755 to 1763. He pre- 
ferred lo assist in saving his country, rather than to put it in jeop- 
arily by resentment at losing the honour of commanding the army 
in the campaign of 1777, after he had prepared the forces for it. 
General Morgan, the bold and intrepid Virginian, was there, and 
rao:;t efficient in the discharge of liis duties, as he was throughout 
the whole war. Arnold was also (me of the most intrepid soldiers 
io the campaign. Lincoln was there also; he was one of the most 
bold and discreet of the revolutionary generals. Brooks, whose 
share in this event every historian of the war has celebrated, and 
with whose merits the present generation have been made acquaint- 
ed, lived to give us many minute circumstances of the taking of 
Burgoyne, which otherwise would have been lost; Dearborn and 
Hull had their share in the honours of that day; and many more 
who deserve the meed of honour from the future historians, who 
may arise to give to distant ages the deeds of the men who fought 
and bled to achieve the liberties we now enjoy. — American Editor. 

* The following is from a tour of General Hoyt, of iMassachu- 
setts, made to the battle ground forty-eight years after the surren- 
der of Burgoyne. It was given to the American editor in 1825. It is 
the best description of the affair extant, in a military point of view. 

From Troy we proceeded up the ?Iudson, in an extra stage, 
through Waterford, Mechanicville, and Stillwater village, to Ketch- 
um's tavern, at Bemis' Heights, the position taken up by General 
Gates' army, September 12th, 1777, where we found good accom- 
modations. At this place there are now several houses, and 
among others, the handsome residence of Dr. Willard, of Albany, 
(Standing near the site of Bemis' house, which gave name to Gates' 
camp. 

Resolving to give the battle grounds a thorough reconnoisance, 
in the morning we set out on foot, and traversed the fields in vari- 
ous directions. My companion, one of the heroes of the battle of 
the 7th of October, appeared alive to the many associations con- 
nected with that important event. We first traced the lines of 
Gates' carap, which in some places still furrow the ground, particu- 
larly on the extreme left, wliere the curtains and bastions are dis- 
tinctly to be seen. The old red house, not far from the centre 'of 
the camp, now fast going to decay, where Gates had his head quar- 
ters, was not passed without notice. This my companion well re- 
collected, and he pointed to the spot where he had been planted as 
a .sentinel. A small distance east of the house, at the time of the 
battles, stood a barn, in which many of the wounded were deposit- 
ed; but the foundation only remains to mark the spot. The fields 
adjacent, once the scene of bustle and military preparation, now 
present a calm and solitary aspect ; and here the bones of many a 
patriot, who died of wounds received in the two actions of the 19th 
of September and 7th of October, rest in obscurity. My companion 
pointed out the spot where twenty-eight of these heroes were inter- 
red in one grave; and near this spot, the veteran Colonel Breyman 
and Sir Francis Clark, Burgoyne's aid-de-camp, mortally wounded 
and taken prisoners in the second action, mixed their remains with 
their brave conquerors. 

After noticing the ground occupied by the different regiments 
and brigades, and listening to the many anecdotes of my compa- 
nion, we continued our route across Nelson's farm, on an eminence, 
in advance of Gates' camp, the frequent post of Morgan's riflemen, 
and passing a ravine and an open field beyond, we reached a wood, 
where his regiment was drawn up, on the right of Gates' line, 
where they hove up a slight work of logs, in the battle of the 7th 
of October. From this point, crossing other fields, westerly, and a 
bridge over a rill, we rose to higher ground, Burgoyne's poinl of 
appui in the same battle ; and a little further north, formed en po- 
tence, and crowning a height, stood Major Ackland's British grena- 
diers, the most sanguinary point of the contest. 

The British line extended from this point, westerly, about a third 



of congress were voted to General Gates and his 
army ; and a medal of gold, in commemoration of 
this splendid achievement, was ordered to be struck, 
to be presented to him by the president, in the name 
of the United States.* 

Gen. Burgoyne's surrender, is certainly, in a con- 



of a mile, crossing two open fields and an intervening copse ol 
wood, to 'some high grounds within view ; the right occupied by 
Brigadier-General Fraser's elite, consisting of the twenty-fourth 
regiment and Lord Balcarras' light-infantry; the centre and left of 
the British and German troops of the line, under Generals Phillips 
and Reidesel. Eight pieces of cannon, two of which were twelve 
pounders, were posted along the line, besides two howitzers, in 
front of Fraser's elite. On the south, in front of the line, the 
ground falls off to a rill, then covered with brush, from which the 
American columns debouched, as they advanced to the attack, un- 
der » heavy fire from the British artillery. 

The battle at this place commenced on the British left, by Ge- 
neral Poor's brigade, and soon after on the right, by Colonel Mor- 
gan's and Major Dearborn's corps, and the whole line was soon en- 
gaged. Morgan and Dearborn iiavmg turned and broken the right 
flank of Balcarras' infantry, and Ackland's grenadieis on the left, 
being hard pressed by Poor, Burgoyne despatched orders for Fra- 
ser's elite to retire from the right, and form a second line to sup- 
port the left. In executing this order, Fraser having arrived in the 
rear of the left, followed by Morgan, received a mortal wound, and 
was carried off the field. 

Mr. Walker, who resides a little distance in the rear of the 
ground occupied by the British line, pointed out to us the site of 
two huts which stood near the centre of the left, and here my com- 
panion recollected to have seen the ground covered with dead the 
morning after the action. Near this spot. Major Williams, of the 
artillery, and Captain Money, D. d. M. General, and several other 
officers, were captured by the Americans, and eight pieces of can- 
non were taken. 

The ground occupied by the left of the British line, may be 
known by a .solitary poplar tree, standing on the side of the road, 
marked with the initials of .some person's name, near which iho 
ground falls off to the east. 

After viewing this sanguinary spot, ^d analyzing the move- 
ments of the different corps, we passed along the road, northerly, 
to the point where General Fraser received his wound. Walker's 
blacksmith's shop is about twenty rods north of the place, and not 
far from the same, Sir Francis Clark, Burgo)'ne's aid-de-camp, also 
received his wound, as he was conveying orders from Burgoyne lo 
Phillips and Reidesel. 

Proceeding northerly, forty or fifty rods, we arrived at the house 
of the younger Walker, situated on an eminence, which, with se- 
veral others, extending northerly, were occupied by Fraser's elite 
duiing most of the battle of the 19th of September. 

Here General Larnerd's brigade and Marshall's regiment were 
engaged towards the close of the battle of that day, and near 
Walker's barn, situated a little east of his house, stood the British 
grenadiers opposed to Marshall's regiment, as darkness com- 
menced. Near the barn, Walker had just discoveied and disinter- 
red the skeleton of a man killed in the action, by a ball which per- 
forated the back of the skull, and a circular piece, cut out by the 
ball, was found, exactly fitting the perforation. The bones indica- 
ted a man of a large size, fiom which, and knowing the ground to 
have been the po.sition of the British grenadiers in the first action, 
we concluded he must have been one of that corps. Further to 
the right, and westward of Walker's house, we noticed the spot 
where the late Governor Brooks, of Massachusetts, then lieutenant- 
colonel of Jackson's regiment, sustained his nocturnal attack from 
Breyman's German grenadiers. [See Gordon, vol. 2, letter 8th.] 

Continuing our route northerly, along Fraser's heights, we turn- 
ed to the right, across lower ground, and rose a gentle hill, covered 
with trees of a recent growth, the fortified position of Colonel Brey- 
man, in the action of the 7th of October. This fortification was a 
temporary work of logs and rails, and has disappeared. Every 
inch of this ground presents interesting associa'ions, and with eager 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



265 



siderable degree, to be attributed to the want of co- 
operation both on the part of General Carleton, in 
Canada, and of Sir H. Clinton, at New York. The 



steps we trai-ersed the hill to find some relick or trace of the gal- 
lantry of the men who fought on this spot ; but all marks are ob- 
literated. With deep sensations we now surveyed the open field, 
over which Lieutenant-Colonel Brooks led on Jackson's regiment, 
under a heavy fire, in his gallant charge on these works, in the 
battle of the 7lh of October, and penetrated them a few moments 
before General Arnold galloped in through a sally port, and re- 
ceived his wound. Other regiments then advancing, the post was 
carried at every point, and about two hundred of the enemy made 
prisoners, while the remainder escaped into the woods in the rear, 
leaving two pieces of cannon in the hands of the Americans. 

Passing over the hill, we descended to a beautiful opening on 
the east side, the camp of Breyman's German brigade ; back of 
which is a ravine and rill, where Breyman was found by the vic- 
tors, monally wounded, taken up and sent to Gates' camp, where 
he died. This post formed the right fiank of the British fortified 
cainp, and its capture exposed other points to an attack in the rear. 
Sensible of its importance, Burgoyne, on first hearing that it was 
carried, gave orders for its recovery; but though they were posi- 
tive, they were not obeyed, and Larnerd's brigade held the post 
unmolested through the night. 

General Wilkinson states, in his memoirs, that Arnold, during 
the attack on Breyman's post, turned its right, at the head of a few 
riflemen, and threw himself into the rear, where his leg was broken, 
and his horse killed under him. The genera! was not an eye wit- 
ness to the event, and probably, through misinformation, has given 
it erroneously. That Arnold was wounded within the works, after 
passing the sally port, has been repeatedly asserted by Governor 
Brooks, as well as others, who saw tlie whole. 

Cluilting this interesting spot, we passed on, southerly, over the 
ground where stood the two block houses so gallaiitly stormed by 
detachments from Brooks' regiment, in the same action, and the 
commanders, Lieutenants Wiiey and Goodrich, and many of their 
men, killed ; and turning easterly, through a copse of wood, reach- 
ed a road in the rear of Freeman's field. Along this road, still 
flanked by woods, Burgoyne formed the 9th, 2lst, 62d, and 20tli re- 
gimenls, (this was the order from right to left,) and Captain Jones' 
brigade of grenadiers, previous to the sanguinary contest on the 
19lh of September, while Major Forbe's, with the British van, 
pressed into the field, was attacked by Morgan, near Freeman's hut, 
and driven back to the British line in the woods, and Morgan, in 
turn, broken and forced back into the woods south of the field. 

Continuing southerly in tlie road, and crossing a small ravine, 
we entered Freeman's bloody field, and a few rods south, the house 
of Mr. Leggett, who now resides on the farm embracing the field 
of baitle. At the time of the battle, the field was an oblong, of 
from seventy to eighty rods in length, east and west, by about 
thirty in breadth, inclosed by a worm fence, and surrounded by 
woods. Near the centre is an elevation, extending from Leggett's 
house, nearly at right angles, acro.ss the field, upon which a hut 
and small barn were situated, and near the latter, the elevation 
terminated, at a narrow ravine, extending parallel to the field. 
South of this ravine are other elevations, sloping oflT gently to level 
■ ground, south, the Whole then covered with woods, in which the 
Americans were drawn up in the first part of the battle of the 19th 
of September. 

No part of the ground we had traversed, presents more interest- 
ing associations than this field. Here British valour and veteran 
skil', were successfully opposed by native bravery and patriotic ar- 
dour; and here it was, that the proud Briton was compelled to ac- 
knowledge the fallacy of his boasted declaration, " thai the Ameri- 
cans would fight only undercover of woods and intrenchments, and 
that they were incapable of sustaining a fair and equal conflict in 
the open field." 

While at Leggett's, we were presented with balls, and several 
fractured implements of muskets, found on the field, among which 
was part of a brass guard, numbered XX, supposed to belong to 
that regiment. 

We were now upon the ground occupied by the 62d British re- 



latter, indeed, performed a service, which, if effected 
a little earlier, might possibly have relieved Burgoyne. 
With nearly three thousand men, convoyed by some 

giment, commanded by Colonel Anstruther, during most of the bat- 
tle of the 19th, flanked on the right by the 21st, and on the left by 
the 20th regiments, the whole under Brigadier-General Hamilton; 
the 9lh of the same brigade being drawn off, and posted in the rear 
of the field, as a corps dc reserve; and here this brigade, with the 
artillery under Captain Jones, bore the brunt of the battle for aboul 
four hours, hand to hand, willi the Americans, and human life was 
profusely expended. 

A few rods southerly of Leggett's barn, we noticed the ground 
where Morgan and Dearborn attacked the British when under Ma- 
jor Forbes; and here the regiments of Silley and Scammel, of 
Poor's brigade, a battalion under Major Hull, Morgan's and Dear- 
born's corps, renewed the battle on Hamilton's brigade, which was 
vigorously maintained on both sides, each alternately giving and 
gaining the ground ; and here, about three o'clock in the afternoon, 
the remainder of Poor's brigade, with some other regiments, came 
up on the left, and pressed into action, and the fire was continued 
with alternate advantage on both sides, until the smoke and night- 
fall rendered objects undiscernible, when the action terminated pre- 
cisely on the ground where it commenced. 

Among the officers who fell at this place, on the part of the 
Americans, were Lieutenant-Colonel Colburn, of Silley's, and Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel Adams, of Hale's New Hampshire regiments. Tlie 
62d British regiment was literally cut to pieces ; after the action, 
it did not exceed sixty men, and five or six oflicers, fit for duly. 
Colonel Ansiruiher, and his major, Harmage, were wounded. 
During the contest, the field presented a scene of horror appalling 
even to veteran troops; the British officers were constantly falling 
under the fatal fire, or carried off" the field wounded; the ranks 
thinned, and the artillery men nearly annihilated. Out of forty- 
eight men stationed at the guns under Captain Jones, who fell, 
thirty-six were killed or badly wounded ; and among the officers, 
only one lieutenant escaped, and he with a shot through his hat. 

Passing the small ravine south of Leggett's barn, we rose an 
elevation, the post wilh another on a knoll a little further west, 
strongly fortified, and the woods cleared off by Burgoyne after the 
battle of the 19th. These elevations were occupied by Lord Bal- 
canas' light-infantry, after their retreat from the first position, 
south of the elder Walker's, in the battle of the 7lh of October; 
and here, towards the close of the day, Arnold, with Poor's and 
Patterson's brigades, made his desperate attack, and was repulsed, 
and he, wilh his horse, entangled in the surrounding abattis, from 
which, with the utmost diflicully, he extricated himself, while un- 
der a heavy fire of grape and cannister from the British batteries. 
" A more determined perseverance," says the British commander, 
" than the Americans showed in this atlack upon the lines, though 
they were finally repulsed by the corps under Lord Balcarras, 1 
believe is not in any officer's experience." Had the assailants been 
less embarrassed wilh the abattis, probably they would have cover- 
ed the works, though manned with Burgoyne's best troops. 

From this elevation, we had a fair view of the greatest part nf 
the battle grounds, and the line of Burgoyne's camp taken up sun- 
seanenlly to Ihe battle of the 19th, and in which the principal part 
of the army continued until that of the 7lh of October. North and 
east of Leggett's house, was the camp of Fraser's elite, flanked on 
the left by Hamilton's brigade, and further on the left, extending to 
the river hills, that of the German troops, under Reidesel, except- 
ing Breyman's command, which was to the right of Fraser, formed 
en potence to the main line: the whole covered by temporary works, 
which are now nearly obliterated. ,In the meadow in the rear of 
the left of Reidesel's German corps, was the British hospital camp, 
prelected by several batteries, and three redoubts on the projecting 
poinls of as many hills, overlooking the meadow. 

The grounds adjacent, at the time of the battles, were covered 
with woods, but now present, in some parts, fields under cultiva- 
tion. North of Freeman's field, the woods are still standing, ex- 
hibiting the exact features of 1777, and the road through them- 
where Burgoyne first formed the four regiments of Hamilton's 
brigade, is still distinctly seen. 



266 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



ships of war under Commodore Hotham, he conducted 
an expedition up Hudson's River, in October, against 
the forts Montgomery and Clinton. When arrived 



In passing over these sang:iiinai"v fields, my companion appeared 
to be highly excited by the many rccullectious which rushed upon 
his mind, and the circumstance of our visit happening on the 48ih 
anniversary of the battle of the 7th of October, presented the vari- 
ous scenes in a most striking point of view. Nor did my own feel- 
ings remain " indifferent and unmoved." 

To walk with callous indifl'erence over ground once the scene 
of blood and carnage, of occasional fear and triumph, and these 
heightened by the recollection, that many of our acquaintance 
shared in tliera, may comport with minils steeled to sensit)ility ; but 
those of a different stamp, in which are included a niajorily of the 
reflecting part of mankind, will be difl'erently affected. Nor are 
lessons drawn from such scenes destitute of utility. They fix the 
mind on the characters of the heroes who perished in the cause of 
,our country ; stimulate to noble exploits, and fill the mind with 
just reflections on the value of our dear bought liberties. With a 
portion of these feelings, we returned to Ketch um's tavern, passing 
again over part of Gates' camp. 

On our route to our quarters, we fell in with a Quaker gentle- 
man who resides in the vicinity, with wliora we had some conver- 
sation on the scenes that had been exhibited in these fields; and 
notwithstanding his aversion to military exploits, he appearecV to 
be interested, on hearing that my companion was one of the men 
who have fought for his country. And in traversing over the battle 
grounds, we were welcomed to the hospitable mansions of several 
of these people, who evinced an interest in our researches, and 
gave us their aid in pointing out the most remarkable places on the 
battle fields. An elderly lady remarked, that she resided on a farm 
in <he vicinity of Saratoga Lake, at the tiine of the battle, and heard 
ihe terrible roar of the dreadful cannon ; and that British reeon- 
noitering parlies frequently visited her house, from whom she re- 
ceived very civil treatment, and gave them, in return, such refresh- 
ments as her mansion furnished. 

Before we left Ketchum's, we reconnoitered the banks of the 
Hudson, and my companion pointed- out the spot where Gates 
threw over a bridge to connect with the left bank, and Ihe ground 
where he recollected to have seen a tribe of American Indians en- 
camped. 

The freight boats constantly passing along the canal, within a 
few yards of our traverse, afforded us a passage about 2 1.2 miles, 
up to Smith's tavern, the cottage in whicli the unfortunate General 
Fraser died of his wounds, the morning after the battle of the 7lh 
of October, where we arrived at dark, after making half a dozen 
very submissive bows tg the bridges stretching across the canal ; 
an embarra,ssinent we had not anticipated, and which requires 
5ome caution to avoid a broken head. On this route, we passed 
the left flank of the British camp, on the west of the eminence, and 
the ravme from which the British sharp shooters wounded General 
Lincoln, Ihe day succeeding the last hatlle on the heights. 

Smith's house, which stood at the foot of the hill, at the period 
of the battles, and has been drawn forward to the road on Ihe bank 
of the river, is situated in a handsome meadow, bordering on the 
Hudson, the same embraced by Burgoyne's hospital camp, and 
taken up by his whole army, in tlie night succeeding the second 
battle. In the morning we traversed over the ground, noticing the 
places most remarkable for interesting events, and among others, 
the elevated hill on which General Fraser was buried, under the 
fire of the American artillery posted in a meadow below, so ele- 
gantly described by Burgoyne, in his account of his expedition. A 
few yards below the great ravine, so called by the British officers, 
we noticed the point where Burgoyne's bridge of boats was thrown 
acro.ss Ifie Hudson, at the head of which, on the left bank, are the 
remsins of his U-le de ponl. The bed of the great ravine, through 
which a road formerly led from the hospital camp to that on the 
height, is now flowed by Ihe water of the canal. South of the ra- 
vine are the heights on which Balcarras' light-infanlry was posted, 
during the 8th of October ; and here several skirmishes took place 
between the British and American sharp shooters, in one of which 
General Lincoln was wounded, as has been noted. Of the three 



within a mile of the place of destination the troops 
separated into two columns ; the one, consisting of 
nine hundred men, under Lieutenant Campbell, was 

redoubts on the hills adjoining the meadow, little or no remains arc 
to be seen, excepting that in the centre, where Fraser was buried, 
which is still distinct. The remains of anolher work may be tra- 
ced in the meadow, a short distance south of Smith's, near Avhich 
was posled the park of artillery. In the bar room of Smith's 
tavern. General Fraser breathed his last ; and there, says Madam 
Reidesel, who quartered at the same place, " I often heard him ex- 
claim with a sigh, ' Oh, fatal ambition ! Poor General Burgoyne 
O, my poor wife !' " 

Several late tourists, through a very natural mistake, have called 
Smith's house. Sword's hoiise ; Ihe latter, it appears by Burgoyne's 
plans, was situated about a mile above, at his camp, taken up on 
the 17th of September; the house is now demolished. 

In the early part of the day, we left the hospital oamp, and in a 
stage proceeded up the river six miles, to Schuylerville, at Fi^h 
Creek, in Saratoga, the scene of Burgoyne's last struggles, passing, 
on the roule, the British camp at Sword's house, and the elevated 
ground on which the British army halted on its retreat, on the morn- 
ing of Ihe 9th of October, at what was then called Davocote, or 
Van Vcchtin's Creek. This spot is rendered memorable from the 
interesting relation Burgoyne has given of Lady Harriet Ackland, 
who here embarked in a boat, and descended to Gates' camp, at- 
tended by Mr. Brudenel, chaplain of the artillery. A short dis- 
tance south of the site of the old church, at Schuylerville, we no- 
ticed the place where the right of Gates' camp rested, on the 10th 
of October. 

The retreat of the British army, from the hospital camp, to Fish 
Creek, was altended with many embarrassments. It commenced 
about nine o'clock in the evening, and as it was apprehended that 
the Americans would pass upon the rear, a strong body of the best 
troops, under General Phillips, was ordered to cover the march ; 
General Reidesel commanded the van. From the nature of the 
country, and the darkness of the night, the movement was difficult 
as.well as critical ; the artillery and such baggage as could not be 
embarked in boats, were to be dragged along a narrow road, com- 
posed of argillaceous soil, over which the stoutest horses could with 
difficulty draw an ordinary load ; and with the emaciated and jaded 
animals of the army, an empty carriage was a burden almost be- 
yond their power. Besides, the army was liable to an attack at 
every step, from the woods on the left ; nor were the boats less ex- 
posed in stemming the river, from the attacks of the militia posted 
along the left bank, who were secure daring the darkness, from 
annoyance fronj the artillery. To add to these difliculties, a heavy 
rain commenced, which converted the road into perfect quagmire, 
and rendered the march of the baggage and artillery next to im- 
possible, and their total loss was apprehended. General Phillips 
was ordered to bend his whole attention to the covering of the army, 
by taking a position that would enable it to form in order of bailie, 
without regarding Ihe column of baggage, and to rely excln.sively 
on the bayonet. Under such embarrassments, the lo.ss of several 
provision boats, and baggage wagons, is not surprising. 

After a short respite at the stage house in Schuylerville, we pre- 
pared for a reconnoisance of Burgoyne's camp, which extended 
along the heights, from Lemson's, now Bushett's house, Ihe same 
occupied by Madam Reidesel, (see her narrative,) nearly opposite 
to the mouth of the Butterhill, to an eminence about three fourths 
of a mile, southwest of our tavern, and here was Burgoyne's head 
quarters; the strongest point of his position. On an elevation in 
the meadow, northeast of the village, the park of artillery Avas post- 
ed, under the cover of some temporary works. Excepting two or 
three open fields, the position of the army was principally covered 
with woods ; but the meadow was open, cultivated ground. At the 
mouth of Fish Creek, on the north side, are Ihe ruins of Fort 
Hardy, built in the French war, by many erroneously supposed to 
be Ihe work of Burgoyne, and through the meadow, now passes 
the northern canal, presenting an extensive triangular basin on Ihe 
north of Fish Creek; and over this is an aqueduct. South of the 
creek is Schuyler's house, standing nearly on the site of General 
Schuyler's, burnt by Burgoyne.^ The old church, which stood on 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



267 



destined for the attack on Fort Montgomery ; the 
other, under the immediate command of Sir Henry- 
Clinton, was to storm tlie stronger post of Fort Chn- 



Ihe height, southwest of this house, in 1777, is demolished, and a 
handsome new one is now pleasantly situated in a recess of a grove, 
on tlie height west of the Village. 

Arriving at the works on the elevalion, at the extreme right of 
Burgoj'ne's camp, the lines, encompassing several acres, were easily 
traced, presenting salient and recruiting angles, and here weie 
posted the 9lh, 2Lsl, and 24th regiments, the British grenadiers, 
Balcarras' light-infantry. Captain Eraser's rangers, and the Ameri- 
can volunteers. The left of the camp, on a ridge, north of the vil- 
lage, nearly parallel to the river, was occupied by Reidcsel's Ger- 
mans ; and the central ground, by the 20lh, 47th, and 02d British 
regiments, the German grenadiers, and Barnes' corps, partially 
covered by intrenchments. Farther west, in the margin of the 
woods, were the Yagers and Canadians. Their out-posts extended 
along the north side of Fish Creek, from its mouth to the right of 
the camp. The position here described is that held at the time of 
the convention. The right of Gales' camp, was about a mile south 
of Pish Creek, and the line extended into the woods over elevated 
ground, opposite to Burgoyne's right, and the advanced posts were 
near the creek opposite to those of the British. 

In passing over the right of the British camp, my companion 
found himself on interesting ground, and with hasty steps, we pro- 
ceeded to the spot where his regiment, commanded by Colonel 
Woodbridge, of Slassachusetls, was drawn up in the woods, within 
a few yards of the British intrenchment, prepared for an assault on 
the morning of the 11th October, 1777. To comprehend this 
movement, it is necessary to recur to details. On the night of the 
10th, Gates was led to believe that Burgoyne, leaving his fires 
burning under the care of a few pickets, had left his camp and re- 
treated up the Hudson, on which he gave orders for a forward 
movement, to seize the abandoned camp. At day break the next 
morning, being very foggy, Patterson's and Larnerd's brigades, with 
Morgan's corps and Woodbridge's regiment, were pat in motion 
towards the British right; and Nivon's and Glover's brigades, at 
the same time, moved up the meadow, and the former crossed Fish 
Creek, and surprised a British picket, in old fort Hardy. The fog 
at this time dispersing, the British army was found in their posi- 
tion, ready for an attack, and the park of artillery immediately 
opened a fire upon the American column, threw it into some dis- 
order, and compelled it to recro.ss the creek ; the two brigades then 
returned to camp. Finding that Gates had ordered the movement 
under a misapprehension of the position of the Britisk army, Adju- 
tant-General Wilkinson, who had attended the movement of Nixon 
and Glover, immediately put spurs to his horse, pushed up the creek, 
and crossing over at a mill, about three quarters of a mile above 
Schuyler's, found Morgan's, Patterson's, and Larnerd's brigades, 
with Woodbridge's regiment, on the right, advancing through the 
woods, and approximating the British lines. In front for about 
twenty yards, the trees had been felled, and sharpened to a strong 
abattis, and Woodbridge's regiment had laid down their packs and 
approached within ten yards of the opening; the British lying close 
under the intrenchment, ready to open their fire, as soon as their 
assailants were uncovered by the woods. At this moment Wilkin- 
son rode up, and directed the Colonel to fall back, on which the 
regiment came about, and retired about thirty yards to a depression 
in the ground, where the men were covered from the direct fire of 
the enemy. With a temerity truly characteristic of young troops, 
individuals then advanced, and posting themselves behind trees, 
opened a scattering fire upon the enem)', who were now indistinctly 
seen through the fog, and received theirs in return. My compa- 
nion pointed me to a large pine, not exceeding thirty yards from 
the British wurks, behind which he, with several others, covered 
themselves, while eagerly popping at the enemy's heads, seen over 
the parapet; while here he barely escaped a shot, aimed at an un- 
covered part of his body; and having expended several cartridges, 
the party fell back to the regiment, and soon after the whole re- 
tired to Fish Creek, opposite to the mills, where they were ordered 
to throw up defensive lines. In the mean time, Patterson's and 
Jiarnerd's brigades, with Morgan's corps on ;he left, approached 



ton. The garrison, when summoned, having refused 
to surrender, the assault was made on both forts at 
the same instant. These ibrtresses, which were se- 

the British lines, and were on the point of opening their fire, when 
Wilkinson rode up and informed Larnerd, who commanded in the 
absence of Patterson, of the result of the movement in the meadow, 
and advised an immediate retreat, on which the line came about 
and retired ; but belbre they were masked by the woods, the enemy 
opened a fire of artillery and musketry, and several were killed. 
The two brigades continued their retreat to an open field, where 
they hove up lines, and remained until Burgoyne surrendered; 
Morgan at the same time took a position in the woods, in the rear 
of the British right. 

As a striking illustration of the indifference -with which soldiers 
regard danger, and soon become callous to the tender feelings, com- 
mon to a life of domestic tranquillity, I cannot omit to notice a fact 
given Ijy my companion. The men composing the regiment, had 
been in service but a few months, but in general tliey had been 
habituated to hardships, and were strangers to the delicacies of af- 
fluent life. When the regiment had retired the short distance of 
sixty yards from the British intrenchments, to lower ground, where 
the men were covered from the fire of the enemy, they sat down at 
their ease, and entered into familiar conversation ; in one instance, 
he noticed a soldier leisurely combing the head of his messmate, 
while the bullets of the enemy were whistling over their heads, and 
cutting the limbs of the trees. 

Passing from the British right, to the mill on Fish Creek, my 
companion noticed the spot where one of their advanced sentinels 
shot a woman, who had left the British camp to procure water from 
a brook, winding through a little ravine, on the bank of which the 
sentinel was posted. She had been challenged but refused to com- 
ply with the strict orders of the sentinel, on which he fired, and 
gave her afatal shot. 

Reaching the creek, we passed it on floating timber, resting 
against the mill dam, and my companion remembered that his regi- 
ment passed the mill pond in the same manner, and at the same 
place, as they advanced to i^ttack the British lines, as has been re- 
lated ; and continuing our route along a road on the right bank of 
the creek, we came to the salient point of a hill near Schuyler's 
house, where a picket, of which he was one, was attacked by a 
party of the British, in the night of the 10th of October ; but altei 
a little random firing, and a few discharges of a field piece, which 
advanced to the spot, the enemy fell back. 

Proceeding thence to the meadow, near fort Hardy, and looking 
over the ground where Burgoyne piled his arms on the 17th of 
October, we returned to our quarters, where we were shown several 
cannon balls, taken from the ground, in excavating the canal. 

Busbelt's house, near the left of the German camp, in which 
Madam Reidesel had her quarters while the British army lay at 
this place, has been repaired by its present owner; and he inform- 
ed me that the marks of the cannon balls, mentioned in the narra- 
tive of that lady, were to be seen when fiisi occupied by him. The 
American batteiy from which the house was cannonaded, was 
planted on the opposite bank of the Hudson, above the mouth ol 
the Butterhill. It is justly due to the officer who directed the fire, 
the Honourable Major-General Ebenezer Mattoon, and since Adju- 
tant-General of the militia of Massachusetts, then a lieutenant in 
the artillery, to stale, that the unfortunate condition of the peopie 
in the house was unknown ; and that it was supposed to be the 
quarters of some of the enemy's general officers. 

The eoimtry embracing the operation of the armies under Gene- 
rals Gates and Buigoyne, is daily becoming more interesting to 
travellers, and many resort there ioc the gratification of a laudable 
curiosity. As lime elapses, it will be sought with more avidity, 
and future generations may in vain seek for the scenes of these im- 
portant events, unless they are marked by some durable memorial. 
As a taste for monuments is now increasing in our country, it is to 
be hoped that the events connected with the capture of the British 
army, the pivot on which onr rexolutionary struggle turned, will not 
be neglected. 

The elevation on the Freeman farm, presents a favourable site for 
a monument, on which should be engraven the names of the princi- 



268 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



parated from each other by a creek only, were com- 
manded by Governor CHnton, a brave and intelligent 
officer, who made a gallant resistance from fonr in 
the afternoon, when the attack began, until dark ; 
but, the post having been designed principally to 
prevent the passing of ships, the works on the land 
side were incomplete and mitenable, and the assail- 
ants entered them with fixed bayonets. Most of the 
garrison, however, effected their escape, under cover 
of the thick smoke and darkness. 

Having noticed the most important features of the 
military operations of the year 1777, it will be proper, 
before entering on those of the following years, to 
afford the reader some information on two very im- 
portant points — the progress made by the Americans 
in their foreign relations, and the steps which had 
been taken to consolidate the general government. 
In both cases it will be necessary, in order to give a 
clear and comprehensive view of the subject, slightly 
to deviate from strict chronological order. 

The contest between Great Britain and her colo- 
nies had not long- commenced, before cong-ress direct- 
ed their attention to the possibility of attaining 
foreign assistance. Towards the close of the year 
1775, a committee was appointed to hold secret cor- 
respondence with the friends of America, both in 
Europe and other parts of the world.* Early in the 
year 1776, the committee, seeing little prospect of an 
accommodation, and well aware that France would 
be disposed to make great sacrifices to reduce the 
power of Great Britain by the separation of her North 
American colonies, sent Silas Deane, as a commercial 
and political agent, to the French court.t Mr. Deane 
arrived in Paris about the 1st of July, and was inde- 
fatigable in pursuing the objects of his mission ; and 
through Dr. Dubourg, a friend to America, was in a 
few days introduced to Vergennes. His arrival at 
Paris was immediately known in London, and Lord 
Stormont was sent express to Paris to watch his 
movements. Mr. Deane stated to the French minis- 
ter the objects of his mission, agreeably to his in- 



pal patriots, who fell in llie two actions, with an appropriate in- 
scription. Another to mark the ground of surrender at Schuyler- 
ville, would be higlily gratifying to future generations. Should 
these be erected, let theiu be moderate in size, of no extravagant 
expense, but of the most durable materials. 

• The committee consisted of Mr. Harrieon, Dr. Franklin, Mr. 
Johnson, Mr. Dickinson, and Mr. Jay. 

t " He was to appear in the character of a merchant, and was 
directed, among other things, immediately after his arrival at Paris^ 
to solicit an interview with the Count De Vergennes, the French 
minister, and to inform him, that congress, being unable to obtain 
for America the quantity of arms and ammunition necessary for 
its defence, had despatched him to apply to some of the European 
powers for a supply. That he was instructed to make his first ap- 
plication to France, from an opinion that, in case of a total separa- 
tion of America from Great Britain, which every circumstance 



structions, and in his first conference he touched 
upon the subject of forming treaties with the Ameri- 
cans in case of their declaring themselves independ- 
ent. The American agent was favourably received 
by the French minister, and was asked many ques- 
tions in relation to American affairs. Vergeimes 
informed Mr. Deane, that though the French court 
estimated highly the importance of American com- 
merce, yet, considering the good luiderstanding be- 
tween the courts of Versailles and London, they 
could not openly encourage the shipping of warlike 
stores ; but no obstructions of any kind, he said, 
would be given. On the snliject of independence, 
he observed, tl«it was an event in the womb of time, 
and it would be highly improper for him to say any 
thing on that point until it had actually taken place. 
Tills first conference with the French minister ended 
much to the satisfaction of the American agent. 

As soon as the question of independence was deci- 
ded in the affirmative, congress toolc the subject of 
foreign affairs into their own hands ; and, on the 
11th of June, appointed a committee to prepare a 
plan of treaties with foreign powers.! In the month 
of September, congress appointed Dr. Franklin, Mr. 
Deane, and Mr. Jefferson, commissioners to proceed 
to France.? Dr. Franklin and Mr. Lee arrived at 
Paris in December, and the objects of their mission 
were soon made known to the French court. The 
court was not yet prepared to acknowledge the in- 
dependence of the United States, to form treaties with 
them, or openly to espouse the cause of the Americans; 
to prove, however, his good wishes towards the Uni- 
ted States, the king ordered two millions of livres to 
be paid to fliem by quarterly payments, which should 
be augmented as the state of his finances would 
permit. The most profound secresy, in relation to 
this donation, was enjoined. The course of policy 
France intended to pursue, in the contest between 
Great Britain and her colonies, was now obvious ; 
and with her views of the subject, was perhaps, as it 
regarded herself at least, a very natural as Avell as 

seemed to indicate, it would be most proper to obtain and cultivate 
her friendship. That in such case, the commercial advantages 
formerly enjoyed by Great Britain, .would be transt'erred to France. 
That the Americans were in want of clothing and arms for twenty- 
five thousand men, with a suitable quantity of amnninition, and c 
hundred field pieces. Mr. Deane was also directed to sound the 
French minister with regard to forming an alliance with the colo- 
nies, in case they should be forced to declare themselves independ- 
ent." — Pitkin, vol. i. p. 38/. The instructions will be found at 
length in the Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolu- 
tion, edited by S. Sparks, vol. i. p. 5 — 9. 

t This important committee consisted of Mr. Dickinson, Dr. 
Franklin, Jcihn Adams, Mr. Harrison, and Robert Morris. 

§ Mr. Jefferson, on account of the situation of his family, being 
unable to accept the appointment, Arthur Lee, then in London, was 
substituted. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



269 



wise course, as she evidently entertained serious 
doubts whether the States would be able to form a 
lasting union among themselves, or to persevere in 
maintaining their independence. Although the court 
were thus undecided, the cause of the United States 
was extremely popular in France, both among the 
people and the army, and many French officers 
sought an opportunity of enfragins: in their service. 
Among these, the young Marquis de la Fayette was 
most conspicuous for his rank, and most distinguish- 
ed for his ardour and enthusiasm. At an early 
period he communicated to the American agents his 
wish to join the republican armies. At first they en- 
couraged his zeal, but learning the disasters which 
preceded the victory at Trenton, they, with honour- 
able frankness, communicated the information to him, 
and added, that they were so destitute of funds, that 
they could not even provide for his passage across 
the ocean. " If your country," replied the gallant 
youth, " is indeed reduced to this extremity, it is at 
this moment that my departure to join her armies 
will render her the most essential- service." He im- 
mediately hired a vessel to convey him to America, 
where he arrived in the spring of 1777. He was 
received with coitiial affection by the people, became 
the bosom friend of Washington, solicited permission 
to serve without pay, and was appointed major-ge- 
neral in the army. 

The disastrous state of American affairs at the 
close of the year 1776, induced congress to attend 
more seriously to the subject of securing foreign aid ; 
and a new committee was appointed. Some of the 
members of this committee were disposed to make 
great sacrifices to obtain the aid of France, and were 
almost prepared to offer her the same monopoly of 
American commerce as had been enjoyed by Great 
Britain.* On the 30th of December, congress came 
to the resolution of sending commissioners to the 
courts of Vienna, Madrid, and Berlin, and to the 
grand duke of Tuscany. t These commissioners 
were instructed to assure the courts to which they 
were sent, that the Americans were determined to 

♦ " To induce France lo embark in the war, the American en- 
voys were authorized to stipulate, that all the trade between the 
United Slates and the West India islands, should be carried on 
either in French or American vessels ; and were specially instruct- 
ed to assure the French king, that if, by their joint efforts, the Bri- 
tish should be excluded from any share in the cod-fishery of Ame- 
rica, by the reduction of the islands of Newfoundland and Cape 
Breton, and ships of war should be furnished, at the expense of the 
United States, to reduce Nova Scotia, that the fishery should be 
enjoyed equally between them, to the exclusion of all otiier nations ; 
and that one half of Newfoundland should belong to France, and 
the other half, with Cape Breton and Nova Scotia, to the United 
States. Should these proposals be insufficient to induce France lo 
join in the war, and the commissioners were convinced that the 



maintain their independence, notwithstanding the 
suggestions of the British to the contrary. 

The success of the arms of the United States by 
the capture of the army of General Burgoyne, gave 
a new aspect to their affairs in France, and indeed 
throughout Europe. The American commissioners 
at Paris now stood on commanding ground. The 
French court, aware of the views of the British minis- 
try in relation to the colonies, no longer hesitated about 
accepting the propositions of the American envoys. 
M. Gerard informed the American commissioners, on 
the 16th of December, " that after a long and mature 
deliberation upon their propositions, his majesty had 
determined to recognise the independence of, and to 
enter into a treaty of commerce and alliance with, 
the United States of America ; and that he would 
not only acknowledge their independence, but actual- 
ly support it with all the means in his power ; that 
perhaps he was about to engage himself in an expen- 
sive war upon this account, but that he did not ex- 
pect to be reimbursed by them ; in fine, the Americans 
were not to think that he had entered into this reso- 
lution solely with a view of serving them, since, in- 
dependently of his real attachment to them and their 
cause, it was evidently the interest of France to di- 
minish the power of England, by severing her colo- 
nies from her."t On the 6th of February, 1778, a 
treaty of commerce was signed by Franklin, Deane. 
and Lee, on the part of the United States, and by M. 
Gerard on the part of France, together with a treaty 
of defensive alliance, in case war should be the con- 
sequence of this commercial connexion. The essen- 
tial and direct end of this alliance was, " to maintain 
the liberty, sovereignty, and independence, absolute 
and unlimited, of the United States, as well in matters 
of government as of commerce." 

Before leaving this subject, it is necessary to state, 
that as, previous to the recognition of independence 
by the court of France, it was imperative that the 
intercourse with the American agents should be con- 
ducted indirectly and with the utmost secrecy, the 
French ffovernment rendered their secret assistance 



open co-operation of France could not otherwise be obtained, they 
were directed lo assure his most Christian Majesty, Ihat such of the 
West India islands as might, in the course of the war, be reduced, 
should be yielded to him in absolute properly." — Pitkin, vol. i. 
p. 392. 

t William Lee was appointed commissioner lo the courts of Vi- 
enna and Berlin, Ralph Izard to the Duke of Tuscany, and Dr. 
Franklin lo Spain. Arthur Lee was afterwards appointed, in the 
room of Dr. Franklin, to the Spanish court. While Mr. Lee was 
at Berlin, his papers were stolen from his lodgings in a most extra- 
ordinary manner, and the British envoy at the Prussian court was 
implicated in this transaction. 

t Franklin's Works, vol. i. p. 382. 



270 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



through the agency of M. Beaumarchais, who appears 
lo have been more desirous of serving himself than 
the Americans. The mode in which he converted 
the gratuitous aid of the French court into articles 
of charge in his accounts with the congress, and es- 
pecially his retaining in his hands a million of livres 
out of the subsidy granted by the French king, are 
circumstances too extraordinary to be entirely passed 
over, but our limits compel us to refer the reader for 
the details to that very able work, Pitkin's Civil and 
Political Historj'',* and to the volumes of Diplomatic 
Correspondence already alluded to. 

During the first stages of the revolution, the uni- 
versal enthusiasm of the people, directed to one com- 
mon object, in some measure supplied the place of a 
general legislative and executive power. The con- 
gress had hitherto possessed no powers but such as 
were conferred by the instructions given by the state 
legislatures to their respective delegates ; but on the 
11th of June, 1776, the day following that in which 
the resolution in favour of independence had been 
adopted, congress determined to appoint a committee 
to prepare and digest the form of a confederation. 
This committee, on the 12th of July following, re- 
ported a plan of confederacy, consisting of twenty 
articles, and on the 22d of the same month it was 

* Vol. i. p. 403—422. 

t The following is a summary of the points embraced in the 
articles of confederation : — Each slate to retain its sovereignty and 
independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which 
is not e.xpressly delegated hy this confederation to the United States 
in congress assembled. The stales enter into a firm league of 
friendship with each other for their common defence, the security 
of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare ; binding 
themselves lo assist each other against all force offered to or attacks 
made upon them or any of them on account of religion, sovereignty, 
trade, or any other pretence whatever. The free inhabitants of 
the different states in this union to be entitled to all privileges and 
immunities of free citizens in the several states; and the people of 
each state to have free ingress and regress to and from any other 
.state, and to enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce, 
subject to the same duties, impositions, and restrictions, as the in- 
habitants thereof respectively. Any person guilty of or charged 
with treason, felony, or other high misdemeanor in any state, flee- 
ing from justice, and found in any of the United Slates, upon de- 
mand nf the governor or executive power of the state from which 
he fled, to be delivered up and removed to the stale having juris- 
diction of his offence. For the more convenient management of 
the general interests of the United States, delegates to be annually 
appointed, in such manner as the legislature of each state shall 
direct, to meet in congress on the first Monday in November in 
every year, with a power reserved to each stale to recall its dele- 
gales, or any of them, and to send others in their stead. No state 
to be represented in congress by less than two nor by more than 
seven members; and no person to be capable of being a delegate 
for more than three years in any term of six years ; nor is any 
person, being a delegate, to be capable of holding any office under 
the United Stales, for which he, or any other for his benefit, receives 
any salary, fees, or emolument of any kind. In determining ques- 
tions in congress, each state to have one vote. No state, without 
the consent of the United Stales in congress, to send an embassy 
to, or receive any embassy from, or enter into any conference, 
agreement, alliance, or treaty, with any king, prince, or state. The 



discussed in committee of the whole house, and was 
under consideration until the 20th of August, when 
an amended draft was reported. The difficulty in 
agreeing upon the details of the system, as well as 
the gloomy aspect of American affairs at this period, 
prevented congress from resuming this subject until 
April, 1777, when they resolved that two days in 
each week should be employed upon it, " until it 
shall be wholly discussed." The amended draft was 
considered and debated accordingly until the 26th of 
June, when it was again postponed to the 2d of Oc- 
tober, and was not finally adopted by congress until 
the 15th of November. The outlines of the system 
were, that the thirteen states formed a confederacy, 
under the style and name of " the United States of 
America ;" by which they entered " into a firm league 
of friendship with each other, for their defence, the 
security of their liberties, and their mutual and gene- 
ral welfare, binding themselves to assist each other 
against all force offered to or attacks made upon them, 
or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, 
trade, or any other pretence whatever. "t This plan 
of union was to be proposed to the legislatures of all 
the states, and, if approved, they were advised to 
authorize their delegates in congress to ratify the 
same ; this being done, it was to be conclusivc.t 

United States in congress assembled to have the sole and exclusive 
right and power of determining on peace and war, except in cases 
of actual or threatened invasion ; of sending and receiving ambas- 
sadors ; entering into treaties and alliances; of establishing rules 
for deciding, in all cases, what captures on laud or water shall be 
legal; of granting letters of marque and reprisal; appointing courts 
for the trial of piracies and felonies committed on the high seas. 
The United Stales in congress to be the last resort on appeal in all 
disputes and differences between two or more states concerning 
boundary, jurisdiction, or any other cause whatever; also to have 
the sole and exclusive right and power of regulating the alloy and 
value of coin struck by their own authority, or by that of the re- 
.speclive slates ; of fixing the standard of weights and measures 
throughout all the United States; regulating the trade, and mana- 
ging all affairs with the Indians, not members of any of the stales; 
establishing and regulating post-offices from one state to another 
throughout all the United States; appointing all the officers of thp 
naval forces, and commissioning all officers whatever in the service 
of the United States ; making rules for the government and regula- 
tion of the land and naval forces, and directing their operations. 
By the last article of the Confederation, every state to abide by the 
determination of the United Slates in congress assembled, on all 
questions which by this confederation are submitted to them. And 
the articles of this confederation to be inviolably observed by every 
slate, and the union to be perpetual ; no alteration at any lime here- 
after to be made in any of them, unless such alteration be agreed 
lo in a congress of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed 
by the legislatures of every state. 

t The following circular letter to the slates accompanied thi.s 
system : — 

" Congress having agreed upon a plan of confederacy for securing 
the freedom, sovereignty, and independence of the United States, 
authentic copies are now transmitted for the consideration of the 
respective legislatures. The business, equally intricate and im- 
portant, has in its progress been attended with uncommon embar- 
rassments and delay, which the most anxious solicitude and perse- 
vering diligence could not prevent. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



271 



The plan was considered by the legislatures of the 
several states in the winter of 1777-8, and by some 
was adopted without amendments, by others various 
amendments were proposed. 

The effect produced on the British cabinet, and 
on the nation at large, by the intelligence of the sur- 
render of General Burgoyne and his army, can 
scarcely be described. The most brilliant success 
had been anticipated ; the most ignominious result 
had occurred. The pride of the nation was humbled, 
and those who had disapproved of the war poured 
upon the ministry a torrent of invective ; while the 
embarrassments of the ministry were increased by 
the intelligence of the course which the hereditary 
enemy and rival of Great Britain had resolved to 
pursue. Under these circumstances, it v/as determin- 
ed in the cabinet to grant to America all that she had 
demanded in the beginning of the contest. An act 
was passed, declaring that parliament would not, in 
future, impose any tax upon the colonies ; and com- 
missioners were sent over, authorized to proclaim a 
repeal of all the offensive statutes, and to treat with 
the constituted authorities of America. The com- 
missioners, arriving at Philadelphia in the spring, 

" To form a permanent imion, accomraodaled to the opinion and 
wishes of (he delegates of so many states, differing in habits, pro- 
duce, commerce, and internal police, was found to be a work which 
nothing but lime and reflection, conspiring with a disposition to 
conciliate, could mature and accomplish. Hardly is it to be ex- 
pected that any plan, in the variety of provisions essential to our 
union, should exactly correspond with the maxims and political 
views of every particular slate. Let it be remarked, that, after the 
most careful inquiry and the fullest information, this is proposed 
as the best which could be adapted to the circumstances of all, and 
as that alone which affords any tolerable prospect of general ratifi- 
cation. Permit us, then, earnestly to recommend these articles to 
the immedilite and dispassionate attention of the legislatures of the 
respective states. Let them be candidly reviewed under a sense of 
the difficulty of combining in one general system the various senti- 
ments and interests of a continent divided into so many sovereign 
and independent communities, under a conviction of the absolute 
necessily of uniting all our councils and all our strength to main- 
tain and defend our common liberties. Let them be examined 
with a liberality becoming brethren and fellow-citizens sur- 
rounded by the same imminent dangers, contending for the same 
illustrious prize, and deeply interested in being for ever bound 
and connected together bj' ties the most intimate and indisso- 
luble. 

" And finally, let them be adjusted with the temper and magna- 
nimity of wise and patriotic legislators, who, while they are con- 
cerned for the prosperity of their own more immediate circle, are 
capable of rising superior to local attachments, when they may be 
incompatible with the safety, happiness, and glory of the general 
confederacy. 

" We have reason to regret the time which has elapsed in pre- 
paring this plan for consideration. With additional .solicitude, we 
look forward to that which must be necessarily spent before it can 
be ratified. Every motive loudly calls upon us to hasten its con- 
clusion. 

" More than any other consideration, it will confound our foreign 
enemies, defeat the flagitious practices of the disafl^ected, strengthen 
and confirm our friends, support our public credit, restore the va- 
lue of our money, enable us to maintain our fleets and armies, and 

35 



communicated to congress the terms offered by 
Great Britain, which were, however, unanimously 
rejected.* 

In consequence of the treaties concluded with her 
revolted colonies, Great Britain declared war against 
France ; and the ministry, presuming that assistance 
would be sent to the Americans, transmitted orders 
by the commissioners, that Philadelphia should be 
evacuated, and the royal troops concentrated at New 
York. The execution of these orders devolved upon 
Sir Henry Clinton, who had been appointed comman- 
der in chief on the resignation of General Howe. 
On the ISth of June the enemy quitted the city, and 
marched slowly eastward. Washington, leaving his 
huts in the forest, hung upon the rear of the British 
army, watching for a favourable opportunity to offer 
battle. On arriving at Monmouth, in New Jersey, 
General Lee, who had lately been exchanged, was 
ordered to take the command of five thousand men, 
and, early in the morning of the 28th, to commence 
an attack, being assured that he should be supported 
by the whole army. Lee made dispositions to attack 
accordingly, but perceiving the main body of the 
English returning to meet him, he began to retreat. 



add weight and respect to our councils at home, and to our treaties 
abroad. 

" In short, this salutary measure can no longer be deferred. It 
seems essential to our very e.xistence as a free people ; and without 
it, we may soon be constrained to bid adieu to independence, to 
liberty, and safety ; blessings which, from the justice of our cause, 
and the favour of our Almighty Creator, visibly manifested in our 
protection, we have reason to expect, if, in an humble dependance 
on his divine providence, we strenuously exert the means which 
are placed in our power. To conclude, if the legislature of any 
state shall not be assembled, congress recommend to the executive 
authority to convene it without delay ; and to each respective legis- 
lature it is recommended to invest its delegates with competent 
powers ultimately, in the name and behalf of the state, to subscribe 
articles of confederation and perpetual union of the United States, 
and to attend congress for that purpose on or before the lOlh day 
of March, 1778." 

» The letter communicating the refusal was signed b}' the presi- 
dent ; and it illustrates the character of congress, and the history 
of this year. " 1 have received the letter from your excellencies, 
dated the 9th instant, with the enclosures, and laid them before 
congress. Nothing but an earnest desire to spare the further effu- 
sion of human blood could have induced them to read a paper con- 
taining expressions so disrespectful to his most Christian Majesty, 
the good and great ally of these states, or to consider propositions 
so derogatory to the honour of an independent nation. The ads 
of the British parliament, the commission from your sovereign, and 
your letter, suppose the people of these stales to be subjects of the 
crown of Great Britain, and are founded on the idea of dependance, 
which is utterly inadmissible. I am further directed to inform 
your excellencies, that congressare inclined to peace, notwithstand- 
ing the unjust claims from which this war originated, and the sa- 
vage manner in which it hath been conducted. They will there- 
fore he ready to enter upon the consideration of a treaty of peace 
and commerce, not inconsistent with treaties already subsisting, 
when the king of Great Briiain shall demonstrate a sincere disposi- 
tion for that purpose. The only solid proof of this disposition will 
be an e.tplicit acknowledgment of these stales, or the withdrawing 
his fleets and armies." — Journals of Congress, vol. iv. p. 353, 



272 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Washington, advancing to render the promised sup- 
port, saw him retiring, rode forward, and addressed 
him in language implying disapprobation of his con- 
duct.* He then directed liim to form his men on 
j^round which he pointed out, and there oppose the 
progress of the enemy. A warm engagement ensued, 
and Washington, arriving with the main body of his 
army, compelled the British to fall back. The day 
had been intensely hot, and the troops were greatly 
fatigued, t yet General Washington resolved to renew 
the engagement ; but there were so many impedi- 
ments to be overcome, that before the attack could 
be commenced it was nearly dark. It was therefore 
thought most advisable to postpone further operations 
until morning, and the troops lay on their arms in 
the field of battle. t General Washington-, who had 
been exceedingly active through the day, and entire- 
ly regardless of personal danger, reposed himself at 
night in his cloak, under a tree, in the midst of his 
soldiers. His intention of renewing the battle was, 
however, frustrated ; the British troops marched away 
about midnight in such profound silence, that the 
most advanced posts knew nothing of their departure 
until morning. The American general, declining 
all further pursuit of the royal army, detached some 
light troops to attend its motions, and drew ofi" his 
soldiers to the borders of the North River. Sir 
Henry Clinton, after remaining a few days on the high 
grounds of Middletown, proceeded to Sandy Hook, 
whence he passed his army over to New York. 

The British having entered New York, Washing- 
ton conducted his army to White Plains. Congress 
returned to Philadelphia ; and in July received, with 
inexpressible joy, a letter from the Count D'Estaiog, 
announcing his arrival on the coast of Virginia, with 
twelve sail of the line and six frigates, with about 
four thousand troops on board. The count had in- 
tended to surprise Admiral Howe in the Delaware, but 
adverse winds detained him on the passage, until the 
British fleet had sailed for New York. He appeared 
before that harbour, but on sounding, found that his 
largest ships could not pass the bar. By the advice of 
Washington, a combined attack upon the British forces 
at Newport, in Rhode Island, was resolved on. Gen. 



• Lee, irritable and proud, could not forget the manner in which 
Washington' had addressed him, and in two passionate letters de- 
manded reparation. A court-martial was instituted ; he was found 
guilty of misconduct on the day of "battle, and of disrespect to the 
commander in chiet, and was suspended from command for one 
year. He never afterwards joined the army, but died in seclusion 
just before the close of rhe war. 

t In consequence of heal and fatigue, fifty-nine British soldiers 
perished wilhoiit a wound ; and several of the American soldiers 
died through the same cause. 

t The loss of the American.s in this battle was eight oflBcers and 



Sullivan, who had been appointed to command the 
troops, called upon the militia of New England to 
aid him in the enterprise. His army soon amounted 
to ten thousand men, and, as he was supported by 
the fleet, he felt confident of success. On the 9th of 
August, he took a position on the north end of Rhode 
Island, and afterwards moved nearer to Newport. 
Admiral Howe having received a re -enforcement, now 
appeared before the harbour, and the count instantly 
put to sea to attack him. A furious storm, however, 
came on, which damaged and dispersed both fleets. 
As soon as the weather permitted, each commander 
sought the port from which he had sailed ; but great 
was the disappointment of the Americans when D'Ks- 
taing announced his intention of proceeding to Bos- 
ton to refit ; they earnestly remonstrated, but the 
count was inflexible. Deserted by the fleet, the army 
could remain no longer with safety on the island. 
General Sullivan, therefore, immediately retreated to 
his first position. He was pursued and attacked by 
the enemy ; but they Avere gallantly resisted and re- 
pulsed with loss. The next day the two armies 
cannonaded each other, and the succeeding night 
the American general, deceiving the enemy by a 
show of resistance to the last, made a skilful retreat 
to the continent. It was a remarkable escape. The 
delay of a single day would probably have been fatal 
to the Americans ; for Sir Henry Clinton, who had 
been impeded by adverse winds, arrived with a re- 
enforcement of four thousand men the very next day, 
when a retreat, it is presumed, would have been im- 
practicable. 

At this period of the war, hostilities were carried 
on with more than usual acrimony. In several in- 
stances the British troops, and their allies, the Ameri- 
can tories and native Indians, exhibited a barbarity 
deeply to be lamented, wantonly destroying the 
property and injuring the persons of peaceful un- 
armed inhabitants. While asleep in a barn at Tap- 
pan, Colonel Baylor's troop of light dragoons were 
surprised by General Grey, who commanded his 
soldiers to use the bayonet only, and to give the 
rebels no quarter. Incapable of defence, they sued 
for mercy ; but the most pathetic supplications were 



sixty-one privates killed, and about a hundred and sixty wounded. 
Among the slain, and much regretted, were Lieutenant-Colonel 
Bonner, of Pennsylvania, and Major Dickenson, of Virginia. The 
loss of ihe British army, in killed, wounded, and missing, is staled 
to have been three hundred and lifly-eighi men, including officers 
Among their slain was Lieutenant-Colonel Moncklon, who was 
greatly and deservedly lamented. About a hundred were taken 
prisoners; and nearly a thousand soldiers, principally foreigners, 
many of whom had married in Philadelphia, deserted the British 
standard during the march. 



HISTORY OF THE UJNITED STATES, 



273 



lieard without awakening compassion ; nearly one 
half of the troop were killed. To many, repeated 
thrusts were barbarously given as long as signs of 
life remained ; while some, who had nearly a dozen 
stabs through the body, and were left for dead, after- 
wards recovered. A few escaped, and forty were 
saved by the humanity of a British captain, who 
dared to disobey the orders of his general. With 
feelings of revenge yet more barbarous, Wyoming, a 
happy and flourishing settlement, on the eastern 
branch of the Susquehannah, in Pennsylvania, was 
attacked by a band of tories and Indians. The con- 
ditions of the capitulation were entirely disregarded 
by the British and savage forces, and after the fort 
was delivered up, all kinds of barbarities were com- 
mitted by them. The village of Wilkesbarre, con- 
sisting of twenty-three houses, was burnt ; men and 
their wives were separated from each other and car- 
ried into captivity ; their property was plundered, 
and the settlement laid waste. The remainder of 
the inhabitants were driven from the valley, and 
compelled to proceed on foot sixty miles through the 
great swamp, almost without food or clothing. A 
number perished in the journey, principally women 
and children — some died of their wounds, others 
wandered from the path in search of food and were 
lost, and those who survived called the wilderness 
through which they passed " The Shades of Death," 
an appellation which it has since retained. Many 
other instances might be adduced ; but it is better to 
sufl'er the record of them to perish.* 

In the campaign of 1778, little on either side was 
accomplished. The alliance with France gave birth 
to expectations which events did not fulfil ; but the 
presence of her fleets on the coast deranged the plans 
of the British ; induced them to relinquish a part of 
their conquests ; and prevented their making any 
progress in the accomplishment of their designs. 

* We insert the following as an anlidote to the feelings with 
which the " glory" of war is apt to inspire the breasts even of the 
generous and noble :^" A short distance below the battle ground, 
there is a large island in the river, called Monockonock Island. 
Several of the settlers, while the battle and pursuit continued, suc- 
ceeded in swimming to this island, where they concealed them- 
selves among the logs and brushwood upon it. Their arms had 
been thrown away in their flight, previous to their entering the 
river, so that they were in a manner defenceless. Two of them, 
in particular, were concealed near and in sight of each other. 
While m this situation, they observed several of the enemy, who 
had pursued and fired at them while they were swimming the river, 
preparing to follow them to the island wilh their guns. On reach- 
ing the island they immediately wiped their guns and loaded them. 
One of them, wilh his loaded gun, soon passed close by one of these 
men, who lay concealed from his view, and was immediately re- 
cognised by him to be the brother of his companion who was con- 
cealed near him, but who, being a tory, had joined the enemy. He 
passed slowly along, carefully examining every covert, and directly 
perteived his brother in his place of concealment. He suddenly 



The close of this year was distinguished by a 
change of the theatre of war from the northern to 
the southern section of the confederacy. The coun- 
try, weak by its scattered population, the multitude 
of slaves, and the number of tories, presented a pros- 
pect of easy victory. In the end of November, 
Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell, witli two thousand five 
hundred men, sailed from New York to the coast of 
Georgia. Having landed his troops, he marched to- 
wards Savannah, the capital ; and defeating a snnill 
liody of Americans whom he met on his route, he 
immediately took possession of the city. After the 
fall of the capital, Sunbury surrendered at dis- 
cretion ; and these were the only military posts in 
Georgia. 

The campaign of 1779 was opened by General 
Lincoln, who had been appointed to the command of 
the American troops in the southern department. In 
April, leaving South Carolina, he marched into the 
interior of Georgia ; upon which the British army, 
entering the state he had left, invested Charles- 
ton, the capital. Lincoln hastened back to its de- 
fence ; and on his approach, the British retired to 
Stono ferry, where an action was fought, and a few 
days afterwards they continued their retreat to Sa- 
vannah. The heat of the season suspended further 
operations until September ; when Count D'Estaing, 
with a fleet carrying six thousand troops, arrived on 
the coast. The two armies, in concert, laid siege to 
Savannah. At the expiration of a month, the count, 
impatient of delay, insisted that the siege should be 
abandoned, or that a combined assault upon the ene- 
my's works should immediately be made. General 
Lincoln determined upon the latter course. Great 
gallantry was displayed by the French and American 
troops, but the British repulsed the assailants, killing 
and wounding nearly a thousand men.t while on 
their part the loss weIs small. The next day the 



stopped and said, ' So it is you, is it V His brother, finding that 
he was discovered, immediately came forward a few steps, and,, 
falling on his knees, begged him to .spare his life, promising to live 
with him and serve him, and even to be his slave as long as he 
lived, if he would only spare his life. ' All this is mighty good,' 
replied the savage-hearted brother of the supplicating man ; ' but 

you are a d d rebel;' and, deliberately presenting his rifle, shot 

him dead upon the spot. The other settler made his escape from 
the island, and having related this fact, the tory brother thought 
it prudent to accompany the British troops on their return to Ca- 
nada." — History of Wyoming, p. 127. 

t Count Pulaski was mortally wounded in this assault; and con- 
gress resolved that a monument should be erected to his memory. 
He was a Polander of high birth, who, with a few men, had car- 
ried off" King Stanislaus from the middle of his capital. The king, 
after being some time a prisoner, made his escape, and soon after 
declared Pulaski an outlaw. Thus proscribed, he came to Ameri- 
ca, and offered his service to congress, which honoured him wilh 
the rank of brigadier-general. 

Id September, 1779, the French fleet, under Cuunt D'Estaing, 



274 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



siege \^as raised, the French returning home, and 
the Americans to South Carolina. 

The operations of the British in the more northern 
parts of America were predatory rather than mihtary. 
In May, a naval and land force, commanded by Sir 
George Collier and General Matthews, made a de- 
scent on Virginia. On their arrival, they took pos- 
session of Portsmouth and of Norfolk ; destroyed the 
houses, vessels, naval stores, and a large magazine 
of provisions, at Suifolk ; made a similar destruction 
ut Kemp's Landing, Shepherd's, Gosport, Tanner's 
Creek, and other places in the vicinity : and, after 
setting fire to the houses and other public buildings 
in the dockyard at Gosport, embarked with their 
booty for New York. A similar expedition was soon 
after undertaken from New York against Connecticut, 

arrived on our coast, and General Lincoln marched to the relief of 
Savannah. The Georgia and South Carolina militia had orders 
to rendezvous in the neighbourhood. Before the arrival of Gene- 
ral Lincoln, Count D'Eslaing summoned the garrison at Savannah 
to surrender; but the British protracted the time, and with grea.t 
exertions strengthened their works, under that accomplished engi- 
neer. Major Moncrieff; and at length bid the count defiance. Lin- 
coln now arrived, and on the 4th of October the place was regular- 
ly besieged. Nine mortars and thirty-seven cannon from the land 
side, and fifteen pieces on the water side, were opened upon the 
city. But the French were impatient. The officers of D'Esiaing's 
fleet insisted upon raising the siege, and taking the place by storm. 
No step could be more unadvisable. A short lime, with the power 
brought to bear upon the besieged, would have forced a surrender 
at discretion. Lincoln remonstrated with the count, but the hot- 
headed young marine officers in the navy, — many of them belong- 
ing to distinguished families, — had great influence over the admi- 
ral, and brought him to decide on an attack. 

On the 9th of October, at the dawn of the day, while two feints 
were made with the militia, a real attack was made by a gallant 
force of French and American troops. The French force consist- 
ed of three thousand five hundred, and the Americans of six hun- 
dred continentals, and three hundred and fifty citizens of Charles- 
ton. The gallant Frenchman at the head of his column, marched 
up to the lines, and Lincoln at the head of his troops, went pari 
passu. A tremendous fire froin the British galleys threw the front 
of the column into confusion ; not from fear, but from the difficulty 
of disposing of the dead and wounded, in order to fill up their 
places. The places being supplied, with desperate energy, the co- 
lumn marched on to a redoubt, vvhefc a conflict took place as fierce 
and close as ever M'as fought before the invention of gunpow- 
der. The gate of the redoubt was most gallantly defended by 
Captain Fawse, who fell in the gate-way with his sword in the 
■ body of an assailant. They were lying side by side. This was 
the third the brave defender of the works had slain with his own 
hand. For an instant the French and American standards were 
seen in the smoke, floating en the parapet: but it was for a few 
moments only. The air was rent with acclamations ; but the 
enemy's fire was too desiructive ; a retreat was ordered, after the 
combined armies had stood their ground for nearly an hour. The 
ground was heaped with the dead and the wounded. In this short 
lime, nearly nine hundred of the allied armies were killed and 
wounded. The contest seemed to be, who would most readily dare 
to die. Six hundred and thirty-seven Frenchmen, and two hun- 
dred and forty-one Americans, were slain or wounded. The gal- 
lant D'Estaing was severely wounded ; and mortified at the result, 
and at the loss of so many brave young officers, he embarked for 
some more fortunate shore. The militia soon scattered themselves 
without the consent of the general — they had seen too much of 
war. The Americans felt their losses most deeply, for among the 
3lain fell the Polish count, Pulaski. He had about two hundred 



by Governor Tryon, with two thousand six hundred 
land forces, supported by Brigadier-General Garth, 
and accompanied by Sir George Collier with armed 
vessels to cover the transports. Though checked in 
their march, they entered New Haven about one in 
the afternoon, from which time until eight in the 
evening the town was subjected to almost indiscrimi- 
nate ravage and plunder. The royal army also 
plundered and burned the town of Fairfield, and the 
greatest part of the neighbouring village of Green 
Farms. A few days afterward they laid the town 
of Norwalk in ashes. 

Early in the season, Colonel Clarke, of Virginia, 
who was stationed at Kaskaskia, on the Mississippi, 
achieved an enterprise conspicuous for boldness of 
desio;n, and evincing- uncommon hardihood in its 



horse in the battle. He saw that desperation was the order of the 
day, and he started at full gallop to pass between the redoubts, and 
to charge the enemy in the rear, the most judicious movement of 
the day ; but in executing it, he fell, mortally wounded, at the 
head of his column. The melancholy evenl spread a gloom over 
the whole army. 

Joseph Pulaski Storasto, of Warka, was descended from a long 
line of illustrious ancestors. He received a first rate education in 
his own country, which was improved by foreign travel. He had 
prepared himself to serve his country as a judge, by making him- 
self acquainted with the Justinian code ; as a soldier, by making 
himself master of ancient and modern military tactics ; as a slates- 
man, by a free intercourse with the liberal of all countries, and by 
acquiring a deep knowledge of the laws of nations. Elevated by 
all that was noble in man, he mourned over the degraded state of 
his country, and resolved to see her free, if freedom was to be gain- 
ed by any sacrifice that a patriot could make, of fortune, children, 
home, and life. He was a lover of his country's ancient fame, and 
deeply read in her history. He could not bear the thought of seeing 
her throne filled by a minion of the Semiramis of the North, — a 
wolf prowling for prey among surrounding nations, and making 
them feel her power from the Caspian to the Baltic, and from 
Kamschatka to Constantinople. 

Slung by his country's wrongs, he flew to arms, and for several 
years, by the weight of his character, and the energies of his mind, 
he stemmed the torrent of corruption, and thus checked the pro- 
gress of the arms of Russia, from 1768 to 1771. With a small 
army, he contended with a large one ; with a few patriotic follow- 
ers, he hewed down myriads of the instruments of despotic power. 
He revived, after a defeat, with almost miraculous suddenness; 
and when his enemies thought him for ever subdued, he came upon 
them like a boll of lightning ! He dispersed the wicked with a 
look, and brought logelher the virtuous by a smile. Avarice stood 
abashed at his sacrifices of property, and selfishness could not reach 
the elevation and purity of his motives. There were men who 
thought him ambitious, and that he aspired to the direction of the 
affairs o^ Poland ; but they could not fathom the depth of his mind, 
nor measure the expansion of his soul! A weak and timid mo- 
narch charged him with attempts on his life, when his only object 
was to secure his person for a season, in order to make belter terms 
for those who had incurred the royal displeasure. He formed him- 
self on no recent models — the heroes of antiquity filled his mind^ 
The justice of Aristides, the patriotism and martial character of 
Ejiaminondas, were for ever before him. Born to affluence, he 
only used his riches ibr the purpose of doing good ; and he valued 
power, hereditary and acquired, only as an instrument of making 
others happy. The cause of liberty was his cause, wherever 
found ; he was ordained, in early life, as a priest at her altar; and 
it was the decree of heaven that he should die a martyr in her 
cause ! — AmeHcan Editor. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



276 



execution. With only one hundred and thirty men, 
he penetrated through the wilderness to St. Vincent's, 
a British post on the Wabash, in the heart of the In- 
dian country. His route lay across deep swamps 
and morasses ; and in one instance the party waded 
through water, often as high as the breast, foi nearly 
five miles. After a march of sixteen days, they 
reached the town, wliich, having no intimation of 
their approach, surrendered without resistance ; and 
a short time after, the fort capitulated. This fortu- 
nate achievement arrested an expedition which the 
enemy had projected against the frontiers of Virginia, 
and detached several tribes of Indians from the 
British interest. 

Congress, though its measures toward the Indians 
were conciliatory, could not secure the western fron- 
tiers. The Six Nations had been advised by that 
body, and had promised, to observe a neutrality in 
the war ; but, excepting the Oneidas, and a few 
others who were friendly to the Americans, those In- 
dians took a decided part against them. The pre- 
► sents and promises of Sir John Johnson and other 
British agents, with the desire of plunder, induced 
them to invade the frontiers ; and wherever they 
went, they carried slaughter and devastation. An 
expedition was therefore ordered against them, and 
General Sullivan, to whom the conduct of it was in- 
trusted, marched into their country. The Indians, 
on hearing of the projected expedition, collected their 
strength, took possession of proper ground, and forti- 
fied it with judgment. General Sullivan attacked 
them in their works, and they sustained a cannonade 
more than two hours ; but they then gave way, and, 
after their trenches were forced, they fled with pre- 
cipitation. The victorious army, penetrating into 
tlie heart of their country, laid it desolate. Their 
villages, their detached habitations, their corn fields, 
their fruit trees and gardens, were indiscriminately 
destroyed. 

The campaign of this year, though barren in im- 
portant events, was distinguished by one gallant en- 
terprise, which reflected much honour on the Ame- 
rican arms. Stony Point, a fortress on the North 
River, had been taken from the Americans', and 
strongly fortified by the British. It was at this time 
garrisoned by about six hundred men, under the 
command of Lieutenant-Colonel Johnson. General 
Washington, having obtained precise information of 
the condition of the works, the nature of the ground 
in their vicinity, the strength and arrangements of 
the garrison, and the disposition of the guards, and 
having in person reconnoitred the post, resolved to 
attempt the surprise of it. The execution of the 



plan was intrusted to General Wayne, and the troops 
employed on this service were chiefly from New 
England. At half past eleven on the night of the 
15th of July, the columns moved on to the charge at 
opposite points of the works, the van of each with 
unloaded muskets and fixed bayonets ; and at twenty 
minutes after twelve, both columns rushed forward 
under a tremendous fire of musketry and grape-shot, 
entered the works at the point of the bayonet, and, 
arriving in the centre of them at nearly the same 
instant, compelled the garrison to surrender at dis- 
cretion. A more gallant exploit has seldom been 
performed, and the humanity of the victors was equal 
to their valour. Notwithstanding the devastations 
in Connecticut, and the butchery of Baylor's troop, 
the scene of which was near, not an individual suf- 
fered after resistance had ceased. 

On the approach of the inclement season, the 
American army built themselves huts for winter 
quarters. Positions were chosen most favourable 
for the defence of the most important posts, and for 
covering the country. The army was formed into 
two divisions ; one of these erected huts near West 
Point, and the other at Morristown, in New Jersey. 
The head quarters of the commander in chief were 
with the last division. Great distress was felt this 
winter on account of the deranged state of the Ame- 
rican finances. General Greene and Colonel Wads- 
worth, gentlemen in every respect qualified for the 
duties of their respective stations, were yet at the 
head of the quarter-master and commissary depart- 
ments, but the credit of the country was fallen ; they 
had not the means to make prompt payment for ar- 
ticles of supply ; and they found it impossible to lay 
up large magazines of provisions, and extremely dif- 
ficult to obtain supplies to satisfy the temporary wants 
of the army. Large sums had been annually raised 
and expended, and the ability of the people to pay 
taxes had progressively decreased. To supply de- 
ficiences, paper money, to the amount of about a 
hundred and fifty millions of dollars, had been issu- 
ed ; but this was depreciated, and at the close of 
1779, thirty dollars in paper were of no more value 
than one in specie. To purchase provisions with 
this money was therefore first difficult, and then im- 
possible, and congress now found their funds and 
their credit exhausted. Before the month of Janua- 
ry expired, the soldiers were put upon allowance, 
and before its close the whole stock of provision in 
store was exhausted, and there was neither meat nor 
flour to be distributed to the troops. To prevent the 
dissolution of the army, the commander in chief was 
reluctantly driven to very vigorous measures : he ap. 



276 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



portioned to each county in the state of New Jersey 
a quantity of meat and flour, according to the abihty 
of each, to be brought into camp in the course of six 
days. At the same time he wrote to the magistrates, 
stating the absolute necessity of the measure, and in- 
forming them, that unless the inhabitants voluntarily 
complied with the requisition, the exigency of the 
ca«e would force him to obtain it by military exaction. 
To the honour of the inhabitants of New Jersey, ha- 
rassed as their country had been, the full quantity 
of provisions required was cheerfully and seasonably 
afforded. 



CHAPTER II. 

FROM THE CAMPAIGN OP 1780 TO THE TERMINATION 
OP THE WAR OF THE REVOLUTION. 

During the year 1780, the contest between Great 
Britain and her ancient colonies was carried on chiefly 
in tlie southern states. As soon as Sir Henry Clin- 
ton ascertained that Count D'Estaing had left the 
American coast, he hastened to despatch an expedi- 
tion against South Carolina, leaving the garrison at 
New York under the command of General Knyphau- 
ben. Early in February the troops landed within 
thirty miles of the capital. Governor Rutledge, to 
whom the assembly of South Carolina had recently 
given extraordinary powers, ordered the militia to 
rendezvous, but the repulse at Savannah, at the close 
of the preceding campaign, h;id produced such a dis- 
piriting effect, that but few complied. The defences 
of Charleston consisted of a chain of redoubts, lines, 
and batteries, extending from Ashley to Cooper river, 
on which were mounted upwards of eighty pieces of 
artillery, and on all sides of the town where a land- 
ing was practicable, batteries were erected and co- 
vered with artillery. General Lincoln, trusting to 
these defences, and expecting large re-enforcements,, 
remained in Charleston at the earnest request of the 
inhabitants, and, with the force under his command, 
resolved to defend the place. On the 21st of March 
the British fleet crossed the bar, and anchored in Five 
Fathom Hole. Commodore Whipple, who command- 
ed the American vessels, finding it impracticable to 
prevent the enemy from passing over the bar, fell 
back to Fort Moultrie, and afterwards to Charleston. 
In a few days the town was invested by sea and land, 

• By the articles of capitulation, the garrison were to march out 
of the town, and to deposit their arms in front of the works ; but 
the drums were not to beat a British march, nor the colours to be 
uncased. The continental troops and seamen were to keep their 
'jsggage, and remain prisoners of war until exchanged. The mili- 



and the British commanders summoned General Lin- 
coln to surrender ; the demand was, however, met 
with a firm refusal. The batteries of the first pa- 
rallel were now opened upon the town, and soon 
made a visible impression ; and to prevent the recep- 
tion of the re-enforcements which General Lincoln 
expected. Sir H. Clinton detached Lieutenant-colonel 
Webster, with fourteen hundred men, by- the advan- 
ced guard of which detachment, the American caval- 
ry, with the militia attached to them, were surprised 
in the night of the 14th of Tipril, and completely 
routed and dispersed. The British now extended 
themselves to the eastward of Cooper river ; and 
about this time Sir Henry Clinton received a re-en- 
forcement of three thousand men from New York. 
The garrison having no reasonable hope of effecting 
a retreat, an offer was made of surrendering the 
town ; but the proposed conditions were rejected by 
the British commanders. The besiegers in the mean 
time were daily advancing their works, and had now 
completed their third parallel ; the garrison of Fort 
Moultrie surrendered ; and the broken remains of the- 
American cavalry under Colonel White were again 
surprised by Colonel Tarleton, and the whole either 
killed, taken, or dispersed. Sir Henry Clinton, thus 
successful in every operation, renewed his former of- 
fers to the ffarrison in case of their surrender ; but 
the terms, so far as they respected the citizens, not 
being satisfactory, hostilities recommenced. The bat- 
teries of the third parallel now opened on the town, 
and did great execution ; several houses were burned ; 
numbers of the besieged were killed at their guns ; 
and the British prepared to make a general assault 
by land and water. At length a great number of 
citizens of Charleston addressed General Lincoln in 
a petition, requesting his acceptance of the terms 
which had been previously oflered. A capitulation 
was consequently signed on the 12th of May, and 
the next day Major-General Leslie took possession of 
the town.* 

The capital having surrendered, measures were 
adopted to overawe the inhabitants of the country, 
and induce them to return to their allegiance to the 
king. Garrisons were placed in different parts of the 
state, and two thousand men were despatched to- 
wards North Carolina, to repel several parties of 
militia, who were hastening to the relief of Charles- 
ton. Colonel Tarleton, making a rapid march of a 
hundred and five miles in fifty-four hours, met, at 



lia were to be permitted to return home as prisoners on parole; 
and, while they should adhere to their parole, were not to be no- 
lested by the British troops, in person or property. The inhabit- 
ants of all conditions were to be considered as prisoners on parole., 
and to hold their property on the same terras with the militia. 



II 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



277 



the Waxhaws, and attacked one of these parties, com- 
manded by Colonel Buford. The Americans, being 
defeated by his superior forces, implored quarter ; 
but nearly the whole of them were either killed or 
too badly wounded to be removed from the field. 
This sanguinary conduct spread dismay throughout 
the country, and imparted a similar character to fu- 
ture conflicts. 

Indignant at the treatment they received, great 
numbers of the inhabitants seized their arms, and re- 
solved on a vindictive war with their invaders. A 
party who had taken refuge in North Carolina, chose 
Colonel Sumpter their leader. At the head of these 
he returned to his own state, attacked and defeated 
several scattered detachments from the British army ; 
and by a succession of gallant enterprises he kept 
alive a spirit of determined hostility to Great Britain 
in every part of the state. His exertions were ren- 
dered the more effective by the approach of four 
thousand men, principally continentals, under the 
command of General Gates. Lord Cornwallis, whom 
Sir Henry Clinton, on his return to New York, had 
left chief in command, hastened to oppose the con- 
quei-or of Burgoyne. On the night of the 15th of 
August, he marched, with his whole force, to attack 
the Americans in their camp at Clermont. They at 
the same hour began to move towards Camden, 
where Lord Cornwallis had his head-quarters. As 
the two armies were marching on the same road, in 
opposite directions, their advanced guards met and 
fired on each other about half-past two in the 
morning. From some prisoners made on both sides, 
the commanders learned each other's movements. 
Both armies halted, and were formed, and the firing 
soon ceased, as if by mutual consent. The ground 
on which the two armies thus accidentally met, 
was exceedingly favourable to Lord Cornwallis. A 
swamp on each side secured his flanks, and narrow- 
ed the ground in front, so as to render the superiority 
of the Americans in numbers of less consequence. 
In the morning a severe and general action was 
fought. The charge of the British was made with 
such vigour, that the Virginia militia threw down 
their arms, and fled with the utmost precipitation ; 
and the greatest part of the North Carolina militia 
soon followed their example. The American reserve 
was now brought into action, and General Gates, in 
conjunction with General Caswell, endeavoured to 
rally the militia at advantageous passes in the rear 
of the field of action, but in vain. On the left and 
in the centre the contest was more obstinately main- 
tained by the Americans, whose artillery did consi- 
derable execution ; but by the ffight of the militia 



their left flank was exposed, and the continentals 
after a brave resistance of nearly three quarters of an 
hour, were thrown into confusion, and forced to give 
way. The Americans lost the whole of their artille- 
ry, the greatest part of their baggage, several hundred 
men, and some very valuable officers ; the loss of the 
British was also severe. 

Sumpter, who had lately been victorious in a skir- 
mish, retreated precipitately on hearing of the defeat 
of Gates ; but supposing he was beyond danger, he 
halted at the Catawba ford to refresh his troops. 
Here his sentinels unhappily slept at their posts, and 
Tarleton's legion rode into his camp before prepara- 
tions could be made for defence. Between tliree and 
four hundred were killed or wounded. The remain- 
der were dispersed in the woods, three hundred Britisii 
prisoners were released, and all the baggage and 
stores fell into the power of the victors. 

Apprehending the state to be subdued, Cornwallis 
adopted measures of extreme severity to suppress 
every latent inclination to revolt. He directed that 
all who, having once submitted, had lately given aid 
to the armies of congress, should be deprived of their 
property and imprisoned ; and that all who had once 
borne arms with the British, and afterwards joined 
the Americans, should suffer death. In consequence 
of these orders, several were executed, and many were 
reduced to poverty and wretchedness. In these 
times of cojjfusion and distress, the mischievous 
effects of slavery in facilitating the conquest of the 
country became apparent. As the slaves had no in- 
terest at stake, the subjugation of the state was a 
matter of no consequence to them. Instead of aiding 
in its defence, they, by a variety of means, threw 
the weight of their influence into the opposite scale. 

Although his corps had been dispersed. General 
Sumpter speedily re-collected a band of volunteers, 
and kept the field in South Carolina for three months, 
when there was no continental army in the state. 
Varying his position along the Evoree, Broad, and 
Tyger rivers, he had frequent skirmishes with the 
enemy, whom he incessantly harassed. In Novem- 
ber he was attacked at Broad river by Major Wemys, 
commanding a corps of infantry and dragoons, but 
the British were defeated, and their commanding 
ofiicer taken prisoner ; and in a few days afterward 
he was attacked near Tyger river by Colonel Tarle- 
ton, who finding himself unable to dislodge the 
Americans, retreated with considerable loss, and left 
Sumpter in possession of the field. The zeal, acti- 
vity, and bravery of this ofiicer, at that trying period, 
procured him the thanks of congress and the applause 
of his country. 



278 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



■While the affairs of the south were in a state by- 
no means encouraging to the cause of independence, 
tiie general army under the command of Washington 
was in a state of insufferable destitution, and of con- 
sequent mutiny. Two hundred millions of dollars 
in paper currency were at this time in circulation 
upon the credit of the United States. Congress had 
tlie preceding year solemnly pledged the faith of 
government not to issue more than this sum, and 
the national treasury was now empty. Congress, 
the head of the nation, had, therefore, no further 
command of the resources of the country. The 
power of taxation, and of every coercive measure of 
government, was vested in the state sovereignties, 
and a system which in its execution required the 
conjoint agency of thirteen sovereignties, was too 
complex for the prompt operations of a military body. 
In the course of the winter forage had failed, and 



♦ Destitute of arms and ammunition, without a single ship of 
war, and without tlie means of procuring them, no resource was 
left, to enable them to resist the mighty force brought against them, 
hut a paper medium. 

During the year 1775, bills of credit, to the amount of three 
millions of dollars, were issued by congress, in addition to those 
issued by some of the individual states. By new emissions, at dif- 
ferent times, this sum was increased at the close of the year 1778, 
to more than one hundred millions. 

From the peculiar situation of the United States, without com- 
merce, the union incomplete, the state governments imperfectly or- 
grinizcd, congress deemed it imprudent to call for taxes, until No- 
vember, 1777. At this time, they recommended to the several 
states, to raise by taxes, the sum of five millions of dollars, for the 
succeeding year. This sum was apportioned among the state: 
hnving reference, generally, to the supposed number of inhabitants 
In each. [To New Hampshire, 200,000 ; Massachusetts, 820,000 
Rhode Island, 100,000 ; Connecticut, 600,000; New York, 200,000 
New Jersey, 270,000; Penn.sylvania, 620,000 ; Delaware, 60,000 
Maryland, 520,000; Virginia, 800,000 ; North Carolina, 250,000 
South Carolina, 500,000 ; Georgia, 60,000.] The sums so appor- 
tioned, however, were not to be considered as the final quota of 
any slate ; but the amount paid by each, was to be placed to its 
credit, bearing an interest of six per cent, from the time of pay- 
ment, until the quotas should be finally adjusted, agreeably to the 
confederation, to be adopted and ratified by the states. If, on such 
adjustment, any state had paid more than its quota, it was to re- 
ceive interest on the surplus; if less, then to pay interest on the 
deficiency, until, by a future tax, such surplus or deficiency should 
be adjusted. 

Depreciation of this paper was the natural consequence of such 
larse emissions. This was seriously felt, in the beginning of 1777 ; 
and to provide a remedy, congress, in January of that year, made 
it a tender in payment of all public and private debts; and a refu- 
sal to receive it, was declared to be an extinguishment of the debt 
itself. And they thought proper to declare, that whoever should 
refuse to receive it, in exchange for any property, as gold and sil- 
ver, should be deemed an enemy to his country. They, at the same 
time, resorted to the extraordinary expedient of regulating the 
prices of ail articles necessary for the army ; and if any persons re- 
fused to sell the surplus of what was wanted for the annual support 
of their families, the purchasing comtnissaries were authorized to 
take such surplus at the prices so fixed. 

These extraordinary measures tended to increase rather than 
dimmish the evil. The bills still continued to depreciate rapidly, 
and some more elTectual remedy than tender and regulating laws, 
was necessary. In 1779, congress attempted to establish a fund 
for sinking the bills then in circulation, by calling on the states to 



many of the horses attached to the army had died, 
or were rendered unfit for use. General Washington 
therefore struggled with almost insuperable difficulties 
in supplying the army. The pay of the officers also 
had now scarcely more than a nominal value ; and 
the officers of whole lines belonging to some of the 
states, in a body, gave notice, that on a certain day 
they should resign their commissions, unless provi- 
sion was made for their honourable support. Con- 
gress possessed not the means to apply adequate re 
medies to these threatening evils. They passed a 
resolution, indeed, " That congress will make good 
to the line of the army, and to the independent corps 
thereof, the deficiencies of their original pay, which 
had been occasioned by the depreciation of the con- 
tinental currency ;"* but the promise of future com- 
pensation from a country whose neglect was conceiv- 
ed to be the source of all their sufferings, they deem- 

pay their quotas of fifteen millions of dollars for that year, and six 
millions annually for the eighteen succeeding years. 

These calls upon the states were made in vain; little was paid 
into the public treasury; and new bills were issued, which swelled 
the amount in September, 1779, to one hundred and sixty million.?. 
At this time, congress thought it necessary to declare, that the is- 
sues, on no account, should exceed two hundred millions. Nor 
did they then despair of their ultimate redemption at par. In a 
circular address to their constituents, they, with apparent sincerity 
and zeal, endeavoured to prove, that the United Slates had the 
ability, as well as disposition, eventually to redeem their bills. 
After stating the probable future resources of the country, from an 
increase of population, a vast increase of agricultural productions, 
the avails of the western lands, &c., they say, " whoever examines 
the force of these and similar observations, must smile at the igno- 
rance of those, who doubt the ability of the United Stales to redeem 
the bills." They indignantly repelled the idea of a violation of 
the plighted faith of the nation. 

" The pride of America," they observed, " revolts at the idea ; 
her citizens know for what purpose these emissions were made, 
and have repeatedly plighted their faith for the redemption of 
them; they are to be found in every man's possession, and every 
man is interested in their being redeemed^ they must therefore en- 
tertain a high opinion of American credulity, who suppose the peo- 
ple capable of believing, on due reflection, that all America will, 
against the faith, the honour, and the interest of all America, be 
ever prevailed upon to countenance, support, or permit so ruinous, 
so disgraceful a measure." 

While every one must applaud the spirit of these observations, 
few, we believe, will not regret to find in the same address, remarks 
on the supposed advantages of paper money, calculated to make 
them doubt, at least, whether congress were not trifling with the 
public, on so interesting and important a subject. 

" Let it be remembered," they remarked, " that paper money is 
the only kind of money which cannot ' make imto itself wings and 
fly away.' It remains with us, it will not forsake us, it is always 
ready and at hand for the purpose of commerce or taxes, and every 
industrious man can find it." 

The continued failures of the states to comply with the requisi- 
tions made upon them, and the increasing wants of the country, in- 
creased the issues (notwithstanding the resolution of congress to 
the contrary) to more than three hundred millions; and the idea 
of redeeming the bills at their nominal value, was at length aban- 
doned. In March, 1780, the states were required to bring them 
in at forty for one. The bills, when brought in, were to be can- 
celled, and new ones to issue in lieu of them, not exceeding one 
twentieth part of their npminal amount. The new bills were to be 
redeemable in six years, to bear an interest of five per cent., to be 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



279 



ed a feeble basis of dependance, at the moment they 
were severely pressed by privations of every kind. 
Murmurs at length broke out into actual mutiny. 
Two of the Connecticut regiments paraded under 
arms, announcing their intention to return home, or 
by their arms to obtain subsistence ; but by the 
spirited and prudent exertions of the oiEcers, the 
ringleaders Avere secured, and the regiments brought 
back to their duty. 

This disaffection was reported to New York, with 
the customary exaggerations of rumour. General 
Knyphausen, the commanding officer at that post, 
supposing the American citizens and soldiers ripe for 
revolt, passed over into New Jersey with five thou- 
sand men, to avail himself of favourable events ; but 
the behaviour of the Americans soon convinced him 
he had been deceived in the report of their disaffect; 
ed disposition. The troops detached from the army 
to oppose his progress fought with obstinate bravery; 
and the inhabitants, seizing their arms with alacrity, 
emulated the spirit and persevering courage of the 
regular soldier. The general, finding he must en- 
counter serious opposition, retreated to Elizabeth 
Point, opposite to Staten Island. In the mean time. 
Sir Henry Clinton, returning with his victorious 
troops from Charleston, ordered a re-enforcement to 
Knyphausen, who, with the whole body, advanced 
a second time towards Springfield. The British 
were now opposed by General Greene with a consi- 
derable body of continental troops, and a severe ac- 
tion was fought, but the Americans were forced, by 
superior numbers, to retire. General Greene took 
post with his troops on a range of hills, in the hope 
of being attacked ; but the British, having burned 
the town, retreated, and the next day set out on their 
return to New York. 

Late in the spring the Marquis La Fayette return- 
ed from France with the pleasing intelligence that 

issued on the credit of the individual states, and their payment 
guarantied by the United Stales. 

The new system of finance was equally unavailing. The old 
bills were not brought in, and of course few new ones issued. The 
general treasury was empty, the army without pay or clothing, and 
often without provisions. The states were called upon for supplies 
in specific articles. To keep the army together, congress were 
obliged to raise money, by drawing bills on their ministers in Eu- 
rope, without any assurance of their payment. 

The continental bills, at last, became of so little value, that they 
ceased to circulate; and in the course of the year 1780, quietly 
died in the hands of the possessors. 

In addition to this, the campaign of 1780 was unfortunate for 
America. The cities of Charleston and Savannah were taken, 
and the states of South Carolina and Georgia were in possession 
of the enemy. In this situation, congress had no other msans of 
providing for the next campaign, but foreign loans. To obtain 
these, they, on the 22d of November, addressed a letter to their 
ally, the king of France, stating their embarrassments, and de- 
claring that a foreign loan of at least twpntv-five millions of livres, 

36 



his government had resolved to assist the United 
States, by employing this year a respectable land and 
naval force in America. This grateful information 
reanimated the public mind, and gave a new stimu- 
lus to the activity of congress, and of the governments 
of the several states, that preparation might be made 
to co-operate with the French armament on its arrival. 
Vigorous measures were in consequence adopted by 
congress and by the states to recruit the army, to lay 
up magazines, and to enable their general to comply 
with the reasonable expectations of their allies ; but 
the agency of difterent bodies was necessary to carry 
these public measures into effect, and their operation 
was dilatory. 

Early in July the first division of French troops 
reached the American shore, consisting of between 
five and six thousand men, with a large train of bat- 
tering and field artillery. These forces were com- 
manded by Count de Rochambeau, whose government 
had placed him under the command of General 
Washington. The count brought information that a 
second division would follow him as soon as trans- 
ports could be fitted out to bring them. The princi- 
pal French and American officers assiduously culti- 
vated a mutual affection between the two armies ; 
and the commander in chief recommended to the 
officers of the United States to engraft on the Ameri- 
can cockade a white relief, as an emblem of the 
alliance of the two powers. On the arrival of the 
French, the Americans were unprepared to act with 
them, nor did the American general know what force 
would ultimately be brought into the field ; and 
before any thing could be effected, information was 
brought that the second armament destined for 
America was_^ blocked up in the harbour of Brest, 
and would not this season reach the American con- 
tinent. The flattering prospect of terminating the 
war by the conquest of the British posts in a moment 

was indispensably necessary for a vigorous prosecution of the war. 
Dr. Franklin was specially instructed, " to employ his unremitted 
and utmost abilities" to procure the aids required. At no time 
since the campaign of 1776, had the affairs of the United States 
worn so gloomy an aspect, as at the close of this year. General 
Wasliington, in a circular letter to the governors of the stales, in 
October, says, " our finances are in an alarming state of derange- 
ment. The public credit is almost arrived at its last stage. The 
people begin to be dissatisfied with the feeble mode of conducting 
the war, and with the ineffectual burdens imposed on them, which, 
though light in comparison with what other nations feel, are, from 
their novelty, heavy to them. They lose their confidence in go- 
vernment apace." 

The absolute necessity of obtaining foreign loans, induced con- 
gress, in December, 1780, to send a special minister to France. 
Colonel John Laurens, one of the aids of General "Washington, and 
son of Henry Laurens, then a prisoner in the lower of London, was 
selected for this important mission. — Pjtkin's Political and Civil 
Hi-slory, vol. ii. p. 154—158. 



280 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



vanished, and elevated views of brilliant success were 
succeeded by grievous disappointment. 

In this season of difficulty, of embarrassment, and 
of gloom, a circumstance occurred which excited the 
deepest interest throughout both armies, and indeed 
in the breast of the inhabitants of all the states. 
The American army was stationed in the strongliolds 
of the high lands on both sides of the North River ; 
and for the defence of this position, and to keep com- 
mand of the river, a fortress had been built at West 
Point, which was deemed impregnable, and had ac- 
quired the appellation of the Gibraltar of America. 
Of this post General Arnold solicited the command, 
and General Washington, far from suspecting any 
sinister views in an officer who had been so zealous 
and active in the cause of his country, complied with 
the solicitation. Arnold had, however, no sooner 
become invested with the command, than he carried 
on a negotiation with Sir Henry Clinton, by which 
it was agreed, that he should make such a disposition 
of liis forces, as would enable the British general 
effectually to surprise West Point. The agent em- 
ployed in this negotiation was Major Andre, adjutant- 
general of the British army ; and to favour the com- 
munications, the Vulture, a British sloop of war, had 
been previously stationed in North River, as near 
Arnold's posts as could be without exciting suspicion. 
On the night of the 21st of September, a boat was 
sent from the shore to fetch Major Andre, and Arnold 
met him at the beach, without the posts of both 
armies. Their business not being finished until it 
was too near morning for Andre to return to the 
Vulture, Arnold, telling him he must be concealed 
until the next ni^-ht, conducted him within one of 
the American posts, where he continued with him 
the following day. The Vulture having in the mean 

* General Arnold early and warmly embraced the American 
cause. His enterprising spirit, his invincible forlitude, his heroic 
and persevering ardour in battle, had exalted his military charac- 
ter in his own country and in Europe. Being incapacitated for the 
duties of the field by the wounds he received before Q.uebec and at 
Saratoga, he was appointed commandant in Philadelphia when the 
British evacuated that city. In (his flattering command, he adopt- 
ed a style of living above his means, and soon found himself loaded 
with debt. To relieve himself he entered into various schemes of 
speculation, and was unsuccessful in all. Hollow at heart, he had 
recourse to fraud and peculation. These practices rendered him 
odious to the citizens, and gave offence to government. At length, 
formal complaints were lodged against him, and congress ordered 
his trial bv a court-martial. By this court he was found guilty, 
and sentenced to be reprimanded by the commander in chief. The 
sentence was approved by congress, and carried into execution by 
General Washington. In the gold that was to reward his treason, 
Arnold expected relief from his pecuniary embarrassments : and 
his implacable spirit sought its revenge of tiis country by betraying 
into the hand of her enemy the Gibraltar of America. Upon his 
establishment in the army of Great Britain, he found it nece.ssary 
to make some exertions to secure the attachment of his new friends. 
With the hope of alluring many of the discontented to his standard, 



time been compelled to alter her position, Andre 
could return to New York in no other way than by 
land ; changing his uniform, therefore, which he had 
worn under a surtout, for a plain dress, he set out on 
horseback, under the name of John Anderson, with 
a passport, signed by Arnold, " to go to the lines of 
White Plains, or lower if he thought proper, he be- 
ing on public business." When advanced a great 
part of the way, he was stopped by three of the New 
York militia, and several papers, containing exact 
returns of the state of the forces, ordnance, and de- 
fences at West Point, were found in his boots. The 
captors, disdaining a proflered bribe of a purse of gold, 
and permanent provision and promotion, on condition 
of their conveying and accompanying him to New 
York, delivered him a prisoner to Lieutenant-Colonel 
Jameson, who commanded the out-posts. Andre, 
with the incautious permission of Jameson, procured 
a letter to be sent to Arnold, informing him of hia 
detention, which gave the traitor opportunity to es- 
cape on board the Vulture,* in which he reached 
New York in safety. At this very hour Washington 
arrived, on his return from a conference with the 
French general at Hartford. He repaired, without 
delay, to the fort of West Point, where, however, he 
could learn nothing of a decisive import. But some 
orders, issued by Arnold the day before, redoubled 
his suspicions ; he returned to the quarters of the 
general, and at this instant Jameson's messenger 
presented himself, and delivered the packet with 
which he was charged. Washington seemed for 
the moment overwhelmed by the discovery of a crime 
which ruined the fame of an American general, and 
wounded the honour of the American army. Those 
who were near him anxiously interrogated his looks 
in silence, which he broke by saying, " I thought 

he published an address to the inhabitants of America, in which he 
endeavoured to justify his conduct. This was followed by a pro- 
clamation, addressed " to the officers and soldiers of the continental 
army, who have the real intere.^^t of their country at heart, and who 
are determined to be no longer the tools and dupes of congress and 
of France." These proclamations did not piofluce the effect de- 
signed ; and in all the hardships, sufferings, and irritations of the 
war, Arnold remains the solitary instance of an American officer 
who abandoned the side first embraced in the contest, and turned 
his sword upon his former companions in arms. He survived the 
war but to drag on, in perpetual banishment from his native coun- 
try, a dishonourable life. He transmitted to his children a name 
of hateful celebrity. He obtained only a part of the debasing sti- 
pend of an abortive treason, and his complaints soon caused' it to 
be known, that all the promises by which he had been inveigled 
were not fulfilled. He enjoyed, liowever, the rank of brigadier- 
general, but the officers of tiie British army manifested a strong 
repugnance to serve with him. He possessed their esteem while 
he fought against them ; they loaded him with contempt when trea- 
son brought him over to iheii' side. He resided principally in 
England after the conclusion of the war, and died on the 14ih of 
June, 1801. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



281 



that an officer of courage and ability, who had often 
shed his blood for his country, was entitled to con- 
fidence, and I gave him mine. I am convinced now, 
and for the rest of my life, that we should never 
trust those who are wanting in probity, whatever 
abilities they may possess. Arnold has betrayed us." 
Meanwhile, the precautions required by the occasion 
were every where taken. General Heath, a faithful 
and vigilant officer, was substituted for Arnold at 
West Point ; the commanders of the other posts were 
admonished to be on their guard ; Greene, who had 
been invested with the command of the army during 
the absence of Washington, recalled .within the forts 
the garrisons which the traitor had dispersed, and 
marched a strong division near to the lines. General 
Washington referred the case of Andre to the examina- 
tion and decision of a board, consisting of fourteen offi- 
cers, who founded their report on his own statements ; 
they reported it as their unanimous opinion, " that 
Major Andre ought to be considered as a spy, arid 
that, agreeably to the laws and usages of nations, he 
should suffer death ;" and he was, in accordance with 
their sentence, hung as a spy.* 

When the winter of 17S0 commenced, the troops 
of the northern army retired to the quarters which 
they had last occupied. Again they endured distress 
at which patriotism feels indignant and humanity 
weeps. The harvest had been abundant ; plenty 
reigned in the land, while want was still felt in the 
camp of its defenders. Lassitude had succeeded en- 
thusiasm, in the breasts of the people, and congress 
exerted its powers with too little vigour to draw forth 
the resources of the country. The soldiers of the 
Pennsylvania line stationed at Morristown, New Jer- 
sey, complained that, in addition to sustaining suffer- 
ings common to all, they were retained in service 
contrary to the terms of their enlistments. In the 
night of the 1st of January, thirteen hundred, on a 
concerted signal, paraded under arms, and declared 
their intention of marching to Philadelphia, and de- 
manding of congress a redress of their grievances. 
The officers strove to compel them to relinquish their 

» The general officers who reported his case lamented the ne- 
cessity they were under to advise that as a spy he should be hung, 
and the heart of General Washington was wrung with anguish 
when he signed his death warrant. But the fatal wound that would 
have been inflicted on the country had Arnold's treason succeeded, 
made the sacrifice necessary for the public safety. The American 
officers universally discovered a sympathy for tlie unfortunate suf- 
ferer, and the sensibility of the public was greatly e.xcited on the 
occasion. His character is thus beautifully painted by the late 
General Hamilton, who without envy might have contemplated his 
eminent qualities, for tliey were not equal to his own. " There 
was something singularly interesting in the character of Andre. 
To an excellent understanding, well improved by education and 
travel, he united a peculiar elegance of mind and manners, and 
the advantages of a pleasing person. It is said that he possessed a 



purpose. In the attempt, one was killed, and several 
were wounded. General Wayne presented his pistols, 
as if intending to fire. They held their bayonets to 
his breast ; " We love and respect you," faid they ; 
" but if you fire you are a dead man. We are not 
going to the enemy. On the contrary, if they were 
now to come out, you should see us fight under youi 
orders with as much alacrity as ever. But we will 
be amused no longer ; we are determmed to obtain 
what is our just due." The^'- elected temporary 
officers, and moved off in a body towards Princeton. 
General Wayne, to prevent them from plundering 
the inhabitants, forwarded provisions for their use. 
The next day he followed, and requested them to 
appoint a man from each regiment, to state to him 
their complaints ; a conference was accordingly held, 
but he refused to comply with their demands. They 
then proceeded in good order to Princeton, where 
three emissaries from Sir Henry Clinton met them, 
and made liberal offers to entice them from the ser- 
vice of congress. The offers were indignantly re- 
jected, and the emissaries seized and executed as 
spies. Here they were also met by a committee of 
congress, and a deputation from the state of Pennsyl- 
vania ; and the latter, granting a part of their de- 
mands, succeeded in persuading them to return to 
their duty. This mutiny, and another in the Jersey 
line, which was instantly suppressed, aroused the 
attention of the states to the miserable condition of 
their troops. The amount of three months' pay was 
raised and forwarded to them in specie ; it was re- 
ceived with joy, as affording an evidence that their 
country was not unmindful of their sufferings. 

The year on which we now enter decided the 
important contest, which engaged the attention of 
Europe and of all the civilized world, in favour of 
liberty, and, we must add, of justice. The boon of 
independence was not, however, gained without 
adding to the long list of widows and orphans, noi 
without augmenting the catalogue of cruelties more 
horrid than those of the Indian tribes, because per- 
petrated by those who had no accumulated antipathy 



pretty taste for the fine arts, and had himself attained some pro- 
ficiency in poetry, music, and painting. His knowledge appeared 
without ostentation, and embellished by a diffidence that larely ac- 
companies so many talents and accomplishments, which left you to 
suppose more than appeared. His sentiments were elevated, and 
inspired esteem, — they had a suflness that conciliated affection. 
His elocution was handsome, his address easy, polite, and insinua- 
ting. By his merit he had acquired the unlimited confidence of 
his general, and was making rapid progre.ss in military rank and 
reputa'ion. But in the height of his career, flushed with new hopes 
from the execution of a project the most beneficial to his party that 
could be devised, he is at once precipitated from the summit of 
prosperity, sees all the expectations of his ambition blasted, and 
himself ruined." A handsome monument is erected of his memory 
in Westminster Abbey. 



'282 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, 



of ages to palliate their hostility, but wlio only yes- 
terday were friends and brothers. The inhabitants 
of the Garolinas endured calamity and distress from 
which humanity revolts. About equally divided in 
political sentiments, village was opposed to village, 
and neighbour to neighbour ; and their hostility be- 
came embittered by attack and reprisal, until pillage, 
burning, and murder, became familiar to all.* Each 
party aimed at the extirpation of the other, and the 
whole country presented a scene of slaughter and of 
blood. Justice compels the record that the American 
generals seized every occasion to discountenance such 
vindictive and barbarous conduct, while, with few 
exceptions, the British permitted and even accelerated 
their perpetration. 

The reduction of Savannah and Charleston, en- 
couraged the British to a vigorous invasion of North 
Carolina. The whole army of General Greene, 
which had at the close of last year advanced from 
Hillsborough to Charlottetown, consisted of about 
two thousand men, more than half of whom were 
militia. With this inconsiderable body of troops, 
miserably provided. General Greene took the field 
against a superior regular force, which had already 
inarched in triumph two hundred miles from the 
point of its debarkation. Soon after Greene took the 
command, he divided his force, and sent General 
Morgan with a respectable detachment to the western 
extremity of South Carolina, where the tories were 
destroying the whigs without mercy, and without 
restraint, and marched with the main body to Hick's 
Creek, on the north side of the Pedee. On the en- 
trance of General Morgan into the district of Ninety- 
Six, Lord Cornwallis, who was preparing for the in- 
vasion of North Carolina, that he might not leave an 



* The following instance will illustrate the horrible spirit of 
these times: — " In the hour of festivity, one Brown had indulged 
liimself in indiscreet censure of the revolutionary party. He had 
done worse, — he had committed a fault less easily forgiven, — he 
had ridiculed them. Being apprised that their resentment was ex- 
cited, he attempted to escape; but he was closely pursued, brought 
back to Augusta, tried before a committee of surveillance, and 
sentenced to be tarred and feathered and carted, unless he recanted, 
and look the oath of allegiance prescribed by the administration of 
Georgia. Brown was a firm man, and resisted with a pertinacity 
that should have commanded the respect of his persecutors. But 
the motions of a mob are too precipitate to admit of the intrusion 
of generous feeling. After undergoing the painful and mortifying 
penance prescribed by the committee without yielding, it is loo tiue 
that he was doomed to have his naked feet exposed to a large fire, 
to subdue his stubborn spirit: but in vain; and he was at length 
turned loose by a group of men who never once dreamed that the 
simple Indian trader would soon reappear an armed and implaca- 
ble enemy. He first visited the loyalists of Ninety Six, concerted 
his measures with ihein, then made his way to St. Augustine, re- 
ceived a colonel's commission, placed himself at the head of a band 
of desperate refugees, and accompanied Provost in his irruption 
into Georgia. His thirst for revenge appeared afterward insatiable, 
and besides wantonly hanging many of his prisoners, he subjected 



enemy in his rear, ordered Colonel Tarleton to pro- 
ceed with about eleven hundred men, and drive him 
from his position. Tarleton had two field pieces, 
and a superiority both of infantry and cavalry. With 
these advantages, he engaged Morgan at the Cowpens, 
near Pacolet river, on the 17th of January. The 
British, led to the attack by Tarleton himself, advan- 
ced with a shout, and poured in an incessant fire of 
musketry. The American militia, though they recei- 
ved the charge with firmness, were soon compelled to 
fall back in the rear of their second line ; and this 
line, m its turn, after an obstinate conflict, Avas com- 
pelled to retreat to the cavalry. At this juncture 
Lieutenant-Colonel Washington made a successful 
charge on Captain Ogilvie, who, with about forty 
dragoons, was cutting down the retreating militia ; 
Lieutenant-Colonel Howard almost at the same mo- 
ment rallied the continental troops and charged with 
fixed bayonets, and the militia instantly followed the 
example. By these sudden and unexpected chnrTes, 
the British, who had considered the fate of the day 
decided, were thrown into confusion, and driven from 
the ground with great slaughter. Howard and 
Washington pressed the advantage which they had 
respectively gained, until the artillery and a great 
part of the infantry had surrendered.! Seldom has a 
victory, achieved by so small a number, been so im- 
portant in its consequences. It deprived Cornwallis 
of one fifth of his force, and disconcerted his plans 
for the reduction of Nortli Carolina. He sought, 
however, to repair, by active exertions, the loss which 
he had suffered, and determined, if possible, to inter- 
cept Morgan, and compel him to restore the trophies 
of his victory. This resolution led to a military 
race, which may be, without exaggeration, termed 

the families of the whigs who were out in service to accumulated 
sufferiLgs and distress. It was not long after he was left in com- 
mand at Augusta by the British general, that Colonel Clarke, with 
a determined party of the militia, whose families he had persecuted, 
aimed a well-directed blow at his post. But Brown proved himself 
a man of bravery and conduct, and he well knew that at all times 
he was fighting for his life. After a severe and partially successful 
contest, the approach of a party of Indians obliged Clarke to re- 
treat, and leave his wounded behind him, with a letter addressed 
to Brown, requesting (hat he would parole them to their planta- 
tions. But Brown's thirst for revsnge knew no bounds. It had 
been irritated in tliis instance by a wound which confined him to 
his bed. The unhappy prisoners, twenty-eight in number, were all 
hung ; thirteen of them were suspended to the railing of the stair- 
case, that he might feast his eyes with their dying agonies."— John- 
son's Life of General Greene. 

+ Upwards of three hundred of the British were killed or wound- 
ed, and above five hundred taken prisoners; eight hundred muskets, 
two field pieces, two standards, thirty-five baggage wagons, and 
one hundred dragoon horses, fell into the hanr's of the conquerors. 
Of the Americans, twelve men only were killed, and sixty wound- 
ed. Congress, in honour of the good conduct of General Morgan, 
presented him a gold medal; to Lieutenant-Colonels Washington 
and Howard, medals of silver ; and to Colonel Pickens, a sword. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, 



283 



one of the most celebrated in history. Each army 
strove to precede the other at the fords of the Catawba, 
from wliich both were equally distant. The Ameri- 
can troops endured almost incredible hardships, 
being sometimes without meat, often without flour, 
and entirely destitute of spirituous liquors. A large 
portion of the troops were without shoes, and, march- 
ing over frozen ground, marked with blood every 
step of their progress. On the twelfth day after the 
engagement, Morgan reached the fords and crossed 
the Catawba ; and two hours afterwards Cornwallis 
arrived, and, it being then dark, encamped on the 
bank. During the night, a heavy fall of rain made 
the river impassable, which gave Morgan an oppor- 
tunity to remove the prisoners beyond the reach of 
his pursuer. 

The movements of the royal army induced Gene- 
ral Greene immediately to retreat from Hick's Creek ; 
and, leaving the main army under the command of 
General Huger, he rode a hundred and fifty miles 
through the country to join the detachment under 
General Morgan, that he might be in front of Lord 
Cornwallis, and so direct both divisions of his army 
as to form a speedy junction between them. Lord 
Cornwallis, after three days' delay, effected the pas- 
sage of the Catawba, and recoimnenced the pursuit. 
The Americans, continuing their expeditious move- 
ments, crossed the Yadkin on the 3d of February, 
and secured their boats on the north side ; but the 
British, though close in their rear, were incapable of 
crossing it through the rapid rising of the river from 
preceding rains, and the want of boats. This second 
remarkable escape confirmed the impression on the 
minds of the Americans, that their cause was favour- 
ed by Divine Providence. After a junction of the 
two divisions of the American army at Guilford 
court-house, it was concluded, in a council of officers 
called by General Greene, that he ought to retire 
over the Dan, and to avoid an engagement until he 
should be re-enforced. Lord Cornwallis kept the 
upper countries, where only the rivers are fordable, 
and attempted to get between General Greene and 
Virginia, to cut off his retreat, and oblige him to fight 
under many disadvantages ; but the American gene- 
ral completely eluded him. So urgent was the pur- 
suit of the British, that, on the 14th of February, 
the American light troops were compelled to retire 
above forty miles ; and on that day General Greene, 
by indefatigable exertions, transported his army over 
the Dan into Virginia. Here again the pursuit was 
so close, that the van of the British just arrived as 
the rear of the Americans had crossed. The conti- 
nental army being now driven out of North Carolina, 



Earl Cornwallis left the Dan, and proceeded to Hills- 
borough, where he set up the royal standard. Greene, 
perceiving the necessity of some spirited measure to 
counteract his lordship's influence on the inhabitants 
of the country, concluded, at every hazard, to recross 
the Dan. After manoeuvring in a very masterly 
manner to avoid an action with Cornwallis three 
weeks, his army was joined by two brigades of mili- 
tia from North Carolina, and one from Virginia, and 
also by four hundred regulars. .This re-enforcemeni 
giving him a superiority of numbers, he determined 
no longer to avoid an engagement, and, on the 15th 
of March, he accepted battle ; but at the first fire the 
North Carolina militia, who were in the front line, 
fled ; the second line was also I'outed. The conti- 
nentals, who composed the third, fought with their 
usual bravery, and for an hour and a half maintained 
the conflict with great firmness. They at length gave 
\vay, but retreated in good order, the slaughter they 
had made in the enemy's ranks preventing pursuit. 
The victory, won by a far inferior force, was more 
glorious than advantageous to the British army. 
Soon after the action, Lord Cornwallis began a march 
toward Wilmington. General Greene, on receiving 
intelligence of this movement, put his army in mo- 
tion to follow him, and continued the pursuit to 
Ramsay's Mill, on Deep River. Cornwallis, having 
halted and refreshed his men about three weeks at 
Wilmington, marched across the country to Peters- 
burgh, in Virginia. 

Before General Greene was aware that Lord Corn- 
wallis intended to enter Virginia, he had formed the 
bold resolution of returning into South Carolina. 
Marching towards Camden, where nine hundred 
men, under the command of Lord Rawdon, were 
posted, he took a position on Hobkirk's-hill, about a 
mile from the British entrenchments. Here the 
Americans were attacked on 25th of April. In the 
beginning of the action their bravery gained advan- 
tages which, in its. progress, were lost by the prema- 
ture retreat of two companies, occasioned by the 
death of their officers. At this reverse of fortune, 
Greene retired a few miles from the field, both armies 
having sustained nearly an equal loss. 

Several British posts in South Carolina speedily 
fell into the power of the brave and active partisans, 
who, with small bodies of troops, were ever present 
where oppression was to be resisted or glory won. 
Marion and Lee invested and took Fort Watson. - 
Orangeburgh and Fort Motte surrendered to Sumpter. 
Lee captured Fort Granby, and Marion drove from 
Georgetown the troops stationed to defend it. Im- 
mediately after the surrender of Fort Granby, Lieu- 



284 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



tenant-Colonel Lee marched to Augusta, and joined 
Brigadier-General Pickens, who, with a body of mi- 
litia, had some time before taken post in the vicinity ; 
and these two able officers jointly carried on their 
approaches against Fort Cornwallis. Two batteries 
were erected within thirty yards of the parapet which 
overlooked the fort ; and from them the American 
riflemen shot into the inside of the works with effect. 
The garrison almost entirely burying themselves 
underground, obstii-iately refused to capitulate until 
resistance became useless, and then the fort, with 
about three hundred men, surrendered on honourable 
terms of capitulation. The Americans, during the 
siege, had about forty men killed and wounded. On 
the 22d of May, General Greene laid siege to Ninety- 
Six, which was defended by Lieutenant-Colonel Cru- 
ger with upwards of five hundred men. The works 
of the besiegers were carried forward with indefati- 
gable industry and success until the 18th of June' 
when, on intelligence of the approach of Lord Raw- 
don for the relief of the place, it was concluded to 
attempt its reduction by assault. The assailants 
displayed great resolution ; but, failing of success. 
General Greene raised the siege, and retreated over 
the Saluda. 

Lord Rawdon having returned to England, the 
command of the British tioops in South Carolina 
devolved upon Lieutenant-Colonel Stewart ; who, in 
the beginning of September, took post at Eutaw 
Springs. General Greene marched against him from 
the hills of Santee. The rival forces were equal, 
amounting on each side to two thousand men. On 



* Congress passed a vote of thanks to every corps in the army, 
and a resolution for presenting to Major-General Greene, " as an 
honourable testimony of his merit, a British standard, and a golden 
medal emblematic of the battle and of his victory." 

Most votaries of fame earn their honours by long and painful 
labours, in whatever walk of life they select to seek them. The 
orator has no permanent reputation, until he has secured it by ap- 
pearing frequently before his fellow-citizens, and proving his claims 
to distinction by many vigorous efforts of intellectual superiority. 
Nor does a judge on the bench obtain a character for wisdom 
until he has trimmed the midnight lamp for many years; and even 
most warriors do not gain distinction and promotion, until gray 
nairs peer from under their helmets, in contrast to their sun-burnt 
faces. But there are e.tcepiions to this rule, for sometimes a hero 
starts into life at once. The subject of this memoir was one of these 
brilliant exceptions. He was hardly known twenty miles from his 
native slate, when he was seen marching into Cambridge, on the 
sixth of June, 1775, at the head of the Rhode Island troops, with 
the rank of major-general. He had under him three regiments of 
brave and effective men, and several excellent officers. The first 
impression of every one in camp, was favourable to the unknown 
Rhode Island general; and when AVashinglon arrived, the next 
month, to take command of the army, the sagacious citizen-soldiers 
united the names of Washington and Greene together, as fit lead- 
ers of the brave, and they are never to be separated. Washington 
liad been known as a warrior; he had gained imperishable laurels 
when Braddock fell at Monongahela; "but Greene " had never set 
a squadron in the field ;" nor had his name been heard of in the 
halls of congress ; but the sagacious statesmen of Rhode Island did 



the 8th an attack was made by the Americans ; a 
part of the British line, consisting of new troops, 
broke, and fled ; but the veteran corps received the 
charge of the assailants on the points of their bayon- 
ets. The hostile ranks were for a time intermingled, 
and the officers fought hand to hand ; but Lieuten- 
ant-Colonel Lee, who had turned the British left 
flank, charging them at this instant in the rear, their 
line was soon completely broken, and driven ofi' the 
field. They were vigorously pursued by the Ameri- 
cans, who took upwards of five hundred of them 
prisoners. The British, on their retreat, took post 
in a large three-story brick house, and in a picketed 
garden ; and from these advantageous positions re- 
newed the action. Four six-pounders were ordered 
up before the house ; but the Americans were com- 
pelled to leave these pieces and retire. They formed 
again at a small distance in the woods ; but General 
Greene, thinking it inexpedient to renew the despe- 
rate attempt, left a strong picket on the field of battle, 
and retired with his prisoners to the ground from 
which he had marched in the morning. In the 
evening of the next day, Lieutenant-Colonel Stewart, 
leaving seventy of his wounded men, and one thou- 
sand stand of arms, moved from Eutaw towards 
Charleston. The loss of the British, inclusive of 
prisoners, was supposed to be not loss than eleven 
hundred men. The loss of the Americans, in killed, 
I wounded, and missing, was about half that number. 
This battle was attended by consequences very ad- 
vantageous to the Americans, and may be considered 
as closing the revolutionary war in South Carolina.' 

know him. They had watched him from the cradle, and to in- 
quiries made at the time, who is General Greene t were ready with 
an answer: — He is the son of one of the society of Friends; was 
born at Warwick, on the 22d day of May, 1742 ; his father was a 
blacksmith, engaged in making anchors and heavy iron work for 
ships, forges, &c. ; his education was scanty in childhood, but he 
was well instructed in moral duties; he early felt his want of in^ 
formation, and set about self-instruction ; he had a strong mind, 
and soon made rapid acquisitions in the fields of .science and letters. 
He was particularly fond of military history, and the biography of 
heroes; his military ardour was kindled up in poring over the 
pages of Plutarch, and, Q.uaker as he was, he loved to dwell upon 
the deeds of the great men of antiquity, more than npon those 
around him. He saw that the winds were up, and that the storm 
of revolutionary war was gathering, and he sat about preparing 
himself to be useful. He read constitutional and common law 
sufficiently to understand the great principles of the rights of man, 
and the duties of nations. His own state had been vexed with 
fewer restraints than other colonies under Great Britain. The 
soul of Roger Williams, the founder of it, had not departed from 
among his sons; they were brave, but had not much military skill 
to aid them. Greene studied military science, and this he found 
easy, as he had made considerable progress in mathematics an'^ 
geometry; and, at the same time, the manual exercise became fa- 
miliar to him by frequent practice. In 1770, he was sent to the 
legislature of the state, and soon became distinguished in that body 
for his good sense and intrepid spirit. The Boston massacre had 
taken place, and every soul was roused with a spirit of resentment. 
In no bosom did it burn with more intensity thtm in the heart of 



II 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



285 



Brilliant as were the successes of General Greene 
in the Carolinas, it was in Virginia that the last great 
stroke in favour of American independence was to be 

Greene. In spite of the pacific sentiments of the religious order to 
which he belonged, in opposition to parental influence, he came 
forward and enrolled himself as a private in a miliiniy corps, call- 
ed the Kentish Guards. In this tody he was a model of obedience 
to orders, and atleniion to duties; all eyes were turned nn him, 
and his fellow-citizens marked him out for some high calling, and 
their affection for him was not diminished, but perhaps increased, 
when they knew he was read out of the pale of his order for taking 
up arms. 

After the battle of Lexinglon, on the 19th of April, 1775, Rhode 
Island raised three regiments of soldiers, and by common consent 
put Greene at their head, and sent them to the general camp at Cam- 
bridge, in the vicinity of Boston. 

While with Washington, in the an.Kious summer, autumn, and 
winter of 1775-6, when the American army were besieging the 
British in Boston, the merits of General Greene became known to 
the commander in chief, and he persuaded Greene to accept of a 
brigadier-general's commission in the continental army, the high- 
est grade he could at that time offer him, but with a promise of pro- 
motion as soon as possible ; this was accepted, and lie was made a 
major-general on the 26lh of August, 1776. 

When the American army followed the enemy to New York, 
after the evacuation of Boston, the forces encamped partly in New 
York and partly on Long Island. The division upon the island 
was under the command of Greene, but he was severely ill when 
the unfortunate battle was fought there, and the command had de- 
volved on the brave Sullivan. 

Greene was with Washington when he crossed the Delaware, 
on the night of the 26th of December, 1776, and made an attack 
on the Hessians at Trenton, on the morning of that day. With 
signal success, Greene commanded the left wing of the army, and 
was the first to enter the town. He was with Washington at 
Princeton, and shared in the honours of that day. This was a 
bold and masterly manoeuvre, which raised the sinking spirits of 
the nation, and stamped our commanders with the reputation of 
consummate soldiers abroad, and made Britain think that our 
leaders were not merely rebel bravoes, but sagacious generals. 

Greene was also at the battle of Brandywine, and covered the 
retreat. The next month he commanded the left wing at the 
battle of Germantown, and his were the only troops who did all 
that was expected of them, in that battle. His reputation was 
raised by that day's conduct. He was ne.xt sent to prevent Corn- 
wallis from getting supplies in the Jerseys; but Washington, find- 
ing that the enemy had received re-enforcements, recalled him. 

The next spring, Greene was induced to accept the appointment 
of quarter-master-general of the army, as the whole commissariat 
was out of joint for want of resources, and from the irregularity 
of the aids afforded. His acceptance was on condition of having 
two assistants, and of retaining his rank in the line, and the right 
to resume his command in time of action. 

In the month of June, 1777, he led the right wing at the battle 
of Monmouth, and mainly contributed to the partial success of the 
American army on that day. 

From this battle ground he was sent to join General Sullivan at 
Newport, Rhode Island, who, with Count D'Estaing, was preparing 
to attack the English, then in possession of that place. The enter- 
prise failed, but not for the want of American bravery, for that 
was sufBciently conspicuous. Greene covered the retreat of the 
army with a much smaller number than he had to oppose. The 
next place of his command was at Springfield, in the Jerseys, when 
he was attacked by Sir Henry Clinton, one of the greatest captains 
of the day. The Americans behaved with great bravery, and the 
enemy was repulsed. 

After the defection of Arnold, Greene was appointed to the 
command of West Point ; but he was there but a few days, when 
he was ordered to the command of the southern army. He was 
now the master of his own actions, in a great measure ; or, at least, 
was chiefly to depend upon his own resources, and was personally 
responsible for all he did. Here the great powers of his indomitar 



effected. The army under the commander in chief 
had passed another distressing winter, and symptoms 
of mutiny had again manifested themselves, but were 



ble soul w'ere developed ; here he displayed the talents of a con- 
summate general. He arrived at Charlotte on the 2d of Decem- 
ber, 1780. with the gallant Morgan, who had greatly distinguished 
himself in the battles which led to the capture of Bnrgfiyne, and 
which gave the death blow to British power in llie noiih. The 
southern army was a mere skeleton, with only skin and sinews 
sufficient to hold it together. The men were without suj'plies, and 
there was no chance of immediate relief. The British army was 
well equipped and well fed ; but their ofiicers committed a great 
error in supposing the southern country prostrated and conquered, 
because they could not find any foices to meet them. The fires of 
patriotism seemed quenched, when they weie only concealed ; and 
they found them, to their cost, bursting out in every quarier. 
Cornwallis at length saw that the influence of royally was waning, 
while that of patriotism was increasing, and he was determined on 
striking a blow, and crushing the American forces at once ; for this 
purpose he sent his gallant master of the horse, Tarleton, to deslii^y 
that part of the American army under General Morgan. Tarleton 
had a thousand men, of the flower of the British troops, when he 
was sent to give an account of Morgan and his men. The attack 
was made on the American forces at the Cowpens, on the 17lh 
of January, 1781. The battle was severe, and the British were 
beaten, with considerable loss of lives. Five hundred of the enemy 
laid down their arms, and were made prisoners; eight hundred 
stand of arms, tw'o field pieces, and thirty-five baggage wagons, 
were the spoils from the enemy to the victors; while the loss on 
the part of the Americans was very trifling, only twelve killed, 
and sixty wounded. This brilliant affair raised the drooping spi- 
rits of the south, and disconcerted all the magnificent plans of Corn- 
wallis. He followed Morgan w-ilh great .spirit, to cover and re- 
deem Tarlelon's defeat ; but Morgan was too rapid for him, having 
formed a junction with the main army before Cornwallis could 
overtake him. The southern army was still inferior to the British, 
and was obliged to make a northward movement. 

In the beginning of March, Greene efiected a junction with a 
continental regiment, and two bodies of Virginia and Carolina 
militia. He was now determined to give the enemy a proof of his 
spirit, knowing that, if fortune should prove kind, the enemy 
would be injured ; but if he was beaten, that he should recover, as 
he was gaining strength every day. In this battle, a part of the 
militia fled as cowards, while other portions of them behaved well ; 
so it will happen in every army. The victory was in favour of 
the British; but it was a dear one to them, they having lost more 
men than the American army. This battle crippled Coinwallis, 
and he was obliged to return to Wilmington, two hundred miles 
from the scene of action. 

Soon after this battle of Guilford court-house. General Greene 
resolved to return to South Carolina, and to expel, if possible, the 
British from that state. His first object was to attempt the reduc- 
tion of Camden, where Lord Rawdon was posted, with nine hun- 
dred men. With the small force Greene had, he did not think it 
prudent to attack Lord Rawdon, but encamped near him, and en- 
deavoured to cut off his supplies. Rawdon bravely sallied out, and 
attacked Greene, and .so vigorously as to compel him to retreat; but 
he lost more men in the attack than Greene did in the defence, 
and reaped no substantial advantage by his success, for he was 
soon obliged to retreat in turn, leaving behind him a number of the 
sick and wounded. The British ascendency was now very rapidly 
declining, and most of their forts fell into the hands of the Ame- 
ricans. 

On the 22d of May, General Greene set down before Ninety-Six, 
with the main part of his small army, and carried on the siege 
so spiritedly, that Rawdon was on the point of surrendering, when 
a re-enforcement relieved the post, but not before the American 
"eneral had attempted to carry it by storm. This did not dis- 
courage Greene, who declared, at this gloomy moment, that he 
would recover the country, or die in the attempt. In the follow- 
ing months of July and August, there was some skirmishing be- 
tween the two armies ; but in September following, General Greene, 



286 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



happily suppressed. Deplorably deficient of provi- 
sions and supplies, and promised re-enforcements 
being- grievously delayed, Washington still remained 
undiscouraged, and determined, in conjunction with 
the French fleet, to resume vigorous operations. 
New York was the destined point of the combined 
attack ; but tlie large re-enforcements which had re- 
cently arrived there, and other unfavourable circum- 
stances, induced the commander in chief, so late as 
August, entirely to change the plan of the campaign, 
and to resolve to attempt the capture of the army of 
Lord Cornwallis, which had now taken up a position 
at Yorktown, in Virginia. The defence of West 
Point, and of the other posts on the Hudson, was 
committed to General Heath, and'a large portion of 
the troops raised in the northern states was for this 
service left under his command. 

General Washington resolved in person to conduct 
the Virginia expedition. The troops under Count 
Rochambeau, and strong detachments from the Ameri- 
can army, amounting to more than two thousand 
men, and consisting of the light infantry, Lamb's ar- 






Hi 



being about two thousand strong, proceeded to attack Colonel 
Stewart, at Eutaw Springs. This battle was, on the whole, admi- 
rably fought, and the result was unequivocally in favour of our 
army. This broke the power of Cornwallis in the south, and dis- 
appointed all the calculations of British statesmen. They were 
dreaming that, having conquered the south, their forces would 
soon be able to proceed to the north, and beard the lion in his den. 
This batile of Eutaw Springs was indeed memorable. According 
to Greene's account — and who ever doubled his veracity t — he had 
three hundred men without arms, and a still greater number stark 
naked, who pushed their bayonets into the bodies of their enemies, 
as fearlessly as if they themselves had been covered with a coat of 
mail. No man, of ancient or modern days, ever had greater diffi- 
culties to contend with, than General Greene in this campaign ; 
and no one ever met them wilh greater heroism. " We have (says 
he) three hundred men without arms, and more than one thousand 
so naked, that ihey can be put on duly only in cases of a desperate 
nature. We have been all winter in want of arms and clothing. 
The .subsistence of the army is wretched, and we are without rum, 
or any kind of spirits." And at another time he declares, "1 have 
been .seven months in the field, without taking off my clothes." 
Greene himself was astonished at his own situation, and looked 
forward to contemplate what posterity would say in considering it. 
"At the battle of Eutaw Springs, (says he,) himdreds of my men 
were as naked as they were born. Posterity will scarcely believe 
that the bare loins of many brave men, who carried death into the 
enemy's ranks at the Eutaw, were galled by their cartouch boxes, 
while a folded rag, or a tuft of moss, protected the shoulders from 
sustaining the same injury from the musket. Men of other times 
will inquire, by what magic was this army kept together 1 By 
what supernatural power was it made to fight 1" 

While amidst these ditficulties of the southern campaign, when 
destitute of every article of subsistence, or nearly so, some mur- 
murings were heard in the camp, and trea.son was suspected ; and 
the enemy had made their calculations to end the whole campaign 
at a blow, assisted by treason among the American ranks. Greene 
(Struck at the root of the evil, by an energy that astonished both 
friends and foes. He put his forces in battle-array, brought the 
accused to a court-martial, e-tecuted the offender in face of the 
army, and quelled the treason at a breath. No one murmured ; 
all were full of admiration at his energetic course; and even the 
culprit who suffered did not complain ; but, in his dying speech, 



tillery, and several other corps, were destined for it. 
By the 25th of August the whole body, Americar. 
and French, had crossed the North River. An in- 
tercepted letter of General Washington's, in which 
he communicated, as the result of a consultation with 
the French commanders, the design to attack New 
York, had excited the apprehensions of the British 
general for the safety of that city. This apprehen- 
sion was kept alive, and the real object of the Ameri- 
cans concealed, by preparations for an encampment 
in New Jersey, opposite to Staten Island, by the route 
of the American army, and other appearances, indi- 
cating an intention to besiege New York ; and the 
troops had passed the Delaware, out of reach of an- 
noyance, before Sir Henry suspected their destination. 
General Washington pressed forward v/ith the utmost 
expedition, and at Chester he received the important 
intelligence that Count de Grasse had arrived with 
his fleet in the Chesapeake, and that the Marquis St. 
Simon had, with a body of three thousand land 
forces, joined the Marquis de la Fayette. Having 
directed the route of his army from the head of the 

urged them all to obey. What energy of character ! what admi- 
rable decision ! 

Colonel Whigglesworth, one of the most accomplished of the 
great men of that age, a scholar, factor, sea-captain, merchant, and 
soldier, to \vhom was familiar the history of ancient and modern 
times, often observed, that General Greene was the most extraor- 
dinary man in the American army, or that he had ever met wilh 
in his travels, and he had seen much of the world. " He had," 
said that shrewd observer of man, " the caution of Fabius, and the 
energy of Julius Cesar. He rose from disaster as fresh as if he 
had gained a victory, always coo), scientific, and prompt : no oflicer 
ever said Greene has made a mistake, but every one gave him 
credit for almost supernatural sagacity, precisely when it was 
wanted." 

This great commander had fought all his battles, and filled up 
the measure of his military glory, before he had finished his forti- 
eth year — younger than Nelson, when he fell at Trafalgar, in the 
arms of victory; or Sir John Moore, when he was "left alone in 
his glory," in the ramparts of Corunna. He combined the physical 
courage of the former, and his prescience of events, with the high 
feelings and moral daring of the latter, and his labours were more 
diflicult than those of either. 

Historians of no ordinary renown in tne literary world, have 
arisen to narrate his deeds, and praise his virtues; but this is not 
all : there is a feeling of admiration and gratitude in the hearts oi 
his countrymen, at the mention of his name, which is beyond the 
pen of the biographer, or the muse of the epic bard. It is a lam- 
bent flame of the heart, which was kindled up in those days of 
lofty feeling and patriotic ardour, which has descended to us as an 
heir-loom of the affections, from our father's bosoms, and will go 
down, in all its purity, to the remotest posterity. Not to us and our 
posterity only, will his name be dear, but to the general reader of 
history, who will as intimately connect this warrior's name with 
prudence, bravery, decision of character, and every soldierly allribvle 
and marily virtue, as justice now is with the name of AnisTinEs. 

" Oh ! who shall lightly saythat Fame 
Is nothing but an empty name ! 
When memory of the mighty dead. 

To earth-worn pilgrim's wistful eye 
The brightest rays of cheering shed, 

That point to immortality." American Editor. 



03 
C5J 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



287 



Elk, he, accompanied by Rochambeau, Chatelleux, 
Dii Portail, and Knox, proceeded to Virginia. The3' 
reached Williamsburs; on the llth of September, and 
immediately repaired on board the Ville de Paris, to 
settle with Count de Grasse the plan of operations. 
The v/hole body of American and French troops 
reached Williamsburg by the 25th of September. At 
this place the allied forces were joined by a detach- 
ment of the militia of Virginia, under the command 
of Governor Nelson, and preparations were soon 
made to attack the intrenchments of Lord Cornwallis. 

Yorktown, the head-quarters of Lord Cornwallis, 
is a village on the south side of York River, the 
southern banks of which are high, and where ships 
of the line may ride in safety. Gloucester Point is 
a piece of land on the opposite shore, projecting con- 
siderably into the river. Both these posts were oc- 
cupied by the British ; and a communication between 
them was commanded by their batteries, and by 
several ships of war. The main body of Lord Corn- 
wallis's army was encamped on the open grounds 
about Yorktown, within a range of outer redoubts 
and field-works ; and Lieutenant-Colonel Tarleton, 
with a detachment of six or seven hundred men, 
held the post at Gloucester Point. 

The legion of the Duke de Lauzun, and a brigade 
of militia under General Weedon, the whole com- 
manded by the French general De Choise, were di- 
rected to watch and restrain the enemy on the side 
of Gloucester ; and the grand combined army, on 
the 30th of September, moved down to the investiture 
of Yorktown. On the night of the 6th of October, 
advancing to within six hundred yards of the English 
lines, they began their first parallel, and laboured 
with such silence and diligence, that they were not 
discovered until morning, when the works they had 
raised were sufficient to protect them. On the 9th, 
several batteries being completed, a heavy cannonade 
Was begun. Many of the British guns were dismount- 
ed, and portions of their fortifications laid level with 
the ground. On the night of the 11th, the besiegers 
commenced their second parallel, three hundred 
yards in advance of the first. This approach was 
made so much sooner than was expected, that the 
men were not discovered at their labour until they 
had rendered themselves secure from all molestation 
in front. The fire from the new batteries was still 
more furious and destructive. From two British re- 
doubts, in advance of their main works, and flanking 
those of the besiegers, the men in the trenches were 
§0 severely annoyed, that Washington resolved to 
storm them. The enterprise against one was com- 
mitted to an American force under the Marquis de la 
37 



Fayette, that against the other to a French detach- 
ment. Colonel Hamilton, who led the van of the 
former, made such an impetuous attack, that posses- 
sion was soon obtained, with little slaughter. The 
French detachment was equally brave and successful, 
but sustained greater loss. On the I6th, a sortie was 
made from the garrison by a party of three hundred 
and fifty, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Aber- 
crombie, who forced two batteries, and spiked eleven 
pieces of cannon ; but the guards from the trenches 
immediately advancing on them, they retreated, and 
the pieces which they had hastily spiked were soon 
rendered fit for service. In the afternoon of the 
same day the besiegers opened several batteries in 
their second parallel ; and in the whole line of batte- 
ries nearly one hundred pieces of heavy ordnance 
were now njounted. The works of the besieged 
were so universally in ruins as to be in no condition 
to sustain the fire which might be expected the next 
day. In this extremity. Lord Cornwallis boldly re- 
solved to attempt an escape by land with the greater 
part of his army. His plan was to cross over, in the 
night, to Gloucester Point, and forcing his way 
through the troops under De Choise, to pass through 
Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Jersey, and form a 
junction with the royal army at New York. In pro- 
secution of this desperate design, one embarkation of 
his troops crossed over to the opposite point ; but a 
violent storm of wind and rain dispersed the boats, 
and frustrated the scheme. 

On the morning of the 17th the fire of the Ameri- 
can batteries rendered the British post untenable. 
Lord Cornwallis, perceiving further resistance to be 
unavailing, about ten o'clock beat a parley, and pro- 
posed a cessation of hostilities for twenty-four hours, 
that commissioners might meet to settle the terms on 
which the posts of York and Gloucester should be 
surrendered. General Washington, in his answer, 
declared his " ardent desire to spare the effusion of 
blood, and his readiness to listen to such terms as 
were admissible ;" but to prevent loss of time, he de- 
sired " that, previous to the meeting of the commis- 
sioners, the proposals of his lordship might be trans- 
mitted in writing, for which purpose a suspension of 
hostilities for two hours should be granted." The 
terms proposed by his lordship were such as led the 
general to suppose that articles of capitulation might 
easily be adjusted, and he continued the cessation of 
hostilities until the next day. To expedite the busi- 
ness, he summarily stated the terms he was willing 
to grant, and informed Earl Cornwallis, that if he 
admitted these as the basis of a treaty, commissioners 
might meet to put them into form. Accordingly, 



288 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Viscount de Noailles and Lieutenant-Colonel Lau- 
rens, on the part of the allies, and Colonel Dundas 
and Major Ross, on the part of the English, met the 
next day, and adjusted articles of capitulation, v/hich 
were to be submitted to the consideration of the 
British general. Resolving not to expose himself to 
any accident that might be the consequence of un- 
necessary delay. General Washington ordered the 
/ough draft of the commissioners to be fairly tran- 
scribed, and sent to Lord Cornwallis early next 
morning, with a letter expressing his expectation 
that the garrison would march out by two o'clock in 
the afternoon. Hopeless of more favourable terms, 
his lordship signed the capitulation, and surrendered 
the posts of York and Gloucester, with their garri- 
sons, to General Washington ; and the shipping in 
the harbour, with the seamen, to Count de GrQ,sse. 
The prisoners, exclusive of seamen, amounted to more 
than seven thousand, of which between four and five 
thousand only were fit for duty. The garrison lost, 
durinof the siesfe, six officers and five hundred and 
forty-eight privates in killed and wounded. The 
privates, with a competent number of officers, were 
to remain in Virginia, Maryland, or Pennsylvania. 
The officers not required for this service were per- 
mitted on parole to return to Europe, or to any of 
the maritime posts of the English on the American 
continent. The terms granted to Earl Cornwallis 
were, in general, the terms which had been granted 
to the Americans at the surrender of Charleston ; 
and General Lincoln, who on that occasion resigned 
his sword to Lord Cornwallis, was appointed to re- 
ceive the submission of the royal army. The allied 
army, to which Lord Cornwallis surrendered, amount- 
ed to sixteen thousand ; seven thousand French, five 
thousand five hundred continental troops, and three 
thousand five hundred militia. In the course of the 
siege they lost, in killed and wounded, about three 
hundred. The siege was prosecuted with so much 
military judgment and ardour, that the treaty was 
opened on the eleventh, and the capitulation signed 
on the thirteenth day after ground was broken before 
the British lines.* 

The capture of so large a British army excited 
universal joy, and on no occasion during the war did 
the Americans manifest greater exultation. From 
the nature and duration of the contest, the affections 
of many had been so concentrated upon their coun- 
try, and so intense was their interest in its fate, that 



• Congress, on receiving intelligence of this important victory, 
passed resolutions, returning the thanks of the United States to the 
commander in chief, to the Count De Rochambeau, to Ihe Count 
Ee Grasse, and to the officers of the different corps, and the men 



the news of this brilliant success produced the most 
rapturous emotions, under the operations of which, 
it is said, some were even deprived of their reason, 
and one aged patriot in Philadelphia expired. The 
day after the capitulation. General Washington order- 
ed, " that those who were under arrest should be 
pardoned and set at liberty ;" and announced, that 
" Divine service shall be performed to-morrow in the 
different brigades and divisions. The commander 
in chief recommends, that all the troops that are not 
upon duty do assist at it with a serious deportment, 
and that sensibility of heart which the recollection 
of the surprising and particular interposition of 
Providence in our favour claims." Congress, as 
soon as they received General Washington's official 
letter giving information of the event, resolved to go 
in procession to the Dutch LiUheran church, and re- 
turn thanks to Almighty God for the signal success 
of the American arms ; and they issued a proclama- 
tion, recommending to the citizens of the United 
States to observe the 13th of December as a dtiy of 
public thanksgiving and prayer. 

While these successful operations had been carry, 
ing on in Virginia, Sir Henry Clinton endeavoured, 
if possible, to recall Washington, or at least to divert 
his attention, by some daring enterprise in the north. 
Giving to the traitor Arnold, who had just returned 
from his destructive expedition to Virginia, the com- 
mand of a strong detachment, he sent him against 
New London, a flourishing city situated upon the 
river Thames, in his native state. Nearly opposite, 
on a hill in Groton, stood Fort Griswold, which was 
then garrisoned by militia, hastily summoned from 
their labours in the field. Against this foxt Arnold 
despatched a part of his troops. It was assaulted on 
three sides at the same moment. The garrison, 
fighting in view of their property and their homes, 
made a brave and obstinate resistance. By their 
steady and well-directed fire many of the assailants 
were killed. Pressing forward with persevering ar- 
dour, the British entered the fort through the embra- 
sures. Immediately all resistance ceased. Irritated 
by gallantry which should have caused admiration, 
a British officer inquired who commanded the fort. 
" I did," said Colonel Ledyard, " but you do now ;" 
and presented him his sword. He seized it, and, 
with savage cruelty, plunged it into his bosom. This 
was the signal for an indiscriminate massacre. Of 
a hundred and sixty men, composing the garrison, 



under them. It was also resolved, that a marble column should be. 
erected at Yorktown, with emblems of the alliance between the 
United Sfdtes and his most Christian Majesty, and insciibed with 
a succinct narrative of the surrender of Earl Cornwallis. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



289 



all but forty were killed or wounded, and most of 
them after resistance had ceased. Seldom has the 
glory of victory been tarnished by such detestable 
barbarity. The British then entered New London, 
which was set on fire and consumed. The property 
destroyed was of immense value. Perceiving no 
other object within the reach of his force, Arnold led 
back his troops to New York. 

A circumstance which evidently exercised a very 
favourable influence on American affairs during this 
period should not be omitted — the institution of a 
national bank. The plan of it was projected by 
Robert Morris, one of the delegates of Pennsylvania, 
a man of high reputation, and well versed in affairs 
of commerce and finance, whom congress had ap- 
pointed treasurer. He assigned to this bank a capital 
of four hundred thousand dollars, divided in shares 
of four hundred dollars each, in money of gold or 
silver, to be procured by subscriptions. Twelve di- 
rectors were to manage the bank, which was denomi- 
nated by congress, " The President, Directors, and 
Company of the Bank of North America." To the 
financial skill and indefatigable efforts of Mr. Morris 
in the treasury department, it has been thought his 
country was scarcely less indebted, than to the valour 
of her soldiers, and the wisdom of her statesmen. 
Under his auspices, public credit revived ; the army 
was pacified ; and a new impulse given to every 
operation in the field and the cabinet. 

During this fortunate year also the compact of the 
confederation was rendered complete. Much diffi- 
culty had been experienced in obtaining its ratifica- 
tion. Various and sometimes conflicting amendments 
had been proposed by the states respectively ; but 
they had successively yielded to the opinion that a 
federal compact would be of vast importance in the 
prosecution of the war. One of the greatest impedi- 
ments had hitherto been, that within the chartered 
limits of several states there were immense tracts of 
vacant territory, which, it was supposed, would con- 
stitute a large fund of future wealth ; and the stales 
not possessed of this advantage insisted on consider- 
ing this territory as a joint acquisition, to be applied 
to the conmion benefit. The cession made by Vir- 
ginia, the preceding year, of its north-west territory, 
was now accepted by congress, and, to the great joy 
of America, the confederation was completed.* 

The result of the last campaign convinced the 
British nation that America could not be subdued by 
force ; and led to a change of administration and 
pacific overtures. Parliament met on the 27th of 

» Marshall's Life of Washington, b. iv. chap. 8. 



November, 1781 ; and though the speech from tlie 
throne still breathed a spirit of hostility, and answers 
from both houses were procured in accordance with 
it, yet not long after the recess, the ministers found 
themselves in a minority in the house of commons. 
On the 22d of February, 1782, General Conway 
moved an address to the king, praying, " that the 
war on the continent of North America might no 
longer be pursued for the impracticable purpose of 
reducing that country to obedience by force ; and 
expressing their hope, that the earnest desire and 
diligent exertion to restore the public tranquillity, of 
which they had received his majesty's most gracious 
assurances, might, by a happy reconciliation with the 
revolted colonies, be forwarded and made eflectual ; 
to which great end his majesty's faithful commons 
would be ready to give their utmost assistance." 
This motion being lost by n single vote only, was, five 
days after, renewed, by the same gentleman, in u 
form somewhat different, and was carried ; and an 
address in pursuance of it presented to the king. 
Not yet satisfied with the triumph obtained over the 
ministry, and considering the answer of the king not 
sufficiently explicit, the house of commons, on the 
4th of March, on the motion of General Conway, 
declared, that all those who should advise, or by any 
means attempt, the farther prosecution of offensive 
war in America, should be considered as enemies to 
their king and country. In this state of things it 
was impossible for the ministry longer to continue in 
power, and on the 19th they relinquished their places. 
A new administration was soon after formed — the 
Marquis of Rockingham was placed at the head of 
the treasury, and the Earl of Shelburne and Mr. Fox 
held the important places of secretaries of state. 

Soon after their appointment, the new ministers 
sent a Mr. Oswald to France, to sound the French 
court, as well as Dr. Franklin, on the subject of 
peace. In a conference with the Count de Vergen- 
nes, Mr. Oswald was informed that the French court 
were disposed to treat for peace, but could do nothing 
without the consent of their allies ; and the count 
expressed a wish that Paris might be the place of 
meeting for entering upon this important business. 
About the 18th of April-the British agent went back 
to London, and on the 4th of May returned to France 
with the assent of the British cabinet to treat of a 
general peace, and for that purpose to meet at Paris. 

One of the first measures of the new administra- 
tion, was to appoint Sir Guy Carlton commander in 
chief in America, in the room of Sir Henry Clinton, 
and to authorize Admiral Digby and himself to treat 
for peace. One object of conferring this power was 



290 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



to induce congress to agree to a separate treaty. Sir 
Guy Carlion arrived in America on the 5th of May, 
and two days afterwards informed General Washing- 
ton that he and Admiral Digby were authorized to 
treat for peace, and requested a passport for their se- 
cretary, as the bearer of despatches to congress on 
the subject. A copy of this letter was forwarded by 
the general to that body ; but the members being de- 
termined not to negotiate without their allies, refused 
the passport. The same commissioners, on tlie 2d of 
August following, sent a second letter to the Ameri- 
can commander, informing him that negotiations for 
a general peace had commenced at Paris, and that 
Mr. Grenville had full powers to treat with all the 
parties at war, and that, by his instructions, " the in- 
dependency of the thirteen provinces was to be pro- 

* One of the reasons assigned by Mr. Fox for his resignation, 
was, that the cabinet, under the influence of Lord Shelburne, had 
departed from the principles adopted bj' the preceding adniinistra:- 
tion, on the great question of American independence. In vin- 
dication of himself. Lord Shelburne, early in July, declared in par- 
liament, that he had been, and yet was of opinion, Ihat whenever 
parliament should acknowledge the independence of America, the 
sun of England's glory was set for ever. Such, he said, were the 
sentiments he possessed on a former day, and such were the senti- 
ments he still held. That other noble lords thought differently ; 
and as the majority of the cabinet supported them, he acquiesced 
in the measure, dissenting from the idea; and the point v/as settled 
to bring the matter before parliament. That if independence were 
to be granted, he foresaw, in his own mind, that England was un- 
done. He wished to God, he declared, that he had been deputed 
to the congress, that he might plead Ihe cause of that cotmlry, as 
well as of this ; and that he might exercise whatever powers he 
possessed, as an orator,' to save both from ruin, by bringing the 
congress to a conviction, that, if their independence was signed, 
their liberties were gone for ever. This declaration of the prime 
minister, after the statements made by Mr. Grenville and Sir Guy 
Carlton on the subject of American independence, as before men- 
tioned, excited no little astonishment in France, as well as in 
America. 

It was supposed, that, with a view of attempting some arrange- 
ment agreeably to his wishes. Lord Shelburne contemplated send- 
ing Mr. Jones, afterwards Sir William .Tones, to America. Cer- 
tain il is, that about the last of June, Mr. Jones, in company with 
a gentleman by the name of Paradise, went to Paris ; and it was 
publicly given out, they were on their way to America, on busi- 
ness of a private nature; Mr. Paradise, to recover an estate be- 
longing to him, and Mr. Jones as his counsel. While at Paris, the 
latter frequently saw and conversed with Dr. Franklin and Mr. 
Jay, and as a matter of curiosity, presented to the former, with 
whom he had been acqnainled in England, what he called " a frag- 
ment of Polybius, from his treatise on the Athenian government." 
He took this singular mode, no doubt, of sounding the American 
commissioners, on the great question of peace: and no one can 
read this supposed fragment of a celebrated ancient historian, pur- 
porting to give a brief account of a contest between Athens and her 
colonies, without being satisfied as to its real object. 

" Athens," says this fragment, " had long been an object of uni- 
versal admiration, and consequently of envy ; her navy was invin- 
cible, her commerce extensive ; Europe and Asia supplied her with 
wealth; of her citizens, alt were intrepid, many virtuous; but some 
too much infected with principles unfavourable to freedom. Hence 
un oligarchy was, in a great measure, established ; crooked coun- 
sels wer; thought supreme wisdom ; and the Athenians having lost 
tlip.ir tru; relish for their own freedom, began to attack that of their 
colonies, and of the states which they had before protected I Their 
arrogant claims of unlimited dominion, had compelled the Chians, 



posed by him, in the first instance, instead of being 
made a condition of a general treaty." 

A majority of the new British cabinet very early 
determined to offer America unlimited unconditional 
independence, as the basis of a negotiation for peace, 
and so instructed their minister, Mr. Grenville. This 
was a favourite measure with the Marquis of Kock- 
ingham ; on this point, however, the cabinet was 
divided. The Earl of Shelburne, though he acqui- 
esced, was still opposed, and it was one of the last 
measures to which the king- would assent. The ill- 
ness of the Marquis of Rockingham, and his death, 
which happened on the 1st of July, produced no little 
delay and diificulty in the negotiations. The ap- 
pointment of Lord Shelburne as first lord of the 
treasury produced an open rupture in the cabinet.* 

Coans, Rhodians, Lesbians, to join with nine other small commu- 
nities in the social war, which they began with inconceivable ar- 
dour, and continued with industry surpassing all e.xample, and al- 
most surpassing belief. 

" They were openly assisted by Mausoleus, king of Caria, to 
whose metropolis the united islands had sent a pkilosopher named 
Eleutherion, eminent for the deepest knowledge of nature, the most 
solid judgment, most approved virtue, and most ardent zeal for the 
cause of general liberty. The war had been supported for three 
years with infinite exertions and valour on both sides, with delilje- 
rate firmness on the part of the allies, and with unabated violence 
on the part of the Athenians, who had, neverthele.'^s, despatched 
commissioners to Rliodes, with intent to propose terms of accom- 
modation; but the states (perhaps too pertinaciously) refused to 
hear any proposal whatever, without a previous recognition of their 
total independence, by the magistrates and people of Athens. It 
was not long after this that an Athenian, who had been a pupil of 
Isaeus, together with Demosthenes, and began to be known in his 
country as a pleader of causes, was led, by some affair of his clients, 
10 the capital of Caria. He was a man, unauthorized, unemploy- 
ed, ttnconnected, independent in his circumstances as much as in 
his principles ; admitting no governor, under providence, but the 
laws; and no laws, but which justice and virtue had dictated, 
which wisdom approved, which his cotmtry had freely enacted. 
He had been known at Athens to the sage Eleutherion, and their 
acquaintance being renewed, he sometimes took occasion, in their 
conversations, to lament the calamities of war, and to expre.ss his 
eager desire of making a general peace on such lerms as iroitld 
prodiice the greatest good from the greatest evil ; ' for this,' said he, 
' would be a work not unworthy the divine attributes, and if mor- 
tals could effect it, they would act like those beneficent beings, 
whom Socrates believed to be the constant friends and attendants 
of our species.'" 

The Athenian, in these conversations, is also represented as en- 
deavouring to persuade Eleutherion not to insist on such terms of 
peace, as would wound the pride of Athens, without any substan- 
tia] beiiefit to the colonies, and particularly not to insist en an ex- 
press acknowledgment of Iheir independence. " Let Ihe confede- 
rates," he said, " be contented with the substance of that inde- 
pendence which they have asserted, and llie word will necessarily 
follow. 

" Let them not hurt the natural, and, perhaps, not reprehensible 
pride of Athens, nor demand any concession, that may .sirk in the 
eyes of Greece a nation to whom they are and must be united in 
language, in blood, in manners, in interest, in principles. Glory 
is lo a nation, what reputation is to an individual; it is not an 
empty sound, but important and essential. It will be glorious in 
Athens to acknowledge her error in attempting to reduce the isl- 
ands ; but an acknowledgment of her inability to reduce them (if 
she be unable) will be too public a confession of weakness, and her 
rank among the slates of Greece will instantly be lowered." 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



291 



Lord John Cavendish, Mr. Fox, and some others, re- 
signed their places. In consequence of this, William 
Pitt was made chancellor of the exchequer, and 
Thomas Townshend and Lord Grantham secretaries 
of state. There can be little doubt that the ]<ing, as 
well as Lord Shelburne, still entertained a distant 



The Athenian declared, that whatever his own advice might be, 
he knew and positively pronounced, that Athens would never cx- 
pressli/ lecogmse the independence of the islands; that an express 
acknowledgment of it was mere\y forvial with respect to the alies; 
but the prejudices of mankind had made it subslantial with respect 
to Athens. 

" There is a natural union," he said, " hetween Athens and the 
islands which the gods had made, and w'hich the powers of hell 
could not dissolve. Men, speaking the same idiom, educated in 
the same manner, perhaps in the same place ; professing the same 
principles ; sprung from the same ancestors in no very remote de- 
gree ; and related to each other in a thousand modes of consan- 
guinity, affinity, and friendship; such men (whatever they may say 
through a temporary resentment) can never in their hearts consider 
one another as aliens." 

The Athenian then proposed " the general ground work and 
plan of a treaty," the substance of which was, that the Carians 
should be included in the pacification on advantageous terms, that 
the archon, senate, and magistrates of Athens, should make a com- 
plete recognition of rights of all the Athenian citizens, of all orders 
whatever, and all laws for that purpose be combined in one — " there 
should not be one slav: in Atlica." That there should be a perfect 
co-ordination hetween Athens and the thirteen United Islands ; they 
'considering her not as a parent, whom they must obcij, but as an 
elder sister, whom they could not help loving, and to whom they 
should give pre-eminence of honour and co-equulity of power. The 
new co?istitiUions of the confederate islands to remain. On every 
occasion requiring acts for the general good, there was to he an 
assembly of deputies fi om the senate of Athens and the congress of 
the islands, who should fairly adjust the whole business, and settle 
the ratio on both sides; this committee to consist of fifty islanders 
and fifty Athenians, or of a smaller number chosen by them. A 
proportionable number of Athenian citizens, if thought necessary, 
were to have seats, and the power of debating and voting on ques- 
tions of common concern, in the great assembly of the islands, and 
a proportionable number of the islanders to sit, with like power, in 
the assembly at Athens. No obligation to make war, but for the 
common interest — commerce to flow in a free course, for the gene- 
ral advantages of the united powers, and a universal unlimited 
amnesty to be proclaimed, in every part of Greece and Asia. 

" This," said the ingenious Athenian, " is the rough sketch of a 
treaty founded on virtue and liberty. 

" The idea of it still fills and expands my soul ; and if it cannot 
be realized, I shall not think it le.ss glorious, but shall only grieve 
more and mo/e at the perverseness of mankind. 

" !\Iay the Eternal Being, whom the wise and virtuous adore, 
and whose attribute it is to convert into good, that evil, which his 
nnsearchable wisdom permits, inspire all ranks of men to promote 
this or a similar plan ! If this be impracticable, O human nature ! 

BiU I am fully confident that if more at large happiness 

of all." 

" No more is extant," Mr. Jones added, " of this interesting piece, 
upon which the commentary of the sage Polybius would have been 
particularly valuable in these times." 

The allusions in this singular and ingenious communication, were 
too obvious to be misunderstood, and left little doubt on the minds 
of the American commissioners, that the real object of Mr. Jones, 
m his visit at Paris, as well as his intended voyage to America, 
was, if possible, to effect a reconciliation on terms short of an ex- 
press and open acknowledgment of the independence of America. 
Mr. .Tay was the more confirmed in this, by seeing in a pamphlet 
put it. to his hands by Mr. Jones, containing an account of the pro- 
ceedings of the " Society for constitutional information," a commu- 
nication made to the society by Mr. Jones himsalf, in which he an- 



hope that some arrangement might be made with the 
Americans short of an open and express acknow- 
ledgment of their independence : and the views of 
the latter on this point, probably, had no little in- 
fluence in placing him at the head of the administra- 
tion.* Parliament adjourned on the 11th of July, 



nounced his intention of leaving England speedily, " on a mission 
coimected with the interest and welfare of his country." 

These suspicions were communicated to congress both \>y Dr. 
Franklin ami Mr. Jay. In a letter to the .secretary of foreign af- 
fairs, the latter particularly stated his suspicions with respect to 
Mr. Jones ; and on the 28th of June, Dr. Franklin, in a letter to the 
same, says, " It looks as if, since their late success in the West 
Indies, they a little repented of the advances they had made in their 
declarations respecting the acknowledgment of o-ur iiidependena ; 
and we have good information, \\\ai some of the ministry still flatter 
the king with the hope of recovering his sovereignly over us, on 
the same terms as are now making w-ith Ireland. However will- 
ing we might have been, at the commencement of this contest, to 
have accepted such conditions, be assured that we can have no 
safety in them at present. 

"There are," he added, " as reported, great divisions in the mi- 
nistry on other points, as well as this; and those who aim at en- 
grossing the power, flatter the king with this project of re-vnion ; 
and it is said, have much reliance on the operations of private 
agents sent into America to dispose minds in favour of it, and to 
bring about a separate treaty there, with General Carleton." 

The noble biographer of Sir William Jones, however, declares, 
that the object of his rnteiided journey to America was" profession- 
al," and that the " surmises and insinuations" circulated to the 
contrary, were without foundation. 

Yet the situation of the British cabinet at that time, the opinion 
of the Earl of Shelburne on the question of American independence, 
as declared in parliament, the circumstance thai Mr. Junes was his 
particular friend, and above all, the internal evidence arising from 
the extraordinary communication made to Dr. Franklin ; a commu- 
nication, novel, indeed, m the annals of diploinccy, hut certainly, 
in its style and manner, well calculated to disclose his supposed ob- 
ject, leave little doubt but that this eminent scholar was requested, 
by high authority, to sound Dr. Franklin, in a secret manner, as to 
terms of peace and reconciliation with America, the least wound- 
ing to British pride. Nor is it impossible, that Mr. Jones himself 
alluded to this transaction, in a familiar letter to Lord Allhrop, of 
the 5th of October, 1782, mentioned by his biographer, in which he 
says, " I know not what * » « ♦ * thinks: but this I know, 
that the sturdy irans-atlantic yeomanry will neither be dragooned 
or bamboozled out of iheir liberty." Whatever might have been 
the real or ultimate views of Mr. Jones, he returned to England 
without visiting America. The French court again apprehended 
that the Americans might be induced to m.ake a separate peace, and 
on terms short of absolute independence. These apprehensions be- 
ing coinmunicated to the members of congress, in October, 1782, 
they resolved to adhere to the treaty of alliance, to conclude neither 
a separate peace nor truce with Great Britain ; and that they would 
prosecute the war with vigour, until by the blessing of God on the 
united arms, a peace should be happily accomplished ; by which 
the Aill and absolnte .sovereignty and independence of the United 
States having been duly assured, their lights and interests, as well 
as those of their allies, should be eifectuaily provided for and se- 
cured ; and that they would not enter upon the discussion of any 
overtures of pacification, but in confidence and in concert with his 
most Christian Majesty.— Pitkin's Political and Civil History, vol. 
ii. p. 126—132. 

• Among the papers of Dr. Franklin was found the following 
memorandum : " Immediately after the death of Lord Rockingham, 
the king sai'd to Lord Shelburne, '1 will be plain with you; the 
point next my heart, and which I am determined, be the consequence 
what it may, never to relinquish but with my crown and life, is, lo 
prevent a total unequivocal recognition of the independence of 
America. Promise to support me on this ground, and I will leave 



?92 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



hating passed an act at the close of the session, au- 
thorizing- the king to conclude a peace or truce with 
the Americans. 

The instructions of congress to the American com- 
missioners not to conclude peace without the consent 
of France, rendered their situation complicated and 
embarrassing. There were several questions which 
the Americans deemed of the first importance, in 
whicji the French court either felt no interest, or 
were opposed to the American claims. The princi- 
pal of these points referred to the right of fishery on 
the grand bank, and the western boundary of the 
United States.* On the latter point, Spain, who was 
also a party to the negotiations, was extremely desi- 
rous of limiting as much as possible the extent of 
the American territory. These circumstances occa- 
sioned much difficulty and considerable delay. At 
length the American commissioners determined to 
agree to a provisional treaty without the concurrence 
of the French court. Mr. Oswald, who had succeed- 
ed Mr. Grenville, on the part of the British govern- 
ment, strongly urged the propriety of the American 
loyalists being compensated for tlie losses they had 
incurred during the struggle for independence ; but 
this proposition was met by a counter one from Dr. 
Franklin, that a similar arrangement should be made 
by Great Britain in favour of the Americans who 
had suffered in their property from the destruction 
carried on by the British troops. This point was 
therefore ultimately waived, and other difficulties be- 
ing overcome, a provisional treaty was agreed to on 
the 30th of November ; and after great delay, occa- 
sioned by tlie strenuous endeavours of the court of 
Madrid to procure the cession of Gibraltar by Great 
Britain, preliminary treaties of peace were signed on 



you unmolested on every other ground, and with full power as the 
prime minister of this kingdom.' The bargain was struck." — 
Franklin's Works, vol. v. p. 326. 

• " The suspicions of the American ministers as to the views of 
the French court, concerning the fisheries and boundaries, were 
confirmed by a letter from Barbe de Marbois, charge des affairs in 
America, a copy of which (the original having been intercepted) 
was, about this time, put into their hands. The policy, as well as 
indention of France, as disclosed by this letter, evidently was, that 
ihe fisheries and western country should be relinquished by the 
United Stales as the price of peace ; and Monsieur Marbois hints 
to Vergennes the propriety of taking early measures to prevent 
any discontents in Amei ica in consequence of such relinquishment. 
After speaking of the different parties in the United States on these 
subjects, he says, ' There are some judicious persons to whom one 
may speak of giving up the fisheries and the [boundaries] of the 
west, for the sake of peace ; but there are enthusiasts who fly out 
at this idea, and their numbers cannot fail of increasing when, after 
the English are e.xpelled this comment, the burden of the war will 
scarce be felt.' In conclusion, he says, ' But it is best to be pre- 
pared for any discontent, although it should be temporary. It is 
remarked by some, that as England has other fisheries besides 
Newfoundland, she may, perhaps, endeavour that the Americans 
should partake in that of the grand bank, in order to conciliate their 



the 20th of January, 1783, between France, Spain, 
and Great Britain. t 

On the 24th of March, intelligence of a general 
peace reached America by a letter from the Marquis 
de la Fayette ; and orders were immediately issued 
recalling all armed vessels cruising under the autho- 
rity of the United States. Congress soon after re- 
ceived official information of the agreement between 
the ministers of the United States and Great Britain, 
and of the exchange of ratifications of the prelimi- 
nary articles between Great Britain and France ; 
and, on the Uth of April, they issued a proclamation, 
declaring the cessation of arms, as well by sea as by 
land, agreed upon between the United States and 
his Britannic majesty, and enjoining its strict observ- 
ance. On the 19th of April, peace was proclaimed 
in the American army by tlie commander in chief, 
precisely eight years from the day of the first efiusion 
of blood at Lexington. 

The independence of the United States was ac- 
knowledged by Sweden, on the 5th of February ; by 
Denmark, on the 25th of February ; by Spain, on 
the 24th of March ; and by Russia, in July ; treaties 
of amity and commerce were also concluded with 
each of those powers. On the 8th of June, Gen- 
eral Washinston addressed a letter to each of the 
governors of the several states in the union, on 
the present situation, and what appeared to him 
the wisest policy, of the United States. In this 
paternal and affectionate letter he stated four things 
which he conceived to be essential to their well- 
being, and even to their existence, as an indepen- 
dent power : " An indissoluble union of the states 
under one general head ; a sacred regard to pub- 
lic justice ; the adoption of a proper peace establish- 

affections, or procure some compensation, or create a jealousy be- 
tween them and us. But it does not seem likely that she will act 
so contrary to her interest; and were she to do it, it will be better 
to have declared at an early period to the Americans, that their 
pretension is not founded, and that his majesty does not intend to 
support it.' " — Franklin's Works. Pitkin, vol. ii. p. 141. 

t When these, with the provisional treaty wilh America, were 
laid before parliament in February following, they became the 
subject of violent debates and severe animadversion. The ministry 
were accused of sacrificing the interests of their country, by making 
unnecessary concessions to their enemies. One of the resolutions 
introduced into the house of commons on the subject, by Lord John 
Cavendish, was, " That the concessions made to the adversaries of 
Great Britain, by the provisional treaty and preliminary articles, 
were greater than they were entitled to, eitlier from the actual 
situation of their respective possessions, or from their comparative 
strength." This resolution was carried against the ministry by 
two hundred and seven to one hundred and ninety. The great 
object of the majorily was, to compel Lord Shelburne and some of 
his adherents to resign their places. This was efl^ecled by the ex- 
traordinary coalition of Lord North and Mr. Fo.x, and their friends. 
On the 2d of April a new administration was formed, at the head 
of which was placed the Duke of Portland, and Lord North and 
Mr. Fox were made secretaries of state. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



293 



ment ; and the prevalence of that pacific and friend- 
ly disposition, among the people of the United States, 
which will induce them to forget their local preju- 
dices and politics, to malve those mutual concessions 
which are requisite to the general prosperity, and, in 
some instances, to sacrifice their individual advanta- 
ges to the interest of the community. These," he 
added, " are the pillars on which the glorious fabric 
of our independency and national character must be 
supported." Having requested that each governor 
would communicate these sentiments to his legislature 
at their next meeting, and that they might be con- 
sidered " as the legacy of one who has ardently 
wished, on all occasions, to be useful to his country, 
and who, even in the shade of retirement, will not 
fail to implore the Divine benediction upon it ;" he 
concluded his letter in language becoming a Chris- 
tian patriot, and worthy of perpetual remembrance : 
" I now make it my earnest prayer that God would 
have you, and the state over which you preside, in 
his holy protection, that he would incline the hearts 
of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination 
and obedience to government ; to entertain a bro- 
therly affection and love for one another, for their 

* An abstract of this memorable document will not be deemed 
unncces.^ary in a work like the present. By the first article of this 
treaty, his Britannic Majesty acknowledges the United States, viz. 
New Hampshire, Massachusells Bay, Rhode Island and Providence 
Plantations, Conneciicul, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, 
Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, 
and Georgia, to be free, sovereign, and independent stales; thai 
he treats with them as such, and for himself, his heirs, and suc- 
cessors, relinquishes all claims to the governmeni, propriety, and 
territorial rights of the same, and every part thereof. By the se- 
cond article, the boundaries of the United States are declared and 
described from St. Croi-t, in Nova Scotia, to Canada, by the lakes 
and the river Mississippi, to East Florida. By the third article, it is 
agreed, ihal the people of the United Stales shall continue to enjoy 
unmolested the right to take fish of every kind on the grand bank, 
and on all the other banks of Newfoundland, also in the gulf of St. 
Lawrence, and at all other places in the sea where the inhabitants 
of both countries used at any time heretofore to fish; and also that 
the inhabitants of the United Slates shall have liberty to take fish 
of every kind on such part of the coast of Newfoundland as British 
Cshermen shall use, (but not to dry or cure the same on thai island ;) 
and also on the coasts, bays, and creeks, of all other of his Britan- 
nic Majesty's dominions in America; and that the American fish- 
ermen shall have liberty to dry and cure fish in any of the unsettled 
bays, harbours, and creeks of Nova Scotia, Magdalen islands, and 
Labrador, so long as the same shall remain unsettled ; but so soon 
as the same or either of them shall be settled, it shall not be lawful 
for the said fishermen to dry or cure fish at such settlement without 
a previous agreement for that purpose of the inhabitants, proprie- 
tors, or possessors of the ground. By the fourth article, it is agreed, 
that creditors on cither side shall meet with no lawful impediment 
to the recovery of the full value, in sterling money, of all bona fide 
debts heretofore contracted. By the fifth article, il is agreed, that 
the congress shall earnestly recommend it to the legislatures of the 
respective stales, to provide for the restitution of all estates, rights, 
and properties, which have been confiscated, belonging to real British 
subjects, and also of the estates, rights, and properties, of persons 
resident in districts in the possession of his majesty's arms, and who 
cave not borne arms against the United States ; and that persons 



fellow-citizens of the United States at large, and par- 
ticularly for their brethren who have served in the 
field ; and, finally, that he would most graciously be 
pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, 
and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, 
and pacific temper of mind, which were the charac- 
teristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, 
without an humble imitation of whose example in 
these things we can never hope to be a happy nation." 
The definitive treaty of peace between Great Bri- 
tain and the United States of America was signed at 
Paris on the 3d of September, by David Hartley, Esq., 
on the part of his Britannic majesty, and by John 
Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay, on the 
part of the United States. The provisions of the 
treaty attest the zeal and ability of the American ne- 
gotiators, as well as the liberal feelings which actua- 
ted the British ministry. The independence of the 
United States was fully acknowledged. The right 
of fishing on the banks of Newfoundland, and certain 
facilities in the enjoyment of that right, were secured 
to them for ever ; and territory was ceded to them 
more extensive than the most sanguine had dared *o 
anticipate or to hope.* 

of any other description shall have free liberty to go to any part of 
parts of any of the thirteen United Slates, and therein to remain 
twelve months, unmolested in their endeavours to obtain the restitu- 
tion of such of their estates, rights, and properties, as may have been 
confiscated; and that congress shall also earnestly recommend to the 
several states a reconsideration and revision of all acts or laws re- 
garding the premises, so as to render the s.tid laws or acts perfectly 
ccnsislent rot only with justice and equity, but with that spirit of 
conciliation which, on the return of the blessings of peace, should 
universally prevail. And that congress shall also recommend to 
the several states, that ihe estates, rights, and properties of such 
last mentioned persons shall be restored to them, they refunding to 
any i>ersons who may be now in possession the bona fide price 
(where any has been given) which such persons may have paid on 
purchasing any of the said lands, rights, or properlies, since the 
confiscation. And it is agreed that all persons who have any in- 
terest in confiscated lands, either by debis, marriage scltlemenis, or 
otherwise, shall meet with no lawful impediment in the prosecuiion 
of their just rights. By the si.xih article, jc is agreed, ihat there 
shall be no future confiscations made, nor any prosecutions com- 
menced against any person or persons, for or by reason of the part 
which he or they may have taken in the present war; and thai no 
person shall on that account suffer any future loss or damage, either 
in his person, liberty, or properly; and that tho.se who may be in 
confinement on such charges, at the lime of the ratification of the 
treaty in America, shall be immediately set at liberty, and the 
prosecution so commenced be discontinued. By the seventh arti- 
cle, it is agreed, that there shall be a firm and perpetual peace be- 
tween his Britannic Majesty and the said states, and between the 
subjects of the one and the citizens of the other: wherefore, all 
hostilities, both by sea and land, shall from henceforth cease; all 
prisoners on both sides siiall be set at liberty; and his Britannic 
Majesty shall, wilh all convenient .speed, and without causing any 
destruction, or carrying away any negroes or other properly of the 
American inhabitants, withdraw all his armies, garrisons, and 
fleets, from the said United States, ard from every post, place, and 
harbour, within the same, leaving in all fortifications the American 
artillery lhat may be therein ; and shall also order and cause all 
archives, records, deeds, and papers, belonging to any of the said 



294 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



While the negotiations were pending, the Ameri- 
can troops were retained in service, but remained 
unemployed at their various stations. They saw 
with pleasure the end of their toils approaching, but 
apprehended that their country, when she no longer 
needed their services, would forget with what zeal 
and fidelity they had been rendered. The officers, 
especially, dreaded that, after having, for want of pay, 
expended their private fortunes, and after having 
exhausted their strength in the performance of ar- 
duous and protracted services, they should be dis- 
missed in poverty, without any secure provision for 
their future support. In the course of the war, a 
resolution had been adopted by congress, stipulating 
that the officers, after being disbanded, should receive 
half-pay for life. This resolution had never been 
ratified by the requisite number of states, and no safe 
reliance coflld therefore be placed upon it. In De- 
cember, 17S2, the officers forwarded to congress a 
petition, praying that all arrears which were due to 
them might be discharged, and that, instead of half- 
pay for life, a siun equal to five years' full pay should 
be paid or secured to them when disbanded. The 
delay of congress to comply with this request pro- 
duced an alarming agitation in that portion of the 
army stationed at Newburgh. An address to the 
officers was privately circulated, written with great 
ability, and admirably well fitted to work upon those 
passions which recent sufferings and gloomy fore- 
bodings had excited in every bosom. The writer 
boldly recommended that, as all the applications to 
the sympathy and justice of congress had failed of 
success, an appeal should be made to their fears. 
Fortunately, the commander in chief was in the 

stales or their citizens, which in the course of the war may have 
fallen into tlie hands of his officers, to be forthwith restored and 
delivered to the proper slates and persons lo whom they belong. 
By the eighth article, the navigation of the river iVIississippi, from 
its source to the ocean, shall for ever remain free and open to the 
subjects of Great Britain and the citizens of the United Slates. By 
the ninth arlicle, in case it should so happen that any place or ter- 
ritory belonging to Great Britain, or to the United Stales, should 
have been conquered by the arms of either from the other, before 
the arrival of the said provisional articles in America, it is agreed, 
that the same sliall be restored without difficulty, and without re- 
quiring any compensation. By the tenth article, the solemn ratifi- 
cations of the present treaty exhibited in good and due form, shall 
be exchanged between the conlracling parties in the space of six 
months, or sooner, if possible, lo be computed from the day of the 
signature of the [iresent treaty. 

• In America, the approach of peace, combined with other causes, 
produced a state of things alike interesting and critical. The 
oflicers who had wasted their fortunes and their prime of life in 
■unrewarded service, fearing, with reason, that congress possessed 
neither the power nor the inclination to comply with its engage- 
ments to the army, could not look with unconcern at the prospect 
which was opening to them. In December, soon after going into 
winter quarters, they presented a petition to congress, respecling 
the money actually due to them, and proposing a cominutation of 
the half-pay .stipulated by the resolutions of October, 1780, for a 



camp. Though conscious that the officers had just 
cause of complaint, he was aware that duty to liis 
country, and even friendship for them, required that 
he should prevent the adoption of rash and disorderly 
expedients to obtain redress. Calling them together, 
he, by a calm and sensible address, persuaded them 
to rely still longer upon the disposition of congress 
to perform for them whatever the limited means of 
the nation would permit. In a letter to that body, 
giving an account of these occurrences, he maintain- 
ed and enforced the claims of the officers with such 
pathos and strength of reasoning, that their request 
was granted. 

On the 18th of October, congress issued a procla- 
mation for disbanding the army. This document 
states, " That, in the progress of an arduous and 
difficult war, the armies of the United States of 
America have displayed every military and patriotic 
virtue, and are not less to be applauded for their for- 
titude and magnanimity in the most trying scenes of 
distress, than for a series of heroic and illustrious 
achievements, which exalt them to high rank among 
the most zealous and successful defenders of the 
rights and liberties of mankind ; and that, . by the 
blessing of Divine Providence on our cause and our 
arms, the glorious period is arrived when our na- 
tional independence and sovereignty are established, 
and we enjoy the prospect of permanent and honour- 
able peace. The United States, in congress assem- 
bled, thus impressed with a lively sense of the dis- 
tinguished merit, and good conduct of the said 
armies, do give them the thanks of their country for 
their long, eminent, and faithful services.* And it is 
our will and pleasure, that such part of the- federal 



sum in gross, which, they flattered themselves, would encounter 
fewer prejudices ihan the half-pay establishment. Some serurity 
that the engagements of the government would he complied with 
was also requested. A committee of officers was deputed to solicit 
the attention of congress to this memorial, and to attend its progress 
through the house. 

Among the most distinguished members of the federal govern- 
ment, were persons sincerely disposed to do ample justice to the 
public creditors generally, and to that class of them particularly 
whose claims were founded in military service. But many viewed 
the army with jealous eyes, acknowledged its merit with unwilling- 
ness, and betrayed, involuntarily, their repugnance to a faithful 
observance of the public engagements. With this question, another 
of equal importance was connected, on which congress was divided 
almost in the same manner. One party was attached lo a state, 
the other to a continental system. The latter laboured to fund the 
public debts on solid continental security, while the former opposed 
their whole weight to measures calculated to eflect that object. 

In cimsequence of these divisions on points of the deepest inter- 
est, the business of the army advanced slowly, and the important 
question respecting the commutation of their half-pay remained 
undecided, when intelligence was received of the signature of the 
preliminary and eventual articles of peace, between the United 
Stales and Great Britain. 

The officers, soured by their past sufferings, their present wants, 
and their gloomy prospects — exasperated bv the neglect which they 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



295 



armies as stand engaged to serve during the war, 
and as by our acts of the 2Gth of May, the 1 1th of 

experienced, and the injustice which they apprehended, manifested 
an irritable and uneasy temper, -nhich required only a slight im- 
pulse to give it activity. To render this temper the more danger- 
ous, an opinion had been insinuated that the comninnder in chief 
was restrained, by extreme delicacy, from supporting heir interests 
with that zeal which his feelings and knowledge of their situation 
had inspired. Early in March, a letter was receivtd from their 
committee in Philadelphia, showing thai the objects they solicited 
had not been obtained. On the 10th of that month, an anonymous 
paper was circulaled, requiring a meeting of the general and field 
officers at the public building on the succeeding day at eleven in 
the morning; and announcing the e.\'peclation that an officer from 
each company, and a delegate from the medical staff, would attend. 
The object of the meeting was avowed lo be, " to consider the late 
letter from their representatives in Philadelphia, and what mea- 
sures (if any) should be adopted to obtain that redress of griev- 
ances which they seemed to have solicited in vain." 

On the same day an address to the army was privately circulated, 

which was admirably well calculated to work on the passions of 

the moment, and to lead to the most desperate resolutions. Full 

> justice can not be done to this eloquent paper without inserting it 

entire. 

" To the officers of the army. 
" Gentlemen, 

" A fellow soldier, whose interests 'and affections bend him strong- 
ly to you, whose past sulTerings have been as great, and whose fu- 
ture fortune may be as desperate as yours, would beg leave lo ad- 
dress you. 

" Age has its claims, and rank is not without its pretensions, lo 
advise ; but though unsupported by both, he flalters himself that the 
plain language of sincerily and experience will neither be unheard 
nor unregarded. 

" Like many of you, he loved private life, and left it with regret. 
He left it, determined lo retire from Ihe Jield with the necessity 
that called him to it, and not until then — not until the enemies of 
his country, the slaves of power, and the hirelings of injustice, were 
compelled to abandon their schemes, and acknowledge America as 
terrible in arms as she had been humble in remonstrance. With 
this object in view, he has long shared in your toils, and mingled 
in your dangers. He has felt the cold hand of poverty without a 
murmur, and has seen the insolence of wealth without a sigh. But 
too much under the direclion of his wishes, and sometimes weak 
enough to mistake desire for opinion, he has until lately — very 
latel)' — believed in the justice of his country. He hoped that, as 
the clouds of adversity scattered, and as the sunshine of peace and 
better fortune broke in upon us, the coldness and severity of go- 
vernment would relax, and that more than justice, Ihat gratitude 
would blaze forth upon those hands which had upheld her in Ihe 
darkest stages of her passage from impending servitude lo acknow- 
ledged independence. But faith has ils limits, as well as temper, 
and there are points beyond which neither can be stretched without 
sinking into cowardice, or plunging into credulity. This, my 
friends, I conceive lo be your situation. Hurried to the very verge 
of both, another step would ruin you for ever. To be tame and 
unprovoked when injuries press hard upon yon, is more than weak- 
ness ; but lo look up for kinder usage without one manly effort of 
your own, would fix your character, and show the world how richly 
yott deserve those chains you broke. To guard against this evil, 
let us lake a review of the ground upon which we now stand, and 
from thence carry our thoughts forward for a moment into the un- 
explored field of expedient. 

" After a pursuit of seven long years, the object for which we 
set out is at length brought within our reach. — Yes, my friends, 
lhat suffering courage of yours was active once. — It has conducted 
Ihe United Slates of America through a doubtful and a bloody 
war. It has placed her in Ihe chair of independency; and peace 
returns again to bless — whom 1 — A country willing to redress your 
wrongs, cherish your worth, and reward your services 1 A coun- 
try courting your return to private life with tears of gratiiude and 
smiles of admiration — longing to divide with you that independency 

38 



June, the 9th of August, and the 26th of September 
last, were furloughed, shall, from and after the 3d 



which your gallantry has given, and those riches which youi 
wounds have preserved'! Is this Ihe case 1 Or is it rather a coun- 
try lhat tramples upon your rights, disdains your cries, and insults 
your distresses l Have you not more than once suggested your 
wishes and made known your wants to congress"? Wants and 
wishes which gratitude and policy would have anticipated rather 
than evaded; and have you not lately, in the meek language of 
entreating memorials, begged from their justice what you could no 
longer expect from iheir favour 1 How have you been answered "! 
Let the letter which you are called to consider to-morrow reply. 

" If this then be your trealmeni while the swords you wear are 
necessary for the defence of America, what have you lo expect 
from peace, when your voice shall sink, and your strength dissipate 
by division 1 When those very swords, the instruments and com- 
panions of your glory, shall be taken from your sides, and no re- 
maining mark of military dislinclion left but your wants, infirmi- 
ties, and scars'! Can you then consent lo be the only sufl^rers by 
this revolution, and, retiring from the field, grow old in poverty, 
wretchedness, and conlemjit "! Can you consent lo wade through 
the vile mire of dependency, and owe the miserable remnant of lhat 
life lo charily which has hitherto been spent in honour 1 If you 
can — go — and carry wilh you the jest of lories, and the scorn of 
whigs ; — the ridicule, and, what is worse, the. pity of the world. 
Go,— starve and be forgotten. But if your spirit should-revolt at 
this; if you have sense enough lo discover, and spirit enough to 
oppose, tyranny, under whatever garb it may assume ; whether il 
be the plain coat of republicanism, or the splendid robe of royalty; 
if you have yet learned to discriminate between a people and a 
cause, between men and principles, — awake : attend to your situa- 
tion, and redre-ss yourselves. If the present moment be lost, every 
future effort is in vain : and your threats then will be as empty as 
your entreaties now. 

" I would advise you therefore lo come to some final opinion 
upon what you can bear, and what you will sufl^er. If your deter- 
mination be in any proportion to your wrongs, carry your apfcal 
from the justice lo the fears of the government. Change the milk- 
and-water style of your last memorial. Assume a holder tone, — 
decent, bul lively, spirited, and determined ; and suspect the man 
who would advise lo more moderation and longer forbeaiance. 
Let two or three men, who can feel as well as wrile, be appointed 
lo draw up your last revwvsirance ; for I would no longer give it 
the sueing, soft, unsuccessful epithet of memorial. Let it be repre- 
sented in language that will neither dishonour you by its rudeness, 
nor betray you by its fears, what has been promised by congress, 
and what has been performed ;— how long and how patiently you 
have suffered ;— how little you have asked, and how much of that 
little has-been denied. Tell them that, though you were the first, 
and would wish to be the last to encounter danger ; though despair 
itself can never drive you into dishonour, il may drive you from Ihe 
field;— lhat Ihe wound often irritated and never healed, may at 
length become incurable ; and that the slightest mark of indignity 
from congress now musl operate like the grave, and part you for- 
ever; lhat in any political event, the army has its alternative. If 
peace, thai nothing shall separate you from your arms but death; 
if war, that courti'ng Ihe auspices, and inviting the directions of 
your illustrious leader, you will retire to some unsettled country, 
smile in your turn, and'' mock when their fear comelh on.' But 
let it represent also thai, should Ihcy comply wilh the request of 
your late memorial, it would make you more happy and ihcm more 
respectable. That while war should continue you would follow 
their standard into the field ; and when it came to an end, you 
would withdraw into the shade of private life, and give ihe world 
another subject of wonder and applause ;— an army victorious over 
its enemies, victorious over itself" 

Persuaded as the officers in general were of the indisposition of 
government to remunerate their services, this eloquent and impas- 
sioned address, diclaled by genius and by feeling, found in almost 
every bosom a kindred though latent senliment prepared to receive 
its impression. Q.uick as the train to which a torch is applied, the 
passions caught its flame, and nothing seemed to be required but 



296 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



day of November next, be absolutely discharged, by 
virtue of this our proclamation, from the said ser- 
vice." 

the assemblage proposed for the succeeding day, to communicate 
the conflagration to the combustible mass, and to produce an explo- 
sion ruinous to the army, and to the nation. 

Fortunately, the commander in chief was in camp. His charac- 
teristic firmness and decision (lid not forsake him in this crisis. 
The occasion required that his measures should he firm, but pru- 
dent and conciliatory, — evincive of his fixed determination to oppose 
any rash proceedings, but calculated to assuage the irritation which 
was excited, and to restore confidence in government. 

Knowing well that it was much easier to avoid intemperate 
measures than to correct them, he thought it of essential importance 
10 prevent the immediate meeting of the officers ; but, knowing also 
that a sense of injury and a fear of injustice had made a deep im- 
pression on them, and that their sensibilities were all alive to the 
proceedings of congress on their memorial, he thought it more ad- 
\isable to guide their deliberations on that interesting subject, than 
10 discountenance them. 

With these views, he noticed in his orders, the anonymous paper 
jiruposing a meeting of the officers, and expressed his conviction that 
iheir good sense would secure them from paying any " attention to 
such an irregular invitation ; but his own duty, he conceived, as 
well as the reputation and true interest of the army, required his 
disapprobation of such disorde.-ly proceedings. At the same time, 
he requested the general and field officers, with one officer from 
each company, and a proper representation from the staff of the 
army, to assemble at twelve on Saturday, the 15th, at the new build- 
ing, to hear the report of the committee deputed by the army to 
congress. After mature deliberation they will devise what farther 
measures ought to be adopted as most rational and best calculated 
Id obtain the just and important object in view." The senior officer 
In rank present was directed to preside, and repoit the result of the 
deliberations to the commander in chief. 

The day succeeding that on which these orders were published, 
a second anonymous address appeared, from the same pen wliicli 
had written the first. Its author, acquainted with the discontents 
of the army, did not seem to despair of impelling the officers to the 
desired point. He aflecled to consider the orders in a light favour- 
able to his views: — "as giving system to their proceedings, and 
slability to their resolves." 

But AVashington would not permit himself to be misunderstood. 
The interval between his orders and the general meeting they in- 
vited, was employed in impressing on those officers individually 
who possessed the greatest share of the general confidence, a just 
sense of the true interests of the army , and the whole weight of 
his influence was exerted to calm the agitations of the moment, 
and conduct them to a happy termination. This was a work of no 
inconsiderable difficulty. So convinced were many that govern- 
ment designed to deal unfairly by them, that only the reliance they 
placed on their general, and their attachment to his person and 
character, could have moderated their resentments so far as to in- 
duce them to adopt the measures he recommended. 

On the 15lh, the convention of officers assembled, and General 
Gales took the chair. The commander in chief then addressed 
them in the following terms. 

" Gentlemen, — 

" By an anonymous summons, an attempt has been made to 
convene you together. How inconsistent with the rules of pro- 
priety, how unmilitary, and how subversive of all order and disci- 
pline, let the good sense of the army decide. 

. " In the moment of this summons, another anonymous production 
was sent into circulation, addressed more to the feelings and pas- 
sions than to the judgment of the army. The author of the piece 
is entitled to much credit for the goodness of his pen ; and I could 
wish he had as much credit for the rectitude of his heart ; for as 
men see through difltrent optics, and are induced by the reflecting 
faculties of the mind, to use different means to attain the same end, 
the author of the address should have had more charity than to 
mark for suspicion the man who should recommend moderation 
and longer forbearance ; or, in other words, who should not think 



New York was evacuated by the British on the 
25th of November, and the Americans took posses 
sion of the city the same day ; and a short time after 



as he thinks, and act as he advises. But he had another filan in 
view, in which candour and liberality of sentiment, regaid to jus- 
tice, and love of country, have no part; and he was right to insinu- 
ate the darkest suspicion to effect the blackest design. That the 
address was drawn with great art, and is designed to answer the 
most insidious purposes ; that it is calculated to impress the mind 
with an idea of premeditated injustice in the sovereign power of 
the United States, and rouse all those resentments which must un- 
avoidably flow from such a belief; that the sfecret mover of this 
scheme, whoever he may be, intended to take advantage of the 
pa,ssions, while Ihey were warmed by the recollection of past dis- 
tresses, without giving time for cool deliberate thinking, and thai 
composure of mind which is so necessary to give dignity and sla- 
bility to measures, is rendered too obvious by the mode of conduct- 
ing the business to need other proof than a reference to the pro- 
ceedings. 

" Thus much, gentlemen, 1 have thought it incumbent on me to 
observe to you, to show upon what principles I opposed the irregu- 
lar and hasty meeting which was proposed to have been held on 
Tuesday last, and not because I wanted a disposition to give yoo 
every opportunity consistent with your own honour, and the dignity 
of the army, to make known your grievances. If my conduct here- 
tofore has not evinced to you, that I have been a faithful friend to 
the army, my declaration of it at this time would be equally un- 
availing and improper. But as I was among the first whoemlaik- 
ed in the cause of our common country; as I have never lelt your 
side one moment but when called from you on public duly , a;- I 
have been the constant companion and witness of your distresses, 
and not among the last to feel and acknowledge your merits ; as I 
have ever considered my own military reputation as insejiiinlly 
connected with that of llie army; as my heart has ever exp.in<tei'. 
with joy when I have heard its praises, and my indignation has 
arisen when the' mouth of detraction has been opened against it; 
it can scarcely be supposed, at this last stage of the war, thai I nni 
indiflierent to its interests. But how are they to be promoted ? The 
way is plain, says the anonymoBS addresser. — If war continues, le- 
move into the unsettled country ; there establish yourselves, ard 
leave an ungrateful country to defend itself I But who are thry to 
defend? Our wives, our children, our farms and other propeti^ 
which we leave behind us^ Or, in this slate of hostile separaticn-, 
are we to take Ihe two first (the latter can not be removed) to periih 
in a wilderness with hunger, cold, and nakedness 1 

" ' If peace takes place, never Sheath your swords,' sa)'s he, ' until 
you have obtained full and ample justice.' This dreadful alterna- 
tive of either deserting our country in the exlremest hour of her 
distress, or lurning our arms against.it, which is the apparent ob- 
ject, unless congress can be compelled into instant compliance, has 
something so shocking in it, that humanity revolts at the idea. My 
God ! what can this writer have in view by recommending .such 
measures. Can he be a friend to Ihe army ? Can he be a ft lend tr 
this country 1 Rather is he not an insidious foe : some emissaiy, 
perhaps, from New York, plotting Ihe ruin of both, by sowing the 
.seeds of discord and separation between Ihe civil and military pow- 
ers of the continent 1 And what a compliment does he pay to out 
understandings, when he recommends measures, in either alterna- 
tive, impracticable in their nature 1 But here, gentlemen, I will 
drop the curtain, because it would be as imprudent in me to assign 
my reasons for this opinion, as it would be insulting to j'our con- 
ception to suppose you stood in need of them. A moment's reflec- 
tion will convince every dispassionate mind of the physical impos- 
sibility of carrying either proposal into execution. There might, 
gentlemen, be an impropriety in my taking notice, in this address 
to you, of an anonymous production, — but the manner in which thai 
performance has been introduced'to the army, together with some 
other circumstances, will amply justify my observations on the ten- 
dency of that writing. 

" With respect to the ndvice given by the author, to suspect Ihe 
man who shall recommend moderate measures and longer forbear- 
ance, I spurn it, as every man who regards that liberty, and revcrea 



•HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



297 



the army was disbanded, and again mingled with 
their fellow citizens.* 

General Washington, taking an affectionate leave 

that justice for which we contend, undoubtedly must ; for if men 
are to be precluded from offering their sentiments on a matter which 
may involve the most serious and alarming consequences that can 
invite the consideration of mankind, reason is of no use to us. The 
freedom of speech may be taken away, and, dumb and silent, we 
may be led like sheep to the slaughter. I can not in justice to my 
own belief, and what I have great reason to conceive is the inten- 
tion of congress, conclude this address, without giving it as my de- 
cided opinion, that that honourable body entertain exalted senti- 
ments of the services of the army, and, from a full conviction of its 
merits and sufferings, will do it complete justice. That their en- 
deavours to di.scover and establish funds for this purpose have been 
unwearied, and will not cea.se until they have succeeded, I have not 
a doubt. 

" But, like all other large bodies, where there is a variety of 
diiferent interests to reconcile, their determinations are slow. Why 
then should we distrust them ■? And, in consequence of Ihat distrust, 
adopt measures which may cast a shade over that glory which has 
been so justly acquired, and tarnish the reimlalion of an army 
which is celebrated through all Europe for its fortitude and patriot- 
ism 1 And for what is tfiis done 1 To bring the object we seek 
nearer 1 No: most certainly, in my opinion, it will cast it at a 
greater distance. For myself, (and I lake no merit in giving the 
assurance, being induced to it from principles of gratitude, veracity, 
and justice, and a grateful sense of the confidence you have ever 
placed in me,) a recollection of ihe cheerful assistance, and prompt 
obedience I have experienced from you, under every vicissitude of 
fortune, and the sincere affection I feel for an army I have so long 
bad the honour to command, will oblige me to declare in this public 
and solemn manner, that in the attainment of complete justice for 
all your toils and dangers, and in the gratification of every wish, 
so far as may be done consistently with the great duty I owe my 
country, and those powers we are bound to respect, you may freely 
command my services (o the utmost extent of my abilities. 

"While I give these assurances, and pledge myself in the most 
•unequivocal manner to exert whatever abilities I am possessed of 
in your favour, let me entreat you, gentlemen, on your part, not to 
take any measures which, viewed in the calm light of reason, will 
lessen the dignity, and sully the glory you have hitherto maintain- 
ed. Let me request you to rely on the plighted faith of your coun- 
try, and place a full confidence in the purity of the intentions of 
congress; — that, previous to your dissolution as an army, they 
will cause all your accounts to be fairly liquidated, as directed in 
the resolutions which were published to you two days ago ; and 
that they will adopt the most effectual measures in their power to 
render ample justice to you for your faithful and meritorious ser- 
vices. And let me conjure you, in the name of our common coun- 
try, as you value your own honour, as you respect the rights of 
humanity, and as you regard the mililary and national character 
of America, to express your utmost horror and detestation of the 
man who wishes, under any specious pretences, to overlurn the 
liberties of our country, and who wickedly attempts to open the 
flood gales of civil discord, and deluge our rising empire in blood. 

" By thus determining, and thus acting, you will pursue the plain 
and direct road to the attainment of your wishes; you will defeat 
the insidious designs of our enemies, who are compelled to refort 
from open force to secret artifice. You will give one more distin- 
guished proof of unexampled palriolism and patient virtue, rising 
superior to the pressure of the most complicated sufferings; and 
you will, by the dignity of your conduct, afford occasion for posteri- 
ty to say, when speaking of the glorious example you have exhibited 
to mankind, had this day been wanting, the world had never seen 
the last stage of perfection to which human nature is capable of 
attaining." 

These sentiments from a person whom the army had been ac- 
customed to love, to revere, and to obey ; the solidity of whose 
judgment, and the sincerity of v/hose zeal for their interests, were 
alike unquestioned, could not fail to be irresistible. No person was 
har^^ enough to oppose the advice be had given ; and the general 



of his officers, repaired to Annapolis, where congress 
was sitting, and there, at a public audience, with 
dignity and sensibility, resigned his commission as 



impression was apparent. A resolution moved by General Knox, 
and seconded by Brigadier-General Pulnam, '• assuring him that 
the officers reciprocated his affectionate expressions with the great- 
est sincerily of which the human heart is capable," was unani- 
mously voied. On the motion of General Fulnam, a committee, 
consisting ol General Knox, Colonel Brooks, and Captain Howard, 
was then appointed, to prepare resolutions on the busine.ss before 
them, and to report in half an hour. The report of the committee 
being brought in and considered, the following resolutions weit 
passed. 

" Resolved unanimously, that at the commencement of the presenl 
war, the officers of the American army engaged in the service ol 
their country from the purest love and attachment to the right; 
and privileges of human nature ; which motives still exist in iht 
highest degree ; and that no circumstances of distress or dangei 
shall induce a conduct that may tend to sully the reputation and 
glory which they have acquired at the price of their blood, and 
eight years faithful services. 

" Resolved unanimously, that Ihe army continue to have an un- 
shaken confidence in the justice of congress and Iheir country, and 
are fully convinced lhat the representatives of America will not 
disband or disperse Ihe army until their accounts are liquidated, the 
balances accurately ascertained, and adequate funds established for 
payment; and in this arrangement, the officers expect lhat the half- 
pay, or a coinmutation for it, shall be efficaciously comprehended. 
" Resolved unanimously, that his excellency the commander in 
chief, be requested to write to his excellency the president of con- 
gress, earnestly entreating the most speedy decision of lhat honour- 
able body upon the subject of our late address, which was forwarded 
by a committee of the army, some of whom are waiting upon con- 
gress for the result. In Ihe alternative of peace or war, this event 
would be highly satisfactory, and would produce immediate tran- 
quillity in the minds of the army, and prevent any further machi- 
nations of designing men, to sow discord between the civil and 
military powers of the United Stales. 

" On motion, resolved unanimouslj', that the officers of Ihe 
American army view with abhorrence and reject with disdain, the 
infamous propositions contained in a lale anonymous address to 
Ihe officers of the army, and resent with indignation the secret at- 
tempts of some unknown person to collect the officers together in a 
manr*r totally subversive of all discipline and good order. 

" Resolved unanimously, lhat Ihe thanks of the officers of the 
army be given to the commillee who presented to congress the lale 
address of Ihe army ; for Ihe wisdom and prudence with which they 
have conducted that business; and lhat a copy of the proceedings 
of this day be iransmilted by the president to Major-General M'Dou- 
gal ; and lhat he be requested to continue his solicilalions at con- 
gress, until the objects of his mission are accomplished." 

The storm which had been raised so suddenly and unexpectedly 
being thus happily dissipaled, the commander in chief exerted all 
his influence in support of the applicalion the officers had made to 
congress. — Marshall's Life of IVatMiipton, vol. 2, p. 41 — 50. 

• The following eulogium from the lips of an eloquent In'iug- 
statesman, when pleading ibr the relief of ihe illustrious survivors, 
conveys a just idea of the honourable conduct of this bond of pa- 
irjois: — "The army was to be disbanded; but it was unpaid. It 
was to lay down its own power ; but there was no government with 
adequate power to perform what had been promised to il. In ihis 
crilical moment, what is its conduct 1 Does il disgrace its high 
character 1 Is temptation able to seduce it 1 Does it speak of 
righting itself! Does it underiake to redress its own wrongs by 
its own sword ? Does it lose ils p.-vtriotism in ils deep sense of in- 
jury and injustice 1 Does mililary ambiiion cause ils integrity lo 
swerve 1 Far, far otherwise. Il had faithfully served and saved 
the country, and to lhat counliy it now referred, with unhesitating 
confidence, ils claim and its complaints. It laid down iis aims 
with alacriiy ; il mingled itself with the mass of Ihe community! 
and il waited till, in better times, and under a new government, its 
services might be rewarded, and the promises made to it fulfilled. 



298 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



commander in chief of the American armies. Then, 
willi a character ilhistrious throughout the world, he 
returned to his residence at Mount Vernon, possess- 
ing the sincere love and profound veneration of his 
countrymen. 

Th-^ momentous contest, the liistory of which has 
occupied the preceding chapters, suggests a train of 
reflections wjiich, were we to indulge them, would 
lead us to an extent inconsistent with the character 
of the work. This struggle between despotism and 
liberty possesses, indeed, some features that are com- 
mon to all enterprises of a similar character ; but 
there are others which are peculiar to itself, and 
which plare it in happy contrast with instances botli 
of an earlier and of a more recent date. The great 
contest when England liberated herself for a season 
from the iron rule of the Stuarts, resembles in its 
progress, perhaps more than any other, the American 
revolution ; but how different were its results ! In 
the former case a military despotism succeeded, which 
rendered the people desirous of the return even of a 
profligate prince, and facilitated the establishment of 
an oligarchy, from whose oppression the nation is 



We can hardly recur to this example too often, or dwell on it too 
much, for the honour of our country, and of its defenders." — The 
Speeches and Forensic Arsjuments of Daniel Webster, p. 356, 357. 
* The acquirements of the men who achieved our independence 
have been greatly underrated. To prove this, we have only to ex- 
amine the letters written by the officers of the army and the mem- 
bers of congress, from 1774 to the close of the conflict. The litera- 
ture of the revolution is scattered throughout the history of all the 
transactions of that eventful period; but in no instance does it 
shine more conspicuously than in the productions of Washington ; 
he was not a scliolar by education or profession ; his information 
was miscellaneous, and by no means extensive, when his early 
public services began. He knew something of history and*iatbe- 
matics, and sometliing of the military tactics of the day. He, from 
his youth, saw things, at all times, through a clear inedium, and ex- 
pressed his thoughts with clearness, force, and honesty. His his- 
tory of hi.s journey to the Ohio, undertaken by the order of Dinwid- 
die, proves that his judgment was the master trait of his mind. 
The object of his mission is not a moment forgotten ; he looked 
with a single eye to that object, and be never, for a moment, turned 
himself, to think of his dangers or his sufferings. At every step 
such a mind improves. His first address to his army in July, 1775, 
is full of excellent military rules, but is wanting in that felicitous 
elegance which he afterwaids acquired. He never suffered a sen- 
timent to come from his pen negligently written ; all was worked 
into ease and dignity. No commander that ever lived had so much 
need of this talent. Others have had to issue orders and to give an 
account of proceedings ; Washington had not only to do these, but 
other things besides. He had, at times, to perform every duty inci- 
dent to war, and more, from a pioneer to a field marshal ; and from 
a sutler to a chancellor of the exchequer, at least with his pen ; not 
only this, he had to use every argument to collect troops, and to 
keep them together, even for the shortest time ; apathy was to be 
aroused ; vaulting ambition to be struck down ; individual bicker- 
ings to be silenced ; sectional irritations to be soothed ; the quarrel- 
some and high mettled to be controlled, that the service should not 
suffer ; the faint and despairing to be encouraged ; the living to be 
supported, and heaven, sometimes, only knew how; and the dead 
were to be duly honoured, according to military usages, when the 
army had hardly powder enough to fire a volley at the enemy. In 
all this, the address of Washington was conspicuous, but the pro- 



only now making an effort to escape ; in the latter, 
the principles of liberty have been matured, and the 
grand spectacle exhibited of the existence of lawful 
and powerful authority, as remote from despotism as 
the freedom it protects is from licentiousness. If, 
again, we compare the American revolution to that 
of which it has the reputation of being a principal, 
if not the chief cause, how must infidel France blush 
at the sight of her garments dyed deep in the blood 
of her sons, to make way, first for a splendid but de- 
ceitful military imperialism, and then for the restora- 
tion of a priest-ridden dynasty, to purify herself from 
which she has required a second sacrifice on the altar 
of liberty ! Whence, then, did the efforts we have 
been narrating derive their superiority, both as to 
th.eir character and their results ? While many have 
urged the difference of national temperament and 
external circumstances, which, doubtless, possessed 
some influence, we feel no hesitation in affirming, 
that the distinction is mainly to be attributed to the 
presence of enlightened religious principle, and intel- 
lectual argument.* To enter into the arguments 
which substantiate this assertion would be foreign to 

ductions of his pen were more so. He wrote to all, he reasoned 
with all, and he conquered all. Congress was not at all times in a 
proper temper to render him the most efKcient aid ; he was obliged 
to come upon them in all forms of entreaty ; alarming them, at times, 
by his intimations of leaving the army, using every suggestion which 
could reach their pride, li.eir patriotism, their honour, courage, or 
any other faculty, property, of sympathy, about them. There is not 
a form of reasoning tfiat he was not obliged to assume; still, every 
form was pure English, good common sense, in his mother tongue. 
Cesar wrote his commentaries in the camp, and they area fine mo- 
del of chaste and elegant writing ; but it must be remembered, that 
Cesar was a high bred Roman scholar. He was as proud of his 
eloquence and fine writing, as he was of his fame as a great leader 
of armies. Wolfe made his addresses and wrote his despatches in 
the toils and distresses in,cident to a camp; but these productions 
are but few, compaieil with those of Washington. Burgoyne's 
letters, written in the field, are said to surpass those written in the 
closet; Nelson's account of the battle of the Nile is sublime; and 
Bonaparte's address to his soldiers under the pyramids, is full of 
epic grandeur. But these are momentary bursts of chivalrous feel- 
ings; while Washington's addresses, despatches, and letters, to 
every one, in every part of the country, was a continued exertion 
of reason, to save his country. When the memory of individual 
exertion shall be lost, and history shall only speak, in general 
terms, of the revolutionary conflict, these letters and addres.'es of 
Washington will preserve the particular scenes of that day, and 
bring them at once to the understanding of men. In looking care- 
fully over his productions already published, I cannot find in them 
one word that is not pure, legitimate English ; good Saxon Eng- 
lish, through which runs the best currents of true liberty in, thinlt- 
ing and acting, of any language that can be found, at any time or 
place. 

The close of the war of independence, when the people fondly 
thought that they were about to be rewarded for all iNeir sacrifices, 
was the most painful period of our history. At that time, from 
1783 10 1789, almost every one found his affairs in a deranged slate. 
The slate debts which had been made in hopes of prosperous times, 
then operated severely on all classes in the community. To pay 
their debts with promptness was impossible, and every relief-act 
only made the matter worse. It was then that the people found 
that the great work of independence, as contemplated at the begin- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



299 



the purpose of historic narrative. Any reader who 
has given impartial attention to the tone of piety 
whicli pervades the public acts of the congress of 

ning of ihe conflict, was only half done ; a form of government was 
to be fixed upon, to give energy to national power, and success to 
individual and national enterprise. This portentous crisis formed 
another epoch for the display of the literary and political atiaia- 
ments of the active and patriotic minds in our country. New men 
appeared on the important discussion of the adoption of the federal 
constitution in the several state conventions; and it was found that 
the quantity of talent and information in the country had greatly 
increased during tlie war ; and that its standard quality was equally 
good and precious as that which had been assayed at the commence- 
ment of the difficulties. A thousand intellectual lamps were light- 
ed up along our shores, to show the people in what darkness they 
«'ere groping, and to what a precipice they were hastening. A 
baleful meteor now and then led the people for a moment astray, 
but at length the right path «-as found, and the nation commenced 
its march onward to prosperity and honour. 

Perhaps it were well to pause a moment and name a few of 
those who displayed their literature and eloquence at this important 
period. They lelt unexplored no portion of history. They passed 
hy no lesson of experience; all were faithfully examined and tho- 
roughly sifted, and the people had the benefits of the results. That 
nation cannot be long in danger that can, on any great event, com- 
mand her physical and mental powers for her safety and guide. 

It was felt by all thinking men, in every part of the country, that 
the old confederation was no longer a sufficient bond of union. 
The great pressure of common danger, which had kept all secure, 
had in a great measure ceased, and the people were hurrying fast 
on to anarchy, for want of a government that could enforce its re- 
quisitions. 

From these conventions much of the nature of our people, their 
habits of thinking, and reasoning, and leeling, mayte gathered. 
In looking over the debates in the several conventions in the difler- 
ent states, we find a great deal of talent displayed, from New 
Hampshire to Georgia ; and we may also see that the education of 
each state had been nearly on the same model ; for in reading the 
speeches of all, a foreigner would at once pronounce that the ora- 
tors were trained ii5 the same school. The style of eloquence may 
vary a little, but the language used in the debates is all in the good 
old English books. They had the same jealousies, the same hopes 
and fears, and the same determinations. These jealousies had 
taken rank hold of common minds in every portion of the country; 
but it is not too much to say, that those in favour of adopting the 
constitution were generally of the higher classes of intellect, and 
those who had most at stake, although it must be conceded that 
there were many exceptions to this remark. The speakers in fa- 
vour of adopting the constitution far outnumbered those opposed to 
it, in proportion to the majority obtained for the iinal vote. 

In the convention of Massachusetts, there were, out of three hun- 
dred and fifty-five members, sixty-seven speakers, and not more 
than eight or ten ventured to oppose the constitution in debate; 
and yet there were, after every exertion, but a majority of nineteen 
in favour of the adoption of it. In the convention of New York, 
which consisted of about sixty members, there was only a majority 
of two in favour of the adoption ; and among the thirteen speakers, 
there were only two or three in the negative. The talents were 
certainly on the side of the adoption; the impressions of the people 
were at first decidedly against it, from the fear that they were 
giving up too much of their hard earned liberty, and not from any 
wish to live in a slate of anarchy. It must, however, be taken 
into consideration, that forty years have elapsed since these debates 
were reported ; and at that time the art of reporting speeches was 
but little known ; and it cannot be supposed that in cases where the 
speakers did not assist the reporters, that we have any thing more 
. than the skeletons of the speeches delivered. The convention of 
Massachusetts were together from the 9th of January, 1788, to 
February 7th, twenty-nine days, at which time there were nearly 
two hundred speeches made ; and among the orators some of the 
first men New England ever produced : Parsons, Ames, Cabot, 
Qore, King, Dana, Jarvis, Strong, Brooks, Dawes, and others, who 



America, and of her principal leaders, especially those 
of the commander in chief, as well as the spirit of 
the people at large, with some exceptions, will not 

exhausted every subject they discussed. The whole of these 
speeches is comprised in one hundred and fifty octavo pages; and 
from a comparison of their difierent styles of speaking on other 
subjects, I find that the reporter's, not the speaker's style, is to be 
seen ; still, however, much credit is due to him for getting these 
debates up so well as he did at that lime. The New York orators 
were fortunate, for they undertook to assist the reporter, and of 
course posterity will have a fair view of their arguments. It must 
be granted that the New York convention was a highly intellectual 
body. 

Virginia, always true to her native talents, had an experienced 
reporter in the convention to take down the debates; and fortu- 
nately for us, he extended them to three volumes, amounting to six 
hundred and twelve closely printed pages; and although that body 
was in session but twenty-six days, and only thirteen or fourleen 
members attempted to speak, yet we have more matter from these 
speeches than from the Massachusetts and New York reports to- 
gether. Those in the Virginia convention, in favour of adopting 
the proposed constitution, who distinguished themselves by their 
speeches, were Messrs. Nicholas, Randolph, Madison, Pendleton, 
Marshall, and Tyler. Those opposed to its adoption, were Patiick 
Henry, Mason, Monroe, Grayson, and Dawson. Mr. Madison took 
a very active part, and spoke more than any other member in the 
convention, all hough all those mentioned were deeply engaged. 
It will not be denied, at this day, that throughout the thirteen Uni- 
ted States, in these debates on establishing a form of government, 
a majority of the talents was on the side of the constitution ; yet 
there were able men opposed to it. When the main question vas 
taken, the plurality in Virginia was only ten — eighty-nine voting in 
the affirmative, and seventy-nine in the negative. The question 
was ably argued on both sides, and the objections very honestly 
given. Patrick Henry, and those who acted with him, were fear- 
ful of the loss of slate influence. They were alarmed at the ex- 
pression, " we, the people." They saw in this phrase a consolida- 
tion of interests which was not consistent with state piide ; while, 
in many states, the people were afraid that individual rights would 
be lost. These difl'eient jealousies were shown at every movement 
of the stales ; but at last were happily overcome by the perseverance 
of the friends of the conslitution. A victory was obtained more 
difficult to achieve than any; yea, than all iliose of arms which 
had been gained in the revolutionary struggle. These jealousies 
were natural, but the conquest over liiem was glorious. 

It is to be regretted, that so many of the speeches of the mem- 
bers of the different conventions, are irrevocably lost for the want 
of a proper reporter at the time, and from inattention since. It is 
a mortifying truth that more of our history, or more of the minute 
facts of which our history has been composed, have been preserved 
by other nations than by ourselves. The nations of Europe con- 
sidered our case a new one in the annals of the world ; and some 
of their curious sneculators on the progiess of events, took infinite 
pains to procure all the information to be had in respe^ i to us and 
our proceedings. The Italian historian, Bona, not only procured 
all the infoiraalion he could, but set down and wrote the hisloiy of 
our revolution with great fairness, and with Kjlerahle accuracy. 
Professor Eheling, of Germany, had the inteniion, it is said, of 
writing out our whole history, and collected a great mass of ma- 
terials for that purpose. The history he did not write; but we 
have, through the medium of an individual, the benefit of his col- 
lections ; thev having been purchased and brought to this country. 

There is one work which deserves our notice, and which ought 
to be lepu-blished, as there are but few copies of it in this country: 
" The Remembrancer, or an Impartial Repository of Public Events." 
This work was begun by J. Alnion, and published in monthly num- 
bers, in London. It extends over the whole time of the revolution, 
from 1775 to 1783, and amounts to fourteen volumes, as collected 
and bound. The work was friendly to the cause of America, and 
was supported by the friends of this countr}' at that time, and is 
remarkable for its candour, truth, and fideli". One already pos- 
sessed of the general outlines of the great contest between the colo- 



300 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



for one moment deny that religious principle, and 
. sue cess in the arduous conflict, and well-ordered 

nies an. I the mother country, will find in this work more valuable 
documents, of a particular and circumstantial nature, to aid him in 
getting a minute history of his country at thai period, than he can 
in any other work extant. Every one who has read history with 
attention, and with a desire to gain knowledge, will frequently find 
that there are a thousand little chinks left by the general writer, 
that he could wish to see filled up ; but knows not where to seek 
for the facts he is anxious to find. As to the history of our revo- 
lution, these volumes will greatly assist him. It has been a fruit- 
ful source for the historians theinselves. The Remembrancer is 
something like Niles' Register, and is now what that will be to the 
future historians of our country. We are deeply indebted to the 
friends of our cause, at that period, in every part of the World, for 
their lielping hand and good wishes ; without wliich we might have 
fainted in reaching the goal and obtaining the prize ; gratitude 
should remember what benevolence has forgotten. 

After these great exertions for the adoption of the federal consti- 
tution had been made in the state conventions, and indeed while 
they were making, and the question was under discussion, a great 
deal was written by men of enlightened minds, and given to the 
pulilic, to clear up the diflicullies which had been suggested by those 
opposed to the form of government provided for in the constitution. 
Mr. Jay, Mr. Madison, and Mr. Hamilton, brought all the powers of 
their mighty minds, to satisfy the people that they were doing wisely 
to support the constitution, not only in convention, but by a series 
of letters in the public prints. The.se periodicals, now acknow- 
ledged as their productions, unite the soundest maxims of good go- 
vernment, with the clearest and best illustrations of the best forms 
in which it could appear. These productions may be said lo have 
fixed the public mind. The relations and bearings of the provi- 
sions of the constitution, were so distinctly pointed out in them, that 
iill could understand ; and such was the correctness and beauty of 
the style of these numbers, that by them the taste of the country 
was refined, as well as the views of the citizens enlarged, and their 
understandings enlightened. ' 1 shall not stop, at this moment, to 
point out the part each one took in this great labour; but simply 
make this passing remark, that the Federalist stands foremost among 
American literary productions, whether we consider the subject, the 
matter, or style of the work, or its usefulness in explaining the 
views of those learned statesmen who achieved the second part of 
our independence. The effect of this work was such, that in a few 
years after it gained general circulation, there was scarcely a man 
to be found who questioned the propriety of the adoption of the 
constitution. 

The valour which fought out the battles of the revolutionary war, 
and finally drove the enemy from our shore, and the wisdom which 
suggested our excellent form of government, and the address and 
perseverance which led lo its adoption, were more than equalled 
by the wisdom and prudence with which the machinery was set in 
motion. The first congress under the constitution, was composed 
of great men ; most of them had been reared in the school of expe- 
rience, and had been employed previously in considering thai in- 
slrumenl; in order to assist in forwarding its adoption, they came 
lo their congressional duties with a spirit of forbearance, ready to 
sacrifice all local prejudices on the altar of their country's good. 
What the knowledge and experience of one did not reach, the in- 
genuity of the other suggested, and all went on harmoniously and 
successfully. There was a delicacy shown to each other in that 
body, generally speaking, which has never been felt or exhibited 
since ; and perhaps it has never since been so necessary as at that 
lime. The eyes of the community were turned towards congress 
as towards the trying of an experiment, of which there were nearly 
as inany fears as hopes. To use a phrase from the laws of the 
solar system, its polarity was inclined towards democracy, as being 
more congenial to the feelings of the people, and more consistent 
with the elements of our society, than a stronger government would 
have been. The people reasoned from expanded views of human 
nature, and a thoroiigh acquaintance with history. They saw that 
desj.otic power destroys the oak of liberty, by cutting up root and 
branch, and by striking the soil on which it grows with dead ste- 



liberty as the result, are here closely associated ; and 
if there be any bold enough — we had almost said 

rilily ; while anarchy, if it comes at all, comes in a whirlwind with 
a hundred hands, and scatters the leaves and breaks the branches; 
but the root is not always left sapless; and the acorn, trodden un- 
der foot, may burst its germ and spring into life, and flourish in a 
new generation. Violent political discussions often pass away, and 
leave the lessons of experience to be felt and regarded ; but nations 
rarely recover from the paralysis of despotism. Our ancestors saw 
the mother country, even in all the disasters and horrors of civil 
wars, advance in power and influence, while Spain, in the quiet of 
arbitrary power, was fast sinking into a secondary importance. In 
England the most useful institutions, and many of her learned men, 
grew up immediately after a civil war, or in it ; while with all the 
influx of gold from the new world, learning and the arts declined 

I at the same time, in the calm of Spanish despotism. 

I The literature of nations may be seen, in some measure, in the 
style in which their laws are written, and by their state papers. 
We judge of the stale of the Romans by the style of the Justinian 
code, as well as by the poets of the Augustan age. In fact, the 
style of the laws is a better proof of the general advancement of 
knowledge, than that of the works of a few poets. The laws reflect 
the general intelligence, while poetry is perhaps only the reflected 
imagery of a few individual minds. The laws of the United States 
show a gieat extent of knowledge in the civil and commercial re- 
lations of society and nations. No country ever produced so many 
laws in so short a period of time. These laws and regulations are, 
in general, clear and explicit; .sometimes they are marked with 
the peculiar phraseology of a particular slate, as borrowed from 
the statute book of that state ; but this is not perceptible to any one 
but those deeply read in these state laws. Every day's business is 
giving a more entire national stamp to the slatuie book of ihe Uni- 
ted States; and the numerous and lucid decisions of the supreme 
eourt have produced uniform constructions in the laws which were 
in some degree differently construed in different sections of this ex- 
tended country, at the commencement of our national career. 

The style of our state papers has been of a high older, in point 
of clearness and correctness, the great requisites in communications 
of a public nature. The first secretaries were men of industry 
and learning, and they spared no pains to leave'on record proofs of 
their abilities as makers of precedents. A responsible situation, 
indeed ; several of these men were prime scholars, and felt that 
they were making njodels for future ages. It is a subject of con- 
gratulation to us, that so many patient, industrious, and learned 
men, were, at that period, found for the discharge of such important 
duties. The anxiety of the first president to have every thing well 
matured, and clearly expre.'<sed, was favourable for the commence- 
ment of such an ortler of things. The duties of high political of- 
ficers are always laborious and painful ; but when there were but, 
few or no landmarks to guide them, it must have been diflicult in- 
deed lo have steered so correctly. 

Much debating talent had been shown in congress in every stage 
of organizing and making these laws, the passage of which circum- 
slances imperiously demanded ; but there was no particular di.splay 
of eloquence from any side of the house, until the British treaty 
called it forth ; and perhaps, at no time since, have higher powers 
been developed in our national assembly, than on that subject. The 
champions, for and against, came forward and fought valiantly. It 
was a new question ; and there might have been some honest dif- 
ferences; but it was debated upon party grounds, and so decided, 
Who were right or who were wrong it matters not ; it is mention- 
ed as an era in our eloquence, so memorable, that American talent, 
in speaking, is never mentioned without some allusion to the de- 
bate on Jay's treaty. 

Literature and science are near in their relationship, and seldom 
known to be far separated. Literature has generally received 
more attention in the early ages of nations than science. The 
sweet influences of Orion and Pleiades had been sung for ages in 
poetr}', belore science had marked their courses or weighed them 
in her balance; and science, after all the discoveries she has made, 
has adopted the terms used by taste and imagination, long before 
these discovsries were thought of. Every profession, to be respecta- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



301 



profane enough — to gainsay the relation of cause and 
effect in this case, we scarcely know which to deem 
most at fauh, his understanding or his heart. 



CHAPTER III. 

Washington's administration. 

In every department of nature violent efforts are 
succeeded by a corresponding exhaustion ; and the 

ble, must unite both in some degree. Witlioiit bolli, tliey are only 
trades, possessing neither dignity, nor refinement, nor interest. 
Bacon was the first among the lawyers who brought taste into llie 
science of the profession. For this, he was derided by Colce as 
un.sonnd and fanciful. Bacon could do nothing without leaving 
the impressions of mind, taste, and elegant novelty, upon it. He 
laid hold of all llie fabulous history of gods, and demigods, and he- 
roes, and laid bare its hidden meaning, and, by his explanations, 
gave utility, point, and beamy, to that which before seemed useless, 
dull, and extravagant. It is the pride of the present day, that his 
fame has been defended, and his honesty proved, by one of our own 
countrymen, after it had been surrounded by falsehood and preju- 
dice, for more than a cent«ry and a half. A writer of the first 
talents, in the North American Review, a few years since, had the 
honour of showing the world, that Bacon deserved the cpithels, 
brightest, wisest of mankind ; but that "meanest" was added at first , 
i>y wickedness, and perpetuated by one who cared but little whether 
the epithet was just or unjust, if he could make the libel "point a 
moral, or adorn a. talc." Bacon treated the law as a science capa- 
ble of employing the graces of literature. After a considerable in- 
terval, Blackslone wrote his commentaries, which proved that the 
fundamental principles of law might be conveyed, even in a choice 
and clear style, without any quainlness, abruptness, or tedious re- 
petition ; and, like other subjects of less gravity, Lord Mansfield 
delivered his opinions in the best phraseology the English language 
would permit of in argument or illustration. The lawyeTs of our 
own country were men of learning before the revolution, but the 
manner of arguing at the bar, to the court or jury, was not re- 
markable for refinement or delicacy. Coarse attacks and sharp 
retorts were common between members of the bar; and the court 
either maintained a hard-featured silence, or broke in upon their 
sparrings with surly dignity. That gentlemanly courtesy, which 
reigns from one part of our country to another, among judges and 
advocates, was, for many years, unknown, or thought improper for 
■.tribunal of justice. Not only the arguments of counsel, but the 
opinions of the bench, are now siven with some regard to literary 
taste ; and one noi acquainted with law terms, may read the re- 
ports without being offt-nded with a parade of technical terms or 
involved sentence^-. This branch of science is rapidly increasing; 
already we have more than three hundred volumes of American 
reports in law and equity; and, as the present generation of law- 
yers must go through such a mass of American law decisions, it is 
fortunate that some regard has been paid to the style in which these 
cases are made up. Some of these opinions might be selected, 
which have the freshness and spirit of animated truth conveyed in 
exquisite taste. Facts are not the less forcible, because they are 
hapjiily arranged, nor reasonings less convincing, because Ihey are 
well expressed. The professional men are trying to diffuse as 
much intelligence and taste in the community as possible, in order 
that a day of purer literature should succeed. Much has been 
done, and much more has been planned to be effected hereafter ; 
the numerous agents are busy, and in concert and harmony, in the 
great work of spreading the sciences and literature throughout the 
land. 

The literature of theology, in this country, suffered, as well as 
the literature and science of other professions, during the revolu- 
tion. The pulpit rang with patriotism and politics, and harangues 



Struggles of a nation for liberty and independence 
afford no exception to this universal law. From tlie 
evils inseparable from such contests, the pusillani- 
mous and the sordid may urge arguments in favour 
of what they deem a prudent and profitable submis- 
siveness to arbitrary sway ; but the lover of freedom, 
while he will not deny that there are evils in na- 
tional convulsion, even when necessitated by the 
most justifiable causes, will still scorn to evade them 
by a base servility; and ill does it become those who 
have rendered such evils inevitable, to attempt to 



upon the good and sound christian duty of lighting for fieedom; 
ail very excellent lessons for the times, and which certainly had 
their uses. After the warning appeals to the brave defenders of 
the country, it was dull to go back to detailing the enormities of 
papal power, or .speaking of the great beast of seven, heads and ten 
horns ; therefore his holiness was left quite alone, except now and 
then in some good man's form of prayer, from which the epithets ot 
abhorrence for Babylon never had been expunged. Dissertations on 
Aniinomians, Pelagians, and all the host of sectarians, had begun 
to grow stale, and the doctrines of eternal decrees and predestina- 
tion were not so attractive to the new generations as they had been 
to their fathers. From all appearances, the timid began to fear 
that the pulpit had lost its legitimate, jirimilive influences. Under 
this impression, many were turned fiom the study of this profe.s- 
sion, who were intended for it by their parents, and engaged in 
medicine or law. At this weak moment, if the defenders of the 
faith will allow that there ever were such moments, infidelity rear- 
ed its monstrou.? head, and stalked through our part of Christendom 
with gigantic strides ; but, as it has often happened, that which 
threatened destruction to the altar and the priest, was the cause of 
giving new and lasting honour to both. Infidelity had for years 
been disseminated by the philosophers into inquisitive minds, but 
had never come upon us in the form of popular eloquence, and had 
not reached common minds engaged in ordinary pursuits, until 
about the time of the French revolution ; it now came under the 
potential form of superior wisdom, free from the thraldom of error. 
It dealt out a strong denial of the great truths of the gospel, and 
made impudence, with now and then a flash of witty scurrility, pa.ss 
for common sense and true reasoning uiion the revelations of God 
to man, through nature and her laws, and by the inspirations of 
holy writ. At first, great shipwreck was made of the faith of 
thousands; the ^^eakwere bewildered, and the unlearned entan- 
gled. The truly pious still believed that the church was Iniill upon 
a rock, and that the gales of hell should not, finally, prevail against 
it; yet Ihey were discouraged at ihe progress of infidelity, and 
were cut to the heart at hearing the authenticity of ihe scriptures 
doubted, and the ministers of our holy religion ridiculed in every 
possible form of ccntempt ; called by opprobrious cpithels ; charged 
with ignorance and hypocrisy; and Iheir downfall prophesied with 
confidence and joy. For a while there was some confusion m the 
church, but the purest men soon roused themselves from idleness, 
or rather from idle disputes about trifles, or non-essentials, and 
many of them plunged into the depths of learning, to answer the, 
falsehoods and sneers of the scofl^ers, who laid pretensions to having 
penetrated into the recesses of oriental literature, and having de- 
lected the errors of Christianity. The contest was animated, and 
the ministers of light struggled hard with the ministers of darkness. 
Great minds entered the contest, and, after a while, the dreams of 
Condorcet and the scurrilities of Paine, were swept away together, 
and infidelity was first scouted by learning, piety, and tasle, and, 
at length, proscribed by the irresistible power of fashion. The 
works of Watson and Tytler, and, towards the close of the strug- 
gle, of many others, were found, not only in the hands uf the po- 
lemic, or in the library of the speculative, but on Ihe toilets of the 
fair, with the last work of the imagination from feouthey orCamp- 
bell'; for the ecclesiastical writers had added to the science of 
theology the most sublime of all contemplations, the charms of 



502 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



cast tlie odium of them on the noble and self-denying 
efforts of the patriot. 

The exhausting effect of their exertions was felt 
by the people of the United States for a considerable 
period after peace, as well as independence, had been 
secured. The enthusiasm of a popular contest ter- 
minating in victory, began to subside, and the sacri- 
fices of the revolution soon became known and felt. 
The claims of those who toiled, and fought, and suf- 
fered in the arduous struggle, were strongly urged, 
and the government had neither resources nor power 
to satisfy or to silence them. The federal head had 
no separate or exclusive fund. The members of con- 
gress depended on the states which they respectively 
represented, even for their own maintenance, and 
money for national purposes could only be obtained 
by requisitions on the different members of the con- 
federacy. On them it became necessary immedi- 
ately to call for funds to discharge the arrears of 
pay due to the soldiers of the revolution, and the 
interest on the debt which the government had been 
compelled to contract. The legislatures of the differ- 
ent states received tliese requisitions with respect, 
listened to the monitory warnings of congress with 
deference, and with silent and inactive acquiescence. 
Their own situation, indeed, was full of embarrass- 
ment. The wealth of the country had been totally 
exhausted during the revolution. Taxes could not 
be collected; because there was no money to represent 
the value of the little personal property which had 
not been, and the land which could not be, destroyed ; 
and commerce, though preparing to burst from its 
thraldom, had not yet had time to restore to the 
annual produce of the country its exchangeable 
value. The states owed each a heavy debt for local 
services rendered during the revolution, for which it 
was bound to provide, and each had its own domestic 
government to support. Under these circumstances, 
it is not surprising that each state was anxious to 
retain for its own benefit the small but rising revenue 
derived from foreign commerce ; and that the cus- 
tom-houses in each commercial city were considered 
as the most valuable sources of income which the 
states possessed. Each state, therefore, made its 
own regulations, its tariff, and tonnage duties, and, 
as a natural consequence, the different states clashed 
with each other : one nation became more favoured 



literature and tasle. The reading and thinking part of the com- 
munity were delighted to witness the commencement of a new era 
in the rhetoric, eloquence, and logic of the pulpit; useless divisions 
and subdivisions, and their scholastic divinity, with loose and 
spongy declamation, gave place to fair inductions, correct illustra- 
tions, and philanthropic views. The ways of God to man were 
satisfactorily justified to the understandings of the mighty in in- 



than another under the same circumstances ; and 
one state pursued a system injurious to the interests 
of another. Hence the confidence of foreign coun- 
tries was destroyed ; and they v/oidd not enter into 
treaties of commerce with the confederated govern- 
ment, while they were not likely to be carried into 
effect. A general decay of trade, the rise of import- 
ed merchandise, the fall of produce, and an uncom- 
mon decrease of the value of lands, ensued. 

The distress of the inhabitants was continually 
on the increase ; and in Massachusetts, where it was 
most felt, an insurrection of a serious character was 
the consequence. Near the close of the year 1786, 
the populace assembled to the number of two thou- 
sand, in . the north-western part of the state, and, 
choosing Daniel Shays their leader, demanded that 
the collection of debts should be suspended, and that 
the legislature should authorize the emission of paper 
money for general circulation. Two bodies of militia, 
drawn from those parts of the state Mdiere disaffection 
did not prevail, were immediately despatched against 
them, one under the command of General Lincoln, 
the other of General Shepard. The disaffected were 
dispersed with less difficulty than had been apprehend- 
ed, and, abandoning their seditious purposes, accept- 
ed the proffered indemnity of the government. 

The time at length came when the public mind 
gave tokens of being prepared for a change in the 
constitution of the general government — an occur- 
rence the necessity of which had long been foreseen 
by Washington, and most of the distinguished patriots 
of that period. Evil had accumulated upon evil, till 
the mass became too oppressive to be endured, and 
the voice of the nation cried out for relief. The first 
decisive measures proceeded from the merchants, who 
came forward almost simultaneously in all parts of 
the country, with representations of the utter prostra- 
tion of the mercantile interests, and petitions for a 
speedy and efficient remedy. It was shown, that the 
advantages of this most important source of national 
prosperity were flowing into the hands of foreigners, 
and that the native merchants were suffering lor the 
want of a just protection and a uniform system of trade. 
The wise and reflecting were convinced that some de 
cided efforts were necessary to strengthen the general 
government, or that a dissolution of the union, and 
perhaps a devastating anarchy, would be inevitable. 



tellcct, and to the humble and lowly seekers of the truth. Religion 
wore the smile of innocence and the rube of purity, as she was 
destined to do from the beginning. The charms of a delicate and 
finished literature now came from the pulpit, and the lemple oi 
God became, as it ought ever to be, a place of instruction for the 
mind and for the affections, as well as for iearnine Ihf great doc 
trines of salvation. — American Bdilor. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



303 



The first step towar.ds a general reformation was 
rather accidental than premeditated. Certain citi- 
zens of Virginia and Maryland had formed a scheme 
for promoting the navigation of the Potomac and 
Chesapeake Bay, and commissioners were appointed 
by those two states to meet at Alexandria, and de- 
vise some plan of operation. These persons made 
a visit to Mount Vernon, and while there, it was 
proposed among themselves that more important ob- 
jects should be connected with the purpose at first 
in view, and that the state governments should be 
solicited to appoint other commissioners, with enlar- 
ged powers, instructed to form a plan for maintaining 
a naval force in the Chesapeake, and also to fix upon 
some system of duties on exports and imports in 
which both states should agree, and that in the end 
congress should be petitioned to allow these privileges. 
This project was approved by the legislature of Vir- 
ginia, and commissioners were accordingly appointed. 
The same legislature passed a resolution recommend- 
ing the design to other states, and inviting them to 
unite, by their commissioners, in an attempt to esta- 
blish such a system of commercial relations as would 
promote general harmony and prosperity. Five states 
only, in addition to Virginia, acceded to this proposi- 
tion, namely, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, 
New Jersey, and New York. From these states 
commissioners assembled at Annapolis, but they had 
hardly entered into a discussion of the topics which 
naturally forced themselves into view, before they 
discovered the powers with which they were intrust- 
ed to be so limited, as to tie up their hands from 
effecting any purpose that could be of essential utility. 
On this account, as well as from the circumstance 
that so few states were represented, they wisely de- 
clined deciding on any important measures in refer- 
ence to the particular subject for which they had 
come together. This convention is memorable, how- 
ever, as having been the prelude to the one which 
followed. Before the commissioners adjourned, a 
report was agreed upon, in which the necessity of a 
revision and reform of the articles of the old federal 
compact was strongly iirged, and which contained a 
recommendation to all the state legislatures for the 
appointment of deputies, to meet at Philadelphia, with 
more ample powers and instructions. This proposal 
Was eventually carried into effect, and, in conformi- 
ty with it, a convention of delegates from the several 
states met at Philadelphia in May, 1787. Of this 
body of eminent statesmen, George Washington was 
unanimously elected president. They deliberated 
with closed doors during a period of four months. 
One party in the convention was anxious to enlarge, 
39 



another to abridge, the authority delegated to the 
general government. This was the first germ of 
parties in the United States ; not that materials were 
wanting, for the dissensions of the revolution had 
left behind some bitterness of spirit, and feelings that 
only awaited an opportunity for their disclosure. 
The divisions in the convention proved the founda- 
tion of many a subsequent struggle. At length a 
constitution was agreed on, which, after being re- 
ported to congress, was submitted for ratification to 
conventions held in the respective states. This con- 
stitution differs, in many important particulars, from 
the articles of confederation ; and, by its regulations, 
connects the states more closely together, under a 
general and supreme government, composed of three 
departments, legislative, executive, and judicial ; and 
invested with powers essential to its being respected, 
both by foreign nations and the states whose interest 
it was designed to secure. The provisions and 
characteristics of this interesting and important poli- 
tical code, will receive the consideration to which they 
are so justly entitled in another department of our work. 

As that party which was desirous to extend the 
powers of the constitution, had been the most anxious 
for the formation of this system, and the most zealous 
advocates for its adoption, it almost naturally follow- 
ed that the administration of it was committed to 
their hands. This party, which might, from their 
opinions, have been denominated nationalists, or, in 
more modern phraseology, centralists, acquired the 
name of federalists, while the appellation of anti- 
federalists was given to their antagonists. The latter, 
ardently attached to freedom, imagined that rulers, 
pos.sessing such extensive sway, such abundant pa- 
tronage, and such independent tenure of ofllce, would 
become fond of the exercise of power, and in the end 
arrogant and tyrannical. The former, equally devo- 
ted to the cause of national liberty, contended that 
to preserve it an energetic government was necessary. 
They described, with powerful eflTect, the evils ac- 
tually endured from the inefficiency of the confede- 
ration, and demanded that a trial at least should be 
made of the remedy proposed. 

In eleven states, a majority, though in some in- 
stances a small one, decided in favour of the ratifi- 
cation of the constitution. Provision was then made 
for the election of the officers to compose the executive 
and legislative departments. In the highest station, 
the electors, by a unanimous vote, placed the illustrious 
Washington ; and to the office of vice-president, by a 
vote nearly unanimous, they elevated John Adams, 
who, in stations less conspicuous, had, with equal patri- 
otism, rendered important services to his country. On 



304 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



the 23d of April the president elect arrived at New 
York, where he was received by the governor of the 
state, and conducted, with military honours, through 
an immense concourse of people, to the apartments 
provided for him. Here he received the salutations 
of foreign ministers, public bodies, political characters, 
and private citizens of distinction, who pressed around 
him to offer their congratulations, and to express 
their joy at seeing the man who had the confidence 
of all, at the head of the American republic. On 
the 30th of April the president was inaugurated. 
Having taken the oath of office in an open gallery 
adjoining the senate chamber, in the A'iew of an im- 
mense concourse of people, who attested their joy by 
loud and repeated acclamations, he returned to the 
senate chamber, where he delivered the following 
appropriate address : — 

" Fellow-citizens of the Senate, 

and of the House of Representatives: 

" Among the vicissitudes incident to life, no event 
could have filled me with greater anxieties, than that 
of which the notification was transmitted by your 
order, and received on the 14th day of the present 
month. On the one hand, I was summoned by my 
country, whose voice I can never hear but with ve- 
neration and love, from a retreat which I had chosen 
with the fondest predilection, and, in my flattering 
hopes, with an immutable decision, as the asylum of 
my declining years : a retreat which was rendered 
every day more necessary as well as more dear to 
me, by the addition of habit to inclination, and of 
frequent interruptions in my health to the gradual 
waste committed on it by time. On the other hand, 
the magnitude and difficulty of the trust to which 
the voice of my country called me, being sufficient 
to awaken in the wisest and most experienced of her 
citizens, a distrustful scrutiny into his qualifications, 
could not but overwhelm with despondence, one, 
who, inheriting inferior endowments from natiire, 
and unpractised in the duties of civil administration, 
ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own defi- 
ciencies. In this conflict of emotions, all I dare aver 
is, that it has been my faithful study to collect my 
duty from a just appreciation of every circumstance 
by which it might be affected. All I dare hope, is, 
that, if in accepting this task, I have been too much 
swayed by a grateful remembrance of former instan- 
ces, or by an afi'ectionate sensibility to this transcen- 
dent proof of the confidence of my fellow citizens, 
and have thence too little consulted my incapacity 
as well as disinclination, for the weighty and untried 
cares before me, my error will be palliated by 
the motives which misled me, and its consequen- 



ces be judged by my country,, with some share of 
the partiality in which they originated. 

" Such being the impressions under which I have 
in obedience to the public summons, repaired to the 
present station, it will be peculiarly improper to 
omit, in this first official act, my fervent supplica- 
tions to that Almighty Being, who rules over the 
universe, who presides in the councils of nations, 
and whose providential aids can supply every human 
defect, that his benediction may consecrate to the 
liberties and happiness of the people of the United 
States, a government instituted by themselves for 
these essential purposes, and may enable every instru- 
ment employed in its administration, to execute with 
success the functions allotted to his charge. In ten- 
dering this homage to the great Author of every 
public and private good, I assure myself that it ex- 
presses your sentiments not less than my own ; nor 
those of my fellow citizens at large less than either. 
No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore 
the invisible hand, which conducts the affairs oi 
men, more than the people of the United States. 
Every step, by which they have advanced to the 
character of an independent nation, seems to have been 
distinguished by some token of providential agency. 
And in the important revolution just accomplished 
in the system of their united government, the tran- 
quil deliberations, and voluntary consent of so many 
distinct communities, from which the event has re- 
sulted, cannot be compared with the means by which 
most governments have been established, without 
some return of pious gratitude, along Avith an humble 
anticipation of the future blessings which the past 
seem to presage. These reflections, arising out of 
the present crisis, have forced themselves too strongly 
on my mind to be suppressed. You will join with 
me, I trust, in thinking that there are none under the 
influence of which the proceedings of a new and 
free government can more auspiciously commence. 

" By the article establishing the executive depart- 
ment, it is made the duty of the President, ' to re- 
commend to your consideration such measures as he 
shall judge necessary and expedient.' The circum- 
stances under which I now meet you, will acquit me 
from entering into that subject, further than to refer 
to the great constitutional charter under which you 
are assembled, and which, in defining your powers, de- 
signates the objects to which your attention is to be 
given. It will be more consistent with those circum- 
stances, and far more congenial with the feelings which 
actuate me, to substitute, in place of a recommenda- 
tion of particular measures, the tribute that is due to 
the talents, the rectitude, and the patriotism which 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



305 



adorn the characters selected to devise and adopt 
them. In these honourable qualifications, I behold 
the surest pledges, that, as on one side no local preju- 
dices or attachments, no separate views nor party- 
animosities, will misdirect the comprehensive and 
equal eye which ought to watch over this great as- 
semblage of communities and interests ; so, on an- 
other, that the foundations of our national policy will 
be laid in the pure and immutable principles of pri- 
vate morality ; and the pre-eminence of free govern- 
ment be exemplified by all the attributes wnich can 
win the affections of its citizens, and command the 
respect of the world. 

" I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction 
which an ardent love for my country can inspire. 
Since there is no truth more thoroughly established, 
than that there exists in the economy and course of 
nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and 
happiness — between duty and advantage — between 
the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous 
policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity 
and felicity ; since we ought to be no less persua- 
ded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never 
be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal 
rules of order and right which heaven itself has or- 
dained : and since the preservation of the sacred fire 
of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of 
government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps 
as finally, staked on the experiment intrusted to the 
hands of the American people. 

" Besides the ordinary objects submitted to your 
care, it will remain with your judgment to decide, 
how far an' exercise of the occasional power delega- 
ted by the fifth article of the constitution, is rendered 
expedient at the present juncture by the nature of 
objections which have been urged against the system, 
or by the degree of inquietude which has given birth 
to them. Instead of undertaking particular recom- 
mendations on this subject, in which I could be 
guided by no lights derived from official opportuni- 
ties, I shall again give way to my entire confidence 
in your discernment and pursuit of the public good. 
For I assure myself, that whilst you carefully avoid 
every alteration which might endanger the benefits 
of a united and effective government, or which 
ought to await the future lessons of experience ; a 
reverence for the characteristic rights of freemen, 
and a regard for the public harmony, will sufliciently 
influence your deliberations on the question, how 
far the former can be more impregnably fortified, or 
the latter be safely and advantageously promoted. 

" To the preceding observations I have one to 
add, which will be most properly addressed to the 



House of Representatives. It concerns myself, and 
will therefore be as brief as possible. When I was 
first honoured with a call into the service of my 
country, then on the eve of an arduous struggle for 
its liberties, the light in which I contemplated my 
duty required that I should renounce every pecu- 
niary compensation. From this resolution I have 
in no instance departed. And being still under the 
impressions which produced it, I must decline, as in- 
applicable to myself, any share in the personal emo- 
luments, which may be indispensably included in a 
permanent provision for the executive department ; 
and must accordingly pray, that the pecuniary esti- 
mates for the station in which I am placed, may, 
during my continuance in it, be limited to such 
actual expenditures as the public good may be 
thought to require. 

" Having thus imparted to you my sentiments, as 
they have been awakened by the occasion which 
brings us together, I shall take my present leave ; 
but not without resorting once more to the benign 
Parent of the human race, in humble supplication, 
that since he has been pleased to favour the Ameri- 
can people with opportunities for deliberating in 
perfect tranquillity, and dispositions for deciding with 
unparalleled unanimity on a form of government, 
for the security of their union, and the advancement 
of their happiness ; so his divine blessing may be 
equally conspicuous in the enlarged views, the tem- 
perate consultations, and the wise measures on which 
the success of this government must depend." 

In their answer to this speech, the senate say, 
" The unanimous suffrage of the elective body in 
your favour, is peculiarly expressive of the gratitude, 
confidence, and affection of the citizens of America, 
and is the highest testimonial at once of your merit, 
and their esteem. We are sensible, sir, that nothing 
but the voice of your fellow citizens could have call- 
ed you from a retreat, chosen with the fondest predi- 
lection, endeared by habit, and consecrated to thf 
repose of declining years. We rejoice, and with us 
all America, that, in obedience to the call of our 
common country, you have returned once more to 
public life. In you all parties confide ; in you all 
interests unite ; and we have no doubt that your past 
services, great as they have been, will be equalled 
by your future exertions ; and that your prudence 
and sagacity, as a statesman, will tend to avert the 
dangers to which we were exposed, to give stability 
to tiie present government, and dignity and splendour 
to that country, which your skill and valour, as a 
soldier, so eminently contributed to raise to indepen- 
dence and to empire." 



306 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



The affectiou for the person and character of the 
president with which the answer of the house of 
representatives glowed, promised that between tiiis 
branch of the legislature also and the executive, the 
most harmonious co-operation in the public service 
might be expected. 

" The representatives of the people of the United 
States," says this address, " present their congratula- 
tions on the event by which your fellow citizens 
have attested the pre-eminence of your merit. You 
have long held the first place in their esteem. You 
have often received tokens of their affection. You 
now possess the only proof that remained of their 
gratitude for your services, of their reverence for your 
wisdom, and of their confidence in your virtues. 
You enjoy the highest, because the truest honour, of 
being the first magistrate, by the unanimous choice 
of the freest people on the face of the earth." 

After noticing the several conununications made in 
the speech, intense of deep felt respect and affection, 
the answer concludes thus : 

" Such are the sentiments with which we have 
thought fit to address you. They flow from our own 
hearts, and we verily believe that among the millions 
we represent, there is not a virtuous citizen whose 
heart M'ill disown them. 

" All that remains is, that we join in your fervent 
supplications for the blessing of heaven on our coun- 
try ; and that we add our own for the choicest of 
these blessings on the most beloved of her citizens." 

The government being now completely organized, 
and a system of revenue established, the president 
proceeded to make appointments of suitable persons 
to fill the offices which had been created.* After a 
laborious and important session, in which perfect 
harmony subsisted between the executive and the 
legislature, congress adjourned on the 29th of Sep- 
tember to the first Monday in the succeeding .January. 

At the next session of congress, which commenced 
in January, 1790, Mr. Hamilton, the secretary of the 
treasury, made his celebrated report upon the public 
debts contracted during the revolutionary war. Ta- 
king an able and enlarged view of the advantages of 
public credit, he recommended that not only the debts 
of the continental congress, but those of the states 
arising from their exertions in the common cause, 
should be funded or assumed by the general govern- 
ment : and that provision should be made for paying 
the interest, by imposing taxes on certain articles of 

* At the head of the Jepartnienl of stale he placed Mr. Jeffer- 
son ; at the liead of the treasury, Colonel Hamilton ; at the head of 
(he war department, General Knox; in the office of attorney-gene- 
ral, Edmund Randolph ; at the head of the judicial department, 



luxury, and on spirits distilled within the country. 
The report of the secretary was largely discussed, 
and with great force of argument and eloquence. In 
conclusion, congress passed an act for the assumption 
of the state debts, and for funding the national debt. 
By the provisions of this act, 21,500,000 dollars of 
the state debts were assumed in specific proportions ; 
and it was particularly enacted, that no certificate 
sliould be received from a state creditor which could 
be " ascertained to have been issued for any purpose 
other tlian compensations and expenditures for ser- 
vices or supplies towards the prosecution of the late 
war, and the defence of the United States, or of some 
part thereof, during the same." Thus was the na- 
tional debt funded upon principles which considerably 
lessened the weight of the public burdens, and gave 
much satisfaction to the public creditors. The pro- 
duce of the sales of the lands lying in the western 
territory, and the surplus product of the revenue, 
after satisfying the appropriations which Were charg- 
ed upon it, with the addition of two millions which 
the president was authorized to borrow at five per 
cent., constituted a sinking fund to be applied to the 
reduction of the debt. The effect of these measures 
was great and rapid. The permanent value thus 
given to the debt produced a result equal to the most 
favourable anticipations. The sudden increase of 
monied capital derived from it invigorated commerce, 
and consequently gave a new stimulus to agriculture. 

It has already been stated, that when the new 
government was first organized, but eleven states 
had ratified the constitution. Afterwards North 
Carolina and Rhode Island, the two dissenting states, 
adopted it ; the former in November, 1 789, the lat- 
ter in May, 1790. In 1791, Vermont adopted it, and 
applied to congress to be admitted into the union. 
An act was also passed, declaring that the district of 
Kentucky, then part of Virginia, should be admitted 
into the union on the 1st day of June in the suc- 
ceeding year. 

During the year 1790, a termination was put to 
the war which, for several years, had raged between 
the Creek Indians and the state of Georgia. Pacific 
overtures were also made to the hostile tribes in- 
habiting the banks of the Sciota and the Wabash. 
These being rejected, an army of fourteen hundred 
men, commanded by General Harmer, was despatch- 
ed against them. Two battles were fought near 
Chillicothe, in Ohio, between successive detach- 

Mr. Jay. The associate justices were John Rutledge, of South 
Carolina, James Wilson, of Pennsylvania, William Cashing, ol 
Massachusetts, Robert Harrison, of Maryland, and John Blair, ol 
Virginia. , 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



307 



ments from this army and the Indians, in which tlie 
latter were victorious. Emboldened by these suc- 
cesses, they continued to make more vigorous attacks 
upon the frontier settlements, which suffered all the 
distressin? calamities of an Indian war. Additional 
troops were raised, and the command of the whole, 
amounting to nearly two thousand men, was given 
to General St. Clair. By desertion and detach- 
ments, this force was, however, reduced to fourteen 
hundred, when, on the 3d of November, 1791, they 
encamped a few miles from the villages on the Miami. 
But before sunrise the next morning, just after the 
troops were dismissed from the parade, they were 
attacked unexpectedly by the Indians. The new 
levies, who were in front, rushed back in confusion 
upon the regulars. The latter, however, with great 
intrepidity, advanced into the midst of the enemy, 
who retired from covert to covert, keeping always 
beyond reach, and again returning as soon as the 
troops were recalled from pursuit. At length, after 
a contest of three or four hours, St. Clair, whose ill- 
health disabled him from performing the active du- 
ties of commander, determined to withdraw from the 
field the remnant of his troops ; fortunately, the 
victorious Indians jireferred the plunder of the camp 
to pursuit, and the vanquished continued their re- 
treat unmolested to the frontier settlements. In this 
battle, the numbers engaged on each side were sup- 
posed to be equal. Of the whites, the slaughter was 
almost beyond example. Six hundred and thirty 
were killed and missing, and two hundred and sixty 
were wounded — a loss which proves at once the ob- 
stinacy of the defence, and the bravery of the assail- 
ants. On receiving information of this disaster, con- 
gress, resolving to prosecute the war with increased 
vigour, made provision for augmenting, by enlistment, 
the military force of the nation to five thousand men. 

In the course of this year was completed the first 
census or enumeration of the inhabitants of the 
United States. They ' amounted to 3,921,326, of 
which number 695,655 were slaves. The revenue, 
according to the report of the secretary of the trea- 
sury, amounted to 4,771,000 dollars, the exports to 
about nineteen, and the imports to about twenty mil- 
lions. A great improvement in the circumstances of 
the people began at this period to be visible. The 
establishment of a firm and regular government, and 
confidence in the men whom they had chosen to 
administer it, gave an impulse to their exertions 
which bore them rapidly forward in the career of 
prosperity. 

Pursuant to the authority contained in the several 
acts on the subject of a permanent seat of the govern- 



ment of the United States, a district of ten miles 
square for this purpose was fixed on, comprehending 
lands on both sides of the River Potomac, and the 
towns of Alexandria and Georgetown. A city was 
laid out, and the sales which took place produced 
funds for carrying on the necessary public build- 
ings. 

The war in Europe had embraced those powers 
with whom the United States had the most extensive 
relations. The French people regarded the Ameri- 
cans as their brethren, bound to them by the ties of 
gratitude ; and when the kings of Europe, dreading 
the establishment of republicanism in her borders, 
assembled in arms to restore monarchy to France, 
they looked across the Atlantic for sympathy and 
assistance. The new government, recalling the 
minister whom the king had appointed, despatched 
the citizen Genet, of ardent temper and a zealous re- 
publican, to supply his place. In April, 1793, he 
arrived at Charleston, in South Carolina, where he 
was received by the governor and tlie citizens, in a 
manner expressive of their warm attachment to his 
country, and their cordial approbation of the change 
of her institutions. Flattered by his reception, and 
presuming that the nation and the government were 
actuated by similar feelings, he undertook to author- 
ize the fitting and arming of vessels in that port, 
enlisting men, and giving commissions to cruise and 
commit hostilities on nations with whom the United 
States were at peace ; captured vessels were brought 
into port, and the consuls of France assumed, under 
the authority of M. Genet, to hold courts of admiralty 
on them, to try, condemn, ajid authorize their sale. 
The declaration of war made by France against 
Great Britain and Holland reached the United States 
early in the same month. The president,* regarding 
the situation of these states, issued his proclamation 
of neutrality on the 9th of May. In July, he re- 
quested the recall of M. Genet, who was soon after- 
wards recalled, and succeeded by M. Fauchet. 

After the defeat of St. Clair by the Indians, in 
1791, General Wayne was appointed to command 
the American forces. Taking post near the country 
of the enemy, he made assiduous and long protract- 
ed endeavours to negotiate a peace. Failing in 
these, he marched against them at the head of three 
thousand men. On the 20th of August, 1794, an 
action took place in the vicinity of one of the Bri- 
tish garrisons, on the banks of the Miami. A rapid 
and vigorous charge roused the savages from their, 
coverts, and they were driven more than two miles 

• Washinglon and Adams had been re-elecled to their respective 
offices). 



808 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



at the point of the bayonet. Broken and dismayed, 
tliey fled without renewing the combat. In tliis 
decisive battle, the loss of the Americans in killed 
and wounded, including officers, was one hundred 
and seven. Among the slain were Captain Campbell 
and Lieutenant Fowles, both of whom fell in the 
first charge. The American troops engaged in the 
battle did not amount to nine hundred ; the number 
of Indians was two thousand. After remaining on 
the banks of the Miami three days, during which 
time the houses and cornfields above and below the 
fort were burnt. General Wayne, on the 28th, re- 
turned with the army to Au Glaize, having destroy- 
ed all the villages and corn within fifty miles of the 
river. The Indians still continuing hostilities, their 
whole country was laid waste, and forts were erect- 
ed in the heart of their settlements. The effect of 
the battle of the 20th of August was instantly and 
extensively felt. To the victory gained by the 
Americans is ascribed the rescue of the United States 
from a general war with the Indians north-west of 
the Ohio ; and its influence is believed to have ex- 
tended to the Indians in Georgia. In 1795, a treaty 
was concluded at Grenville, which, long and faith- 
fully observed, gave peace and security to the fron- 
tier inhabitants, permitting the superabundant po- 
pulation of the eastern states to spread with aston- 
ishing rapidity over the fertile region northwest of 
the Ohio. 

The year 1794 is distinguished by an insurrection 
in Pennsylvania. In 1791, congress had enacted 
laws, laying duties upon spirits distilled within the 
United States, and tipon stills. From the com- 
mencement of the operation of these laws, combina- 
tions were formed in the four western counties of 
Pennsylvania to defeat them, and violence was re- 
peatedly committed. In July of the present year, 
about one hundred persons, armed with guns and 
other weapons, attacked the house of an inspector of 
the revenue, and wounded some persons within it. 
They seized the marshal of the district of Pennsyl- 
vania, who had been previously fired on while in 
the execution of his duty by a party of armed men, 
and compelled him to enter into stipulations to for- 
bear the execution of his office. Both the inspector 
and the marshal were obliged to fly from that part 
of the country to the seat of government. These 
and many other outrages induced President Wash- 
ington, on the 7th of August, to issue a proclama- 
. tion, commanding the insurgents to disperse, and 
warning all persons against aiding, abetting, or com- 
forting the perpetrators of these treasonable acts, 
and requiring all officers, and other citizens, accord- 



ing to their respective duties and the laws of the 
land, to exert their utmost endeavours to prevent 
and suppress such dangerous proceedings. On the 
25th of September the president issued a second proc- 
lamation, admonishing the insurgents ; forcibly descri- 
bing the obstinate and perverse spirit with which the 
lenient propositions of the government had been re- 
ceived ; and declaring his fixed determination, in 
obedience to the duty assigned to him by the con- 
stitution, "to take care that the laws be faithfully 
executed," and to reduce the refractory to obedience. 
Fifteen thousand men, placed under the command of 
Governor Lee, of Virginia, were marched into the 
disaffected counties. The strength of this army 
rendering resistance desperate, none was offered, and 
no blood was shed. A few of the most active lead- 
ers were seized and detained for legal prosecution. 
The great body of the insurgents, on submission, 
were pardoned, as were also the leaders, after trial 
and conviction of treason. The government acqui- 
red the respect of the people by this exertion of its 
force and their affection by this display of its lenity. 
Great Britain and the United States had each 
been incessantly complaining that the other had vi- 
olated the stipulations contained in the treaty of 
peace. The former was accused of having carried 
away negroes at the close of the revolutionary war ; 
and of retaining in her possession certain military 
posts situated ki the western wilderness, and within 
the limits of the United States. The latter were 
accused of preventing the loyalists from regaining 
possession of their estates, and British subjects from 
recovering debts contracted before the commence- 
ment of hostilities. For the purpose of adjusting 
these mutual complaints, and also for concluding a 
commercial treaty, Mr. Adams had been appointed, 
in 1785, minister to the court of St. James ; the 
British ministry then declined negotiating on the 
subject ; but alter the constitution of 1789 was rati- 
fied, ministers were interchanged, and the discussion 
was prosecuted with no little zeal. In 1794, Mr. 
Jay being then minister from the United States, a 
treaty was concluded, which, in the spring of the 
next year, was laid before the senate. That body 
advised the president to ratify it, on condition that 
an alteration should be made in one of the articles. 
The democratic party, however, exclaimed in intem- 
perate language against most of the stipulations it 
contained ; and the partisans of France swelled the 
cry of condemnation. Public meetings were held 
in various parts of the union, at which resolutions 
were passed expressing warm disapprobation of the 
treaty, and an earnest wish that the president would 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



309 



withhold his ratification. General Washington, be- 
lieving that an adjustment of differences would con- 
duce to the prosperity of the republic, and that the 
treaty before him was the best that could, at that 
time, be obtained, gave it his assent, in defiance of po- 
pular clamour, and issued his proclamation stating its 
ratification, and declaring it to be the law of the 
land. The predominant party in the house of repre- 
sentatives expressed surprise that this proclamation 
should be issued before the sense of the house was 
taken on the subject, as they denied tlie power of 
the president and senate to complete a treaty without 
their sanction. In March, a resolution passed, re- 
questing the president " to lay before the house a 
copy of the instructions to the minister of the United 
States, who negotiated the treaty with the king of 
Great Britain communicated by his message of the 
1st of March, together with the correspondence and 
other documents relative to the said treaty, excepting 
such of the said papers as any existing negotiation 
may render improper to be disclosed." This resolve 
placed the president in a situation of high responsi- 
bility. He knew that the majority of the house en- 
tertained the opinion that a treaty was not valid 
until they had acted upon it. To oppose, in a go- 
vernment constituted like that of the United States, 
the popular branch of the legislature, would be at- 
tended with hazard, and subject him to much cen- 
sure and abuse ; but considerations of this nature 
make but weak impressions on a mind supremely 
solicitous to promote the public interest. Upon the 
most mature deliberation, the president conceived 
that to grant this request of the house would estab- 
lish a false and dangerous principle in the diplomatic 
transactions of the nation, and he gave a denial to 
their request in an answer eminent for mildness, 
firmness, and perspicuity, which concluded with the 
following brief recapitulation of the argument : 
" As, therefore, it is perfectly clear to my under- 
standing that the assent of the house of representa- 
tives IS not necessary to the validity of a treaty ; as 
the treaty with Great Britain exhibits in itself all 
the objects requiring legislative provision, and on 
these the papers called for can throw no light ; and 
as it is essential to the due administration of the go- 
vernment, that the boundaries fixed by the constitu- 
tion between the different departments should be 
preserved ; a just regard to the constitution, and to 
the duty of my office, under all the circumstances 
of this case, forbid a compliance with your re- 
quest." 

A resolution moved in the house to make the ne- 
cessary appropriations to carry the British treaty into 



effect, excited among the members the stroi>gest 
emotions, and gave rise to speeches highly argumen- 
tative, eloquent, and animated. The debate was 
protracted until the people took up the subject; In 
their respective corporations meetings were held, the 
strength of parties was fully tried, and it clearly ap- 
peared that the great majority were disposed to rally 
around the executive. Innumerable petitions were 
presented to congress, praying them to make the re- 
quisite appropriations. Unwilling to take upon them- 
selve the consequeiices of resisting the public will, 
they yielded to this call. 

The conduct of Spain towards the United States 
had always been cold and unfriendly. She feared 
lest the principles of liberty and the desire of inde- 
pendence should find their way into her contiguous 
American provinces. At length, becoming involved 
in a war with France, embarrassed at home, and in- 
timidated by the unauthorized preparations which, 
under the auspices of Genet, were making in Ken- 
tucky to invade Louisiana, she intimated her readi- 
ness to conclude a satisfactory treaty, should- an envoy 
extraordinary be sent to Madrid for that purpose. 
Thomas Pinckney was accordingly appointed. In 
October, 1795, a treaty was signed, securing to the 
citizens of the United States the free navigation of 
the Mississippi to the ocean, and the privilege of 
landing and depositing cargoes at New Orleans. 

During this year also a treaty was concluded with 
the regency of Algiers, with which the republic was 
previously at war. It stipulated that the United 
States, in conformity with the practice of other na- 
tions, should, as the price of peace, pay an annual 
tribute to the sovereign of that country. 

The last two or three years had witnessed several 
changes in the important offices of the nation. On 
the first day of the year 1794, Mr. Jefferson resigned 
the office of secretary of state, and was succeeded by 
Mr. Randolph. He had performed the duties of that 
office with extraordinary ability, and to the entire 
satisfaction of the president. He was considered the 
leader of the republican party, enjoying their highest 
confidence and warmest attachment. On the last 
day of January, 1795, Mr. Hamilton retired from the 
oflice of secretary of the treasury. He possessed dis ■ 
tinguished talents, and had exerted those talents to 
establish order where all was confusion, and to raise 
from the lowest depression the credit of the country. 
His complete success greatly exalted his reputation, 
and to him the federalists felt a sincerity of attach- 
ment equalled only by that entertained for Washing- 
ton. He was peculiarly obnoxious to the republican 
party, and was accused by them jf partiality to 



310 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



England, and of misconduct in office. After the 
closest scrutiny, his official character was acknow- 
ledged, by his enemies, to be without stain. He was 
succeeded by Oliver Wolcott. At the close of the 
year 1794, General Knox resigned the office of secre- 
tary of war, and Colonel Pickering, of Massachusetts, 
was appointed in his place. In August Mr. Randolph, 
having lost the confidence of the president, and 
having in consequence retired from the adminis- 
tration, Mr. Pickering was appointed his successor 
in the department of state, and James M'Henry, of 
Maryland, was made secretary of war. No republi- 
can being now at the head of any of the departments, 
many of the leaders of that party withdrew their sup- 
port from the administration ; but the confidence of 
the people in the integrity and patriotism of the 
president experienced not the slightest abatement. 

The conduct adopted by France towards the Ameri- 
can republic continued to be a source of vexation. 
M. Fauchet charged the administration with senti- 
ments of hostility to the allies of the United States, 
with partiality for their former foes, and urged the 
adoption of a course more favourable to the cause of 
liberty. Mr. Morris, the minister to Paris, having 
incurred the displeasure of those in power, was re- 
called at their request, and his place supplied by Mr. 
Monroe. Being an ardent republican, he was re- 
ceived in the most respectful manner by the conven- 
tion, who decreed that the flags of the two republics, 
entwined together, should be suspended in the legis- 
lative hall, as a mark of their eternal union and 
friendship. M. Adet was appointed soon after to suc- 
ceed M. Fauchet. He brought with him the colours 

» Friends and (ellow-cilizens, 

The period for a new election of a citizen to administer the 
executive government of the United Slates, being not far distant, 
and the time actually arrived when your thoughts must be employ- 
ed in designating the person who is to be clothed with that ijnport- 
ant trust, it appears to me proper, especially as it may conduce to a 
more distinct expression of the public voice, that I should now ap- 
prise you of the resolution I have formed, to decline being consi- 
dered among the number of those out of whom a choice is to be 
made. 

I beg you, at the same tirne, to do me the justice to be assured, 
that this resolution has not been taken without a strict regard to all 
the considerations appertaining to the relation which binds a duti- 
ful citizen to his country; and that, in withdrawing the tender of 
service, which silence, in my situation, might imply, I am influ- 
enced by no diininuijon of zeal for your future interest ; no defi- 
ciency of grateful respect for your past kindness ; but am support- 
.ed by a full conviction that the step is compatible with both. 

The acceptance of, and continuance hitherto in the office to 
which your suffrages have twice called me, have been a uniform 
sacrifice of inclination to the opinion of duty, and to a deference 
for what appeared to be your desire. I constantly hoped that it 
would have been much earlier in my power, consistently with mo- 
tives which I was not at liberty to disregard, to return to that re- 
tirement from which 1 had been reluctantly drawn. The strength 
of my inclination to do this, previous to the last election, had even 
led tc the preparation of an address to declare it to you ; but ma- 



of France, which he was instructed by the conven- 
tion to present to the congress of the United States. 
They were received by the president with extraordi- 
nary ceremonies, transmitted to congress, and after- 
wards deposited in the national archives. But France 
required of the United States more than professions 
and hopes, and more than by treaty she was entitled 
to claim. She wished to make them a party in the 
war she was waging with the despots of Europe. 
Failing in this, and jealous of the more intimate re- 
lations contracted with her principal enemy, F^ngland, 
she adopted regulations highly injurious to American 
commerce, directing her cruisers to capture in certain 
cases the vessels of the United States. In conse- 
quence of these regulations, several hundred vessels 
loaded with valuable cargoes, were taken while pro- 
secuting a lawful trade, and the whole confiscated. 
Believino- that the ritrhts of the nation were not as- 
serted and vindicated with sufficient spirit by Mr. 
Monroe, the president recalled him, and Charles C. 
Pinckney, of South Carolina, was appointed in his 
stead. In the sunmier of 1796, he left the United 
States, instructed to use every effort compatible with 
national honour, to restore- the amicable relations 
which had once subsisted between the sister republics. 
As the period for a new election of a president of 
the United States approached, after plain indications 
that the public voice would be in his favour, and 
when he probably would have been chosen for the 
third time unanimously, Washington determined ir- 
revocably to withdraw to the seclusion of private life. 
He published, in September, 1796, a farewell ad- 
dress* to the people of the United States, which 



ture reflection on the then perplexed and critical posture of our af- 
fairs with foreign nations, and the unanimous advice of persons 
entitled to my confidence, impelled me to abandon the idea. 

I rejoice that the state of your concerns, external as well as in- 
ternal, no longer renders the pursuit of inclination incompatible 
with the sentiment of duty or propriety; and am persuaded, what- 
ever partiality may be retained for ray services, that, in the prcsen 
circumstances of our country, you will not disapprove my determi- 
nation to retire. 

The impressions with which I first undertook the arduous trust, 
were explained on the proper occasion. In the discharge of this 
trust, I will only say, th.at I have with good intentions contributed 
towards the organization and administration of the governmeni, 
the best exertions of which a very fallible judgment was capable. 
Not unconscious in the outset, of the inferiority of my qualifica- 
tions, experience in my own eyes, perhaps still more in the eyes of 
others, has strengthened the motives to diffidence of myself; and 
every day the increasing weight of years, admonishes me more and 
more, that the shade of retirement is as necessary to me as it will 
be welcome. Satisfied that if any circumstances have given pecu- 
liar value to my services, they were temporary, I have the consola- 
tion to believe, that while choice and prudence invite me to quit the 
political scene, patriotism does not forbid it. 

In looking forward to the moment which is intended to terminate 
the career of my public life, my feelings do not permit me to sus- 
pend the deep acknowledgment of that debt of gratitude which 1 
owe to my beloved country, for the many honours it has conferred 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



311 



ought to be engraven upon the hearts of his country- 
men. In the most earnest and affectionate manner 
he called upon them to cherish an inmioveable attach- 

opon me ; still more for the steadfast confidence with which it has 
supported me ; and for the opporlunities I have thence enjoyed, of 
manifesting my inviolable attachment, by services faithful and per- 
severing, though in usel'iilness unequal to my zeal. If benefits have 
resulted to our country from these services, let it always be remem- 
bered to your praise, and as an instructive example in our annals, 
that, under circumstances in which the passions, agitated in every 
direction, were liable to mislead, amidst appearances sometimes 
dubious, vicissitudes of fortune, often discouraging, in situations in 
which, not unfrequcntly, want of success has countenanced the spi- 
rit of criticism, the constancy of your support was the essential prop 
of the efforts, and a guarantee of the plans by which they were ef- 
fected. Profoundly penetrated with this idea, I shall carry it with 
me to my grave, as a strong incitement to unceasing vows, that 
Heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens of its beneficence; 
that your union and brotherly aflection may be perpetual; that the 
flee constitution, which is the work of your liands, may be sa- 
credly maintained ; that its administration, in every department, 
may be stamped with wisdom and virtue; that, in fine, the happi- 
ness of the people of these states, under the auspices of liberty, may 
be made complete, by so careful a preservation, and so prudent a 
use of this blessing, as will acquire to them the glory of recom- 
mending it to the applause, the aflection, and the adoption of every 
nation which is yet a stranger to it. 

Here, perhaps, I ought to stop; but a solicitude for your welfare, 
which can not end but with my life, and the apprehension of danger 
natural to that solicitude, urge me, on an occasion like the present, 
lo offer to your solemn contemplation, and to recommend to your 
frequent review, some sentiments, which are the result of much 
reflection — of no inconsiderable observation — and which appear to 
me all important to the permanency of your felicity as a people. 
These will be afforded to you with the more freedom, as you can 
only see in them the disinterested warnings of a parting friend, 
who can possibly have no personal motive to bias his counsel ; nor 
can I forget, as an encouragement lo it, your indulgent reception 
of my sentiments on a former and not dissimilar occasion. 

Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your 
hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or con- 
firm the attachment. 

The unity of government, which constitutes you one people, is 
also now dear to you. It is justly so ; for it is a main pillar in the 
edifice of your real independence ; the support of your tranquillity 
at home, your peace abroad ; of your safely ; of your prosperity ; 
of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy lo 
foresee, that from different causes and from different quarters, much 
pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken, in your 
minds, the conviction of this truth ; as this is the point in your po- 
litical fortress against which the batteries of internal and external 
enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertl}' 
and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should 
properly estimate the immense value of your national union, to 
your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish 
a cordial, habitual, and immoveable attachment to it ; accustom- 
ing yourselves lo think and .speak of it as of the palladium of your 
political safety and prosperity ; watching for its preservation with 
jealous anxiety ; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a 
suspicion that it can, in any event, be abandoned ; and indignantly 
frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any 
portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties 
which now link together the various parts. 

For this you have every inducement of S}Tiipathy and interest. 
Citizens by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has 
a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, 
which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt 
the just pride of patriotism, more than any appellation derived 
from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you 
have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. 
You have, in a common cause, fought and triumphed together : the 
independence and liberty you possess, are the work of joint coun- 

40 



ment to the national union, to watch for its preserva- 
tion with jealous anxiety, to discountenance even the 
suggestion that it could in any event be abandoned, 



cils and joint efforts, of common dangers, sufferings, and suc- 
cesses. 

But these considerations, however powerfully they address them- 
selves to your sensibility, are greatly outweighed by those which 
apply more immediately to your interest : here every portion of our 
country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding 
and preserving the union of the whole. 

The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with the South, pro- 
tected by the equal laws of a common government, finds, in the 
productions of the latter, gieal additional resources of maritime 
and commercial enterprise, and precious materials of manufacturing 
industry. The South, in the same intercourse, benefiting by the 
same agency of the North, sees its agriculture grow, and its com- 
merce expand. Turning partly into its own channels the seamen 
of the North, it finds its parlicular navigation invigorated: and 
while it contributes, in different ways, to nourish and increase the 
general mass of the national navigation, it looks forward to the 
protection of a maritime strength, to which itself is unequally 
adapted. The East, in like intercourse with the We*t, already 
finds, and in the progressive improvement of interior communica- 
tion, by land and water, will more and more find a valuable vent 
for the commodities which it brings from abroad, or manufactures 
at home. The "West derives from the East supplies requisite to 
its growth and comfort ; and what is perhaps of still greater con- 
sequence, it must, of necessity, owe the secure enjoyment of indis- 
pensable outlets for its own productions, to the weight, influence, 
and the future maritime strength of the Atlantic side of the union, 
directed by an indissoluble community of interest as one nation. 
Any other tenure by which the West can hold this essential ad- 
vantage, whether derived from its own separate strength, or from 
an apostate and unnatural connexion with any foreign power, must 
be intrinsically precarious. 

While, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate 
and parlicular interest in union, all the parts combined can not fail 
to find, in the united ma.ss of means and efforts, greater strength, 
greater resource, proporlionably greater security from external 
danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign na- 
tions: and what is of- inestimable value, they musl derive fiom 
union an exemption from those broils and wars between themselves, 
which so frequently afflict neighbouring countries, not tied together 
by the same government; which their own rivalships alone would 
be sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances, at- 
tachments., and intrigues, would stimulate and imbitler. Hence, 
likewise, they w'ill avoid the necessity of (hose overgrown military 
establishments, which, unde"r any form of government, are inau- 
spicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly 
hostile to republican liberty; in this sense it is, that your union 
ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the 
love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other. 

These considerations speak a persuasive language to every re- 
flecting and virluotis mind, and exhibit the continuance of the 
union as a primary object of patriotic desire. Is there a doubt, 
whether a common government can embrace so large a sphere 1 
Let experience solve it. To listen to mere speculation in such a 
case, were criminal. We are authorized to hope, that a proper 
organization of the whole, with the auxiliary agency of govern- 
ments for the respective subdivisions, will afford a happy issue to 
Ihe experiment. It is well worth a fair and full experiment. 
With such powerful and obvious motives to union, affecting all 
parts of our country, while experience shall not have demonstrated 
its impracticabiliiyi there will always be reason to distrust the pa- 
triotism of those who, in any quarier, may endeavour to weaken 
its bands. 

In contemplating the causes which may disturb our union, it oc- 
cuis as a matter of serious concern, that any ground should have 
been furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discrimi- 
nations :— Northern and Southern: Atlantic and Western : whence 
designing men may endeavour to excite a belief that there is a real 
difference of local interests and news. One of the expedients of 



312 



HISTORY OF 'I HE UNITED STATES. 



and indignantly to frown upon the first dawning of 
eveiy attempt to alienate any portion of the country 
from the rest. Overgrown mihtary estabhshments 

party to acquire influence within particular districts is, to misre- 
present the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot 
shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heart burn- 
ings which spring from these misrepresentations: they tend to 
render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by 
fraernal afl"eclion. The inhabitants of our western countr)' have 
lately had a useful lesson on this head ; they have seen in the ne- 
gotiation by the executive, and in the unanimous ratification by the 
senate, of the treaty with Spain, and in the universal satisfaction 
at that event throughout the United States, a decisive proof how 
unfounded were the suspicions propagated among them, of a policy 
in the general government, and in the Atlantic states, unfriendly 
to theij interests, in regard to the Mississippi : they have been 
witnesses to the formation of two treaties ; that with Great Britain, 
and that with Spain, which secure to them every thing they could 
desire, in respect to our foreign relations, towards confirming their 
prosperity. Will it not be their wisdom to rely for the preserva- 
tion of these advantages on the union by which they were pro- 
cured 1 "Will they not henceforth be deaf to those advisers, if such 
there are, who would sever them from their brethren, and connect 
them with aliens 1 

To the efficacy and permanency of your union, a government 
for the whole is indispensable. No alliance, however strict be- 
tween the parts, can be an adequate substitute; they must inevita- 
bly experience the infractions and interruptions which all alliances, 
in all times, have experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, 
you have improved upon your first essay, by the adoption of a con- 
stitution of government belter calculated than your former, for an 
intimate union, and for the efficacious management of your com- 
mon concerns. This government, the offspring of our own choice, 
uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and ma 
lure deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribu 
lion of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing 
within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim 
to your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, 
compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties 
enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis 
of cur political systems is, the right of the people to make and to 
alter their constitutions of government: but the constitution which 
at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of 
the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea 
of the power and the right of the people to establish government, 
pre-supposes the duty of every individual to obey the established 
government. 

All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations 
and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real 
design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular delibera- 
tion and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of 
this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to 
organize faction, to give it an arlificial and extraordinary force, to 
put in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of a 
party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the com- 
munity: and, according lo the alternate triumphs of different par- 
ties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concert- 
ed and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of 
consistent and wholesome .plans, digested by common councils, and 
modified by mutual interests. 

However combinations or associations of the above description 
may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the 
course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cun- 
ning, ambitious, and unprincipled men, will be enabled to subvert 
the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of 
government; destroying, afterwards, the very engines which had 
lifted them to unjust dominion. 

Towards the preservation of your government, and the perma- 
nency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you 
steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged 
authority, but also, that you resist with care the spirit of innova- 
tion upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method 



he represented as particularly hostile to republican 
liberty. While he recommended the most implicit 
obedience to the acts of the established government, 

of assault may be to eflfect, in the forms of the constitution, altera- 
tions which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to un- 
dermine what can not be directly overthrown. In all the changes 
to which you may be invited, remember, that time and habit are at 
least as necessary to fix the true character of governments, as of 
other human institutions ; that experience is the surest standard by 
which lo test the real tendency of the existing constitution of a coun- 
try ; that facility in changes, upon the credit of mere hypothesis and 
opinion, exposes lo perpetual change, from the endle.ss variety of hy- 
potheses and opinion ; and remember, especially, that for Ihe efficient 
management of your common interests, in a country so extensive 
as ours, a government of as much vigour as is consistent with the 
perfect security of liberty, is indispensable. Liberty itself vill find 
in such a government, with powers properly disiribuled and ad- 
jusled, its surest guardian. It is, indeed, little else than a name, 
where the government is too feeble lo withstand the enlerjirises of 
faction, to confine each member of the society within the limits pre- 
scribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and tranquil 
enjoyment of the rights of person and property. 

I have already intimated lo you the danger of parties in the Mate, 
with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical 
discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, 
and warn you, in the most solemn manner, against the baneful ef- 
fects of the spirit of party generally. 

The spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having 
its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists, 
under different shapes, in all governments, more or less stifled, con- 
trolled, or repressed ; but in those of the popular form it is seen in 
its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy. 

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened 
by the spirit of revenge, natural to parly dissension, which, in dif- 
ferent ages and countries, has perpetrated the most horrid enormi- 
ties, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads, at length, to a 
more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and mise- 
ries which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek secu- 
rity and repose in the absolute power of an individual, and, sooner 
or later, the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more 
fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes 
of his own elevation on the ruins of public liberty. 

AVilhout looking forward to an extremity of this kind, (which, 
nevertheless, ought not lo be entirely out of sight,) the common and 
continual mischiefs of the spirit of parly are sufficient lo make it 
the interest and duty of a wise people lo discourage and restrain it. 

It serves always to distract the public councils, and enfeeble Ihe 
public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded 
jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part 
against another; foments, occasionally, riot and insurrection. It 
opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a 
faciliialed access lo the government itself, through the channels of 
parly passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are 
subjected to Ihe policy and will of another. 

There is an opinion, that parlies, in free countries, are useful 
checks npon the administration of the government, and- serve to 
keep alive the spirit of liberty. This, within certain limits, is pro- 
bably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patrioti.sm 
may look with indulgence, if not with favour, upon the spirit of 
party. But in those of the popular character, in governments pure- 
ly elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural 
tendency, it is cerlain there will always be enough of that spirit 
for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of 
excess, the effort ought to be, by force of public opinion, to mitigate 
and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform 
vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warm- 
ing, it should consume. 

It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking, in a free 
country, should ins]iire caution in those entrusted with its adminis- 
tration, to confine themselves within Iheir respective constilulional 
spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department, 
to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends lo 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



313 



and reprobated all obstructions to the execution of 
the laws, all combinations and associations, under 
whatever plausible character, with the real design to 

consolidate the powers of all the deparlments in one, and thus to 
create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just 
estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which 
predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the 
truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checlis in the 
exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into dif- 
ferent depositories, and constituting each the guardian of the pub- 
lic weal, against invasions by the others, has been evinced by ex- 
periments ancient and modern : some of them in our own country, 
»,nd under our own eyes. To preserve thera must be as necessary 
as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribu- 
lion or modification of the constitutional powers be, in any par- 
ticular, wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way 
which the constitution designates. But let there be no change by 
usurpation; for though this, in one instance, maybe the instru- 
ment of good, it is the customary weapon by which free govern- 
ments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbal- 
ance, in permanent evil, any partial or transient benefit which the 
use can, at any lime, yield. 

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperi- 
ty, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would 
that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labour to sub- 
vert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of 
the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with 
the pious man, ought to respect and cherish them. A volume 
could not trace all their connexions with private and public felicity. 
Let il simply be asked, where is the security for property, for re- 
putation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, 
which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice 1 
And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can 
be maintained without religion. Whalevet may be conceded to 
the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, 
reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national mo- 
rality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles. 

It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary 
spring of popular government. The rule indeed extends with more 
or less force to every species of free government. Who, that is a 
sincere friend to it, can look with indifference upon attempts to 
shake the foundation of the fabric. 

Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions 
for the general difl^usion of knowledge. In proportion as the struc- 
ture of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential 
that public opinion should be enlightened. 

As a very important source of strength and security, cherish 
public credit. One method of preserving il is to use il as sparing- 
ly as possible: avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, 
but reinembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for 
danger, frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it; 
avoiding, likewise, the accumulalicm of debt, not only by shunning 
occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace, 
to discharge the debts, which unavoidable wars may have occa- 
sioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which 
we ourselves ought to bear. The execution of these maxims be- 
longs to your representatives, but it is necessary that public opinion 
should co-operate. To facilitate to them the performance of their 
duty, it is essential that you should practically bear in mind, that, 
towards the payment of debts there must be revenue ; that to have 
revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised which 
are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant ; that the intrin.sic 
embarrassment, inseparable from the selection of the proper objects, 
(which is always a choice of difficulties,) ought to be a decisive 
motive for a candid construction of the conduct of the government 
in making it, and for a spirit of acquiescence in the measures for 
obt.nining revenue which the publ'c exigencies may at any time 
dictate. 

Observe good faith and justice towards all nations ; cultivate 
peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this 
conduct; and can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it 1 
It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period. 



direct, control, counteract, or overawe the regular 
deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, 
he wished also to guard against the spirit of innova- 

a great nation, to give to niankind the magnanimous and loo novel 
example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevo- 
lence. Who can doubt hut, in the course of time and things, the 
fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages 
which might be lost by a steady adherence to it 1 Can it be, that 
Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation 
with its virtue 1 The experiment, at least, is recommended by every 
sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas ! is it rendered 
impossible by its vices 1 

In th-e execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential than 
that permanent inveterate antipathies against particular nations, 
and passionate attachments for oihers, should be excluded; and 
that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should 
be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another an ha- 
bitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is, in .some degree, a slave. 
It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is 
sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy 
in one nation against another, disposes each more readily to offer 
insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be 
haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions ol 
dispute occur. Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, 
and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill will and resent- 
ment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best 
calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in 
the national propensity, and adopts, through passion, what reason 
would reject; at other times, it makes the animosity of the nation 
subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and 
other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimea 
perhaps the liberty, of nations has been the victim. 

So, likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation lo another 
produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favourite nation, 
facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest, in cases 
where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the 
enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the 
quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or 
justification. It leads also to concessions to the favourite nation of 
privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the nation 
making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought 
to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill will, and a di.s- 
position to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are 
withheld ; and it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded cilizen.s 
(who devote themselves to the favourite iwlion) facility to betray, 
or sacrifice the interest of their own country, without odium, some- 
times even with popularity ; gilding with the appearances of a vir- 
tuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public 
opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish com- 
pliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation. 

As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such at- 
tachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and 
independent patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to 
tamper with domestic factions, lo practise the art of seduction, to 
mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils ! 
Such an attachment of a small or weak, towards a great and pow- 
erful nation, dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter. 

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to 
believe me, fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be 
conslanthj awake; since history and experience prove that foreign 
influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. 
But that jealously, to be useful, must be impartial ; else it berom^s 
the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a de- 
fence against il. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation, and 
excessive dislike for another, cause Ihose whom they actuate to see 
danger only on one side, and serve lo veil and even second the arts 
of influence on the other. Real patriots, who may resist the in- 
trigues of the favourite, are liable to become suspected tmd odious ; 
while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the 
people, to surrender their interests. 

The great ruffe of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, 
in extending our commercial relations, lo have with them as little 



314 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



tion upon the principles of the constitution. Aware 
that the energy of the system might be enfeebled by 
alterations, he thought that no change should be made 
without an evident necessity ; and that, in so exten- 
sive a country, as much vigour as is consistent with 
liberty was indispensable. On the other hand, he 
pointed out the danger of a real despotism, by break- 
ing down the partitions between the several depart- 
ments ' of government, by destroying the reciprocal 

political connexion as possible. So far as we have already formed 
engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. — Here 
let us stop. 

Europe has a set of primary interests, which lo us have none, or 
a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent 
controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our 
concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate 
ourselves, by artificial lies, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her poli- 
tics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships 
or enmities. 

Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pur- 
sue a different course. If we remain one people, under an efficient 
government, the period is not far off when we may defy material 
injury from external annoyance; when we may lalce such an at- 
titude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon, 
to be scrupulously respected ; when belligerent nations, under the 
impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard 
the giving us provocation ; when we may choose peace or war, as 
our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel. 

Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation 1 Why 
quit our own to stand upon foreign ground ! Why, by interweaving 
our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and 
prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, hu- 
mour, or caprice's 

It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with 
uny portion of the foreign world ; so far, I mean, as we are now at 
liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of pa- 
tronising infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no 
less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is 
always the best policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements 
he observed in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it is un- 
necessary and would be unwise to extend them. 

Taking care always to keep ourselves, by suitable establishments, 
on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to tempo- 
rary alliances for extraordinary emergencies. 

Harmony, and a liberal intercourse with all nations, are recom- 
mended by policy, humanity,.and interest. But even our commer- 
cial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand ; neither seek- 
ing nor granting exclusive favours or preferences; consulting the 
natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying, by gentle 
means, the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing : establishing, 
with powers so disposed, in order to give trade a stable course, to 
define the rights of our merchants, and lo enable the government 
to support them, conventional rules of intercourse, the best that 
present circumstances and mutual opinions will permit, but tempo- 
rary, and liable to be, from time to time, abandoned or varied, as 
experience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly keeping in 
view, that it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favours 
from another ; that it must pay with a portion of its independence 
for whatever it may accept under that character; that by such ac- 
ceptance, it may place itself in the condition of having given 
equivalents for nominal favours, and yet of being reproached with 
ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error 
tiian to expect or calculate upon real favours from nation to nation. 
It is an illusion, which experience must cure, which a just pride 
ought to discard. 

In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and 
affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and 
lasting impression I could wish ; that they will control the usual 
current of the passions, or prevent our nation i^^m running' the 
course which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations; but if I 



checks, and consolidating the different powers. 
Against the spirit of party, so peculiarly baneful in 
an elective government, he uttered his most solemn 
remonstrances, as well as against inveterate antipa- 
thies or passionate attachments in respect to foreign 
nations. While he thought that the jealousy of a 
free people ought to be constantly and impartially 
awake against the wiles of foreign influence, he 
wished that good faith and justice should be observed 



may even flatter myself, that they may be productive of some par- 
tial benefit, some occasional good ; that they may now and then 
recur to moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mis- 
chiefs of foreign intrigues, to guard against the impostures of pre- 
tended patriotism ; this hope will be a full recompense for the* 
solicitude for your welfare by which they have been dictated. 

How far, in the discharge of my official duties, I have been 
guided by the principles W'hich have been delineated, the public 
records, and other evidences of my conduct, must witness to you 
and the world. To myself, the assurance of my own conscience 
is. that I have at least believed myself to be guided by them. 

In relation to the still subsisting war in Europe, my proclama- 
tion of the 22d of April, 1793, is the index to my plan. Sanction- 
ed by your approving voice, and by that of your representatives in 
both houses of congress, the spirit of that measure has continually 
governed me, uninfluenced by any attempts lo deter or divert me 
from it. 

After deliberate examination, with the aid of the be.st lights I 
could obtain, I was well satisfied that our country, under all the 
circumstances of the ease, had a right to take, and was bound in 
duty and interest to take a neutral position. Having taken it, I 
determined, as far as should depend upon me, to maintain it with 
moderation, perseverance, and firmness. 

The considerations which re.spect the right to hold this conduct, 
it is not necessary on this occasion to detail. I will only observe, 
that, according to my understanding of the matter, that right, so 
far from being denied by any of the belligerent powers, has been 
virtually admitted by all. 

The duty of holding a neutral conduct may be inferred, without 
any thing more, from the obligation which justice and humanity 
impose on every nation, in cases in which it is free to act, to main- 
tain inviolate the relations of peace and amity towards other 
nations. 

The inducements of interest, for observing that conduct, will best 
be referred to your own reflections and experience. With, me, a 
predominant motive has been, lo endeavour to gain time to our 
country to settle and mature its yet recent institutions, and lo pro- 
gress, without interruption, to that degree of strength and consist- 
ency, which is necessary to give it, humanly speaking, the command 
of its own fortunes. 

Though in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am 
unconscious of intentional error, I am, nevertheless, too sensible of 
iny defects, not to think it probable that I may have committed 
many errors. Whatever they may be, 1 fervently beseech the Al- 
mighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I 
shall also carry with me the hope, that my country will never cease 
to view theiu with indulgence; and that, after forty-five years of 
my life dedicated to its service, with an upright zeal, the faults of 
incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must 
soon be lo the mansions of rest. 

Relying on its kindness in fhis as in other things, and actuated 
by that fervent love towards it which is so natural to a man, who 
views in it the native .soil of himself and his progenitors for several 
generations; I anticipate, with pleasing expectation, that retreat, 
in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet en- 
joyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign 
influence of good laws under a free government — the ever favour- 
ite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mu- 
tual cares, labours, and dangers. 

George Washington 

Unikd SiaUs, nth September, 1796. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



315 



towards all nations, and peace and harmony cultiva- 
ted. In his opinion, honesty, no less in public than 
in private aflairs, was always the best policy. Pro- 
videnT:e, he believed, had connected the permanent 
felicity of a nation witli its virtue. Other subjects 
to which he alluded, were the importance of credit, 
of economy, of a reduction of the public debt, and of 
literary institutions ; above all, lie recommended re- 
ligion and morality as indispensably necessary to po- 
litical prosperity. This address to the people of the 
United States was received witli the highest venera- 
tion and gratitude. Several of the state legislatures 
ordered it to be put upon their journals, and every 
citizen considered it as the legacy of the most distin- 
guished American patriot. 

On the 7th of December, 1796, the president for 
the last time met the national legislature. In his 
speech, after talcing a view of the situation of the 
United States, regardless of opposition and censure, 
he recommended the attention of congress to those 
measures which he deemed essential to national in- 
dependence, honou]', and prosperity. On the 4th of 
March, 1797, he attended the inauguration of his 
successor in office. Great sensibility was manifested 
by the members of the legislature and other distin- 
guished characters when he entered the senate 
chamber, and much admiration expressed at the com- 
placence and delight he manifested at seeing anotlier 
clothed with the authority with which he had him- 
self been invested. Having paid his alfectionate 
compliments to Mr. Adams, as president of the United 
States, he bade adieu to the seat of government, and 
hastened to the delights of domestic life. He intend- 
ed that his journey should have been private, but 
the attempt was vain ; the same affectionate and re- 
spectful atten^ons were on this occasion paid him 
which he had received during his presidency. In 
his retirement at Mount Vernon he gave the world 
the glorious example of a man voluntarily disrobing 
himself of the highest authority, and returning to 
private life, with a character having upon it no stain of 
ambition, of covetousness, of profusion, of luxury, of 
oppression, or of injustice ; while it was adorned with 
the presence of virtues and graces, brilliant alike in 
the shade of retirement and in the glare of public life. 



CHAPTER lY. 

THE ADMINISTRATION OP JOHN ADAMS AND JEF- 
FERSON. 

When the determination of Washington not again 
to accept of the presidentship left open the high 



office to the competition of the leaders of the great 
political parties, no exertion was spared throughout 
the union to give success to their respective claims. 
The federalists, desiring that the system of measures 
adopted by Washington should be pursued, and 
dreading the influence of French sentiments and 
princi])les, made the most active efforts to elect John 
Adams. The republicans, believing their opponents 
less friendly than themselves to the maxims of liberty, 
and too much devoted to the British nation and to 
British institutions, made equal exertions to elect 
Thomas Jefferson. The result was the choice of 
Mr. Adams to be president, and Mr. Jefferson to be 
vice-president. 

The President was inaugurated on the 4th day 
of March, and made the following speech : 

" When it was first perceived, in early times, that 
no middle course for America remained, between 
unlimited submission to a foreign legislature and a 
total independence of its claims ; men of reflection 
were less apprehensive of danger from the formida- 
ble power of fleets and armies they must determine 
to resist, than from those contests and dissensions, 
which would certainly arise, concerning the forms 
of government to be instituted over the whole, and 
over the pjtrts of this extensive country. Relying, 
however, on the purity of their intentions, the jus- 
tice of their cause, and the integrity and intelligence 
of the people, under an overruling Providence, which 
had so signally protected this country from the first ; 
the representatives of this nation, then consisting of 
little more than half its present numbers, not only 
broke to pieces the chains which were forging, and 
the rod of iron that was lifted up, and frankly cut 
asunder the ties which had bound them, and laimch- 
ed into an ocean of uncertainty. 

" The zeal and ardour of the people during the re- 
volutionary war, supplying the place of government, 
commanded a degree of order, sufficient at least for 
the temporary preservation of society. The confe- 
deration, which was early felt to be necessary, was 
prepared from the models of the Batavian and Hel- 
vetic confederacies, the only examples which remain, 
with any detail and precision, in history, and cer- 
tainly the only ones, which the people at large had 
ever considered. But, reflecting on the striking 
difference, in so many particulars, between this 
country and those, where a courier may go from the 
seat of government to the frontier in a single day, 
it was then certainly foreseen by some, who assisted 
in Congress at the formation of it, that it could not 
be durable. 

" Negligence of its regulations, inattention to its 



316 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



recommendations, if not disobedience to its authority, 
not only in individuals, but in states, soon appeared 
with their melancholy consequences ; universal lan- 
guor, jealousies, rivalries of states ; decline of navi- 
gation and commerce ; discouragement of necessary 
manufactures ; universal fall in the value of lands 
and their produce ; contempt of public and private 
faith ; loss of consideration and credit with foreign 
nations ; and at length, in discontents, animosities, 
combinations, partial conventions, and insurrection, 
threatening some great national calamity. 

" In this dangerous crisis, the people of America 
were not abandoned by their usual good sense, 
presence of mind, resolution, or integrity. Measures 
were pursued to concert a plan, to form a more per- 
fect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tran- 
quillity, provide for the common defence, promote the 
general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty. 
The public disquisition, discussions, and delibera- 
tions, issued in the present happy constitution of go- 
vernment. 

" Employed in the service of my country abroad 
during the whole course of these transactions, I first 
saw the constitution of the United States in a foreign 
country. Irritated by no literary altercation, anima- 
ted by no public debate, heated by no party animos- 
ity, I read it with great satisfaction, as the result of 
good heads, prompted by good hearts ; as an expe- 
riment, better adapted to the genius, character, situa- 
tion, and relations of this nation and country, than 
any which had ever been proposed or suggested. In 
its general principles and great outlines, it was con- 
formable to such a system of government as I had 
ever most esteemed ; and in some states, my own 
native state in particular, had contributed to estab- 
lish. Claiming a right of suffrage in common with 
my fellow-citizens in the adoption or rejection of a 
constitution, which was to rule me and my posterity, 
as well as them and theirs, I did not hesitate to ex- 
press my approbation of it on all occasions, in public 
and in private. It was not then nor has been since 
any objection to it, in my mind, that the executive 
and senate were not more permanent. Nor have 1 
entertained a thought of promoting any alteration in 
it, but such as the people themselves, in the course 
of their experience, should see and feel to be neces- 
sary or expedient, and by their representatives in 
congress and the state legislatures, according to the 
constitution itself, adopt and ordain. 

" Returning to the bosom of my country, after a 
painful separation from it for ten years, I had the 
lionour to be elected to a station under the new order 
of things, and I have repeatedly laid myself under 



the most serious obligations to support the consti- 
tntion. The operation of it has equalled the most 
sanguine expectations of its friends ; and from an 
habitual attention to it, satisfaction in its adminis- 
tration, and delight in its eflects upon the peace, 
order, prosperity, and happiness of the nation, I have 
acquired an habitual attachment to it, and veneration 
for it. 

" What other form of government, indeed, can so 
well deserve our esteem and love ? 

" There may be little solidity in an ancient idea, 
that congregations of men into cities and nations 
are the most pleasing objects in the sight of superior 
intelligences : but this is very certain, that to a 
benevolent human mind there can be no spectacle 
presented by any nation, more pleasing, more noble, 
majestic, or august, than an assembly like that, 
which has so often been seen in this and the other 
chamber of Congress — of a government, in which 
the executive authority, as well as that of all the 
branches of the legislature, are exercised by citizens 
selected at regular periods by their neighbours, to 
make and execute laws for the general good. Can 
any thing essential, any thing more than mere orna- 
ment and decoration, be added to this by robes or 
diamonds 1 Can authority be more amiable or res- 
pectable, when it descends from accidents or institu- 
tions established in remote antiquity, than when it 
springs fresh from the hearts and judgments of an 
honest and enlightened people '! For, it is the people 
only that are represented : it is their power and 
majesty that is reflected, and only for their good, in 
every legitimate government, under whatever form 
it may appear. The existence of such a government 
as ours for any length of time, is a full paoof of a 
general dissemination of knowledge and virtue 
throughout the whole body of the people.. And 
what object of consideration, more pleasing than this, 
can be presented to the human mind? If national 
pride is ever justifiable or excusable, it is when it 
springs, not from power or riches, grandeur or glory, 
but from conviction of national innocence, informa- 
tion, and benevolence. 

" In the midst of these pleasing ideas, we should 
be unfaithful to ourselves, if we should ever lose 
sight of the danger to our liberties, if any thing 
partial or extraneous should infect the purity of 
our free, fair, virtuous and independent elections. 
If an election is to be determined by a majority of 
a single vote, and that can be procured by a party 
through artifice or corruption, the government may 
be the choice of a party, for its own ends, not of the 
nation for the national good. If that solitary suf 



l\ 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



317 



frage can be obtained by foreign nations, by flat- 
tery or menaces, by fraud or violence, by terror, 
intrigue, or venality ; the government may not be 
the choice of the American people, but of foreign na- 
tions. It may be foreign nations who govern us, and 
not we, the people, who govern ourselves : and can- 
did men will acknowledge, that in such cases, clioice 
would have little advantage to boast of, over lot or 
chance. 

" Such is the amiable and interesting system of 
government, (and such are some of the abuses to 
which it may be exposed,) which the people of Ame- 
rica have exhibited to the admiration and anxiety of 
the wise and virtuous of all nations for eight years ; 
under the administration of a citizen who, by a long 
course of great actions, regulated by prudence, jus- 
tice, temperance, and fortitude, conducting a people 
inspired with the same virtues, and animated with 
the same ardent patriotism and love of liberty, to in- 
dependence and peace, to increasing wealth and un- 
exampled prosperity, has merited the gratitude of his 
fellow-citizens, commanded the highest praises of 
foreign nations, and secured immortal glory with 
posterity. 

" In that retirement, which is his voluntary choice, 
may he long live to enjoy the delicious recollection 
of his services, the gratitude of mankind ; the happy 
fruits of them to himself and the world, which are 
daily increasing, and that splendid prospect of the 
future fortunes of his country, which is opening from 
year to year. His name may be still a rampart, and 
the knowledge that he lives, a bulwark against all 
open or secret enemies of his country's peace. 

" This example has been recommended to the imi- 
tation of his successors, by both houses of congress, 
and by the voice of the legislatures and the people, 
throughout the nation. 

" On this subject it might become me better to be 
silent, or to speak with diffidence ; but, as something 
may be expected, the occasion, I hope, will be admit- 
ted as an apology, if I venture to say, that, if a pre- 
ference, upon principle, of a free republican govern- 
ment, formed upon long and serious reflection, after 
a diligent and impartial inquiry after truth ; if an at- 
tachment to the constitution of the United States, 
and a conscientious determination to support it, until 
it shall be altered by the judgments and wishes of 
the people, expressed in the mode prescribed in it ; if 
a respectful attention to the constitutions of the in- 
dividual states, and a constant caution and delicacy 
towards the state governments ; if an equal and im- 
partial regard to the rights, interests, honour, and 
liappiness of all the states in the union, without pre- 



ference or regard to a northern or southern, eastern 
or western position, their various political opinions 
on essential points, or their personal attachments ; if 
a love of virtuous men of all parties and denomina- 
tions ; if a love of science and letters, and a wish to 
patronize every rational effort to encourage schools, 
colleges, universities, academies, and every institu- 
tion for propagating knowledge, virtue, and religion, 
among all classes of the people, not only for their be- 
nign influence on the happiness of life, in all its 
stages and classes, and of societ5f in all its forms, but, 
as the only means of preserving our constitution from 
its natural enemies, the spirit of sophistry, the spirit 
of party, the spirit of intrigue, profligacy, and cor- 
ruption, and the pestilence of foreign influence, which 
is the angel of destruction to elective governments ; 
if a love of equal laws, of justice and humanity, in 
the interior administration ; if an inclination to im 
prove agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, for 
necessity, convenience, and defence ; if a spirit of 
equity and humanity towards the aboriginal nations 
of America, and a disposition to meliorate their con- 
dition, by inclining them to be more friendly to us, 
and our citizens to be more friendly to them ; if an 
inflexible determination to maintain peace and in- 
violable faith with all nations, and that system of 
neutrality and impartiality among the belligerent 
powers of Europe, which has been adopted by the 
government, and so solemnly sanctioned by both 
houses of congress, and applauded by the legislatures 
of the states and the public opinion, until it shall be 
otherwise ordained by congress ; if a personal esteem 
for the French nation, formed in a residence of seven 
years chiefly among them, and a sincere desire to 
preserve the friendship, which has been so much for 
the honour and interest of both nations ; if, while the 
conscious honour and integrity of the people of Ame- 
rica, and the internal sentiment of their own power 
and energies must be preserved, an earnest endeavour 
to investigate every just cause, and remove every co- 
lourable pretence of complaint ; if an intention to 
pursue, by amicable negotiation, a reparation for the 
injuries that have been committed on the commerce 
of our fellow-citizens, by whatever nation ; and if 
success can not be obtained, to lay the facts before the 
legislature, that they may consider what further mea 
sures the honour and interest of the government and 
its constituents demand ; if a resolution to do justice, 
as far as may depend upon me, at all times, and to 
all nations, and maintain peace, friendship, and be- 
nevolence, with all the world ; if an unshaken con- 
iidence in the honour, spirit, and resources of the 
American people, on which I have so often hazarded 



318 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



my all, and never been deceived ; if elevated ideas 
of the high destinies of this country, and of my o^vn 
duties towards it, founded on a knowledge of the 
moral principles and intellectual improvements of 
the people, deeply engraven on my mind in early 
life, and not obscured but exalted by experience and 
age ; and with humble reverence I feel it my duty to 
add — if a veneration for the religion of a people, who 
profess and call themselves Christians, and a fixed 
resolution to consider a decent respect for Christi- 
anity among the best recommendations for the pub- 
lic service, can enable me, in any degree, to comply 
with your wishes, it shall be my strenuous endea- 
vour, th^t this sagacious injunction of the two Houses 
shall not be without effect. 

" With this great example before me ; with the 
.sense and spirit, the faith and honour, the duty and 
interest of the same American people, pledged to sup- 
port the constitution of the United States, I entertain 
no doubt of its continuance in all its energy ; and 
my mind is prepared, without hesitation, to lay my- 
self under the most solemn obligations to support it, 
to the utmost of my power. 

" And may that Being, who is supreme over all, 
the patron of order, the fountain of justice, and the 
protector, in all ages of the world, of virtuous liberty, 
continue his blessing upon this nation and its go- 
vernment, and give it all possible success and dura- 
tion, consistent with the ends of his providence." 

Mr. Pinckney had been appointed minister ple- 
nipotentiary to the French republic in 1796. The 
object of his mission was stated, in his letter of cre- 
dence, to be, " to maintain that good understanding 
which, from the commencement of the alliance, had 
subsisted between the two nations ; and to efface 
unfavourable impressions, banish suspicions, and 
restore that cordiality which was at once the evi- 
dence and pledge of a friendly union." On inspect- 
ing his letter of credence, the directory announced 
to him their determination " not to receive another 
minister plenipotentiary from the United States, 
until after the redress of grievances demanded of the 
American government, which the French republic 
had a right to expect from it." The American mi- 
nister was afterward obliged, by a written mandate, 
to quit the territories of the French republic. Be- 
sides other hostile indications, American vessels 
were captured wherever found ; and, under the pre- 
text of their wanting a document, with which the 
treaty of commerce had been uniformly understood 
to dispense, they were condemned as prizes. 

In consequence of this serious state of the rela- 
tdons with France, the president, by proclamation, 



summoned congress to meet on the 15th of June 
when, in a firm and dignified speech, he stated the 
great and unprovoked outrages of the French go- 
vernment. Having mentioned a disposition indica- 
ted in the executive directory to separate the people 
of America from their government, " such attempts," 
he added, " ought to be repelled with a decision 
which shall convince France and all the world that 
we are not a degraded people, humiliated under a 
colonial spirit of fear and sense of inferiority, fitted 
to be the miserable instruments of foreign influence, 
and regardless of national honour, character, and 
interest." He expressed, however, his wish for an 
accommodation, and his purpose of attempting it. 
" Retaining still the desire which has uniformly 
been manifested by the American government to 
preserve peace and friendship with all nations, and 
believing that neither the honour nor the interest 
of the United States absolutely forbade the repetition 
of advances for securing these desirable objects with 
France, he should," he said, " institute a fresh at- 
tempt at negotiation, and should not fail to promote 
and accelerate an accommodation on terms compati- 
ble with the rights, duties, interests, and honour of 
the nation." In the mean time, he earnestly recom- 
mended it to congress to provide effectual measures 
of defence. 

To make a last effort to obtain reparation and se- 
curity, three envoys extraordinary were appointed, at 
the head of whom was General Pinckney. By their 
instructions, " Peace and reconciliation were to be 
pursued by all means compatible with the honour 
and the faith of the United States ; but no national 
engagements were to be impaired ; no innovations to 
be permitted upon those internal regulations for the 
preservation of peace, which had been deliberately 
and uprightly established ; nor were the rights of the 
government to be surrendered." These ambassadors 
also the directory refused to receive. They were, 
however, addressed by persons verbally instructed by 
Talleyrand, the minister of foreign relations, to make 
proposals. In explicit terms, these unofiicial agents 
demanded a large sum of money before any negotia- 
tion could be opened. To this insulting demand a 
decided negative was given. A compliance was, 
nevertheless, repeatedly urged, until at length the 
envoys refused to hold with them any further com- 
munication. 

When these events were known in the United 
States they excited general indignation. The spirit 
of party appeared to be extinct. " Millions for de- 
fence, not a cent for tribute." resounded from every 
quarter of the union The treaty of alliance with 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED KTATES. 



319 



Prance was declared by congress to be no longer in 
force ; and authority was given for capturing armed 
French vessels. Provision was made for raising im- 
mediately a small regular army, and, in case events 
should render it expedient, for augmenting it. A 
direct tax and additional internal duties were laid. 
To command the armies of the United States, Presi- 
dent Adams, with the unanimous advice of the senate, 
appointed George Washington. He consented, but 
with great reluctance, to accept tlie office, declaring, 
however, that he cordially approved tlie measures 
of the government. 

The first act of hostility between the two nations 
appears to have been committed by the Insurgente, 
which was in a short period after so signally beaten 
by an American frigate. The schooner Retaliation, 
Lieutenant-Commandant Bainbridgc, being deluded 
into the power of this vessel, was captured and car- 
ried into Guadaloupe. Several other United States 
armed vessels were in company with the Retaliation, 
and ptirsued by the French squadron, but were pro- 
bably saved from capture by the address of Lieuten- 
ant Bainbridgc, who, being asked by the French 
commodore what was the force of the vessels chased, 
exaggerated it with so much adroitness as to induce 
him to re^.all his ships. The Constellation went to 
sea under the command of Captain Trnxton. In 
February, 1799, he encountered the Insurgente, and, 
after a close action of about an hour and a half, com- 
pelled her to strike. The rate of -the Constellation 
was thirty-two guns, that of the Insurgente forty. 
The former had three men wounded, one of whom 
shortly after died, and none killed ; the latter had 
forty-one wounded, and twenty-nine killed. This 
victory, which was so brilliant and decisive, witla 
such a wonderful disparity of loss, gave great eclat to 
the victor and to the navy. Commodore Truxton 
again put to sea in the Constellation, being destined 
to renew his triumphs, and the humiliation of the foe. 
In February, 1800, he fell in with the Vengeance, a 
Freiich ship of fifty-four guns, with which he began 
an engagement that lasted, Avith great obstinacy and 
spirit on both sides, from eight o'clock in the evening 
till one in the morning, when the Vengeance was 

» " General Washinglon ^-as exactly six feet in height ; he ap- 
peared taller, as his shoulders rose a little higher than the true pro- 
portion. His eyes were of a grey, and his hair of a brown colour. 
His limbs were well formed, and indicated strength. His com- 
plexion was light, and his countenance serene and thoughtful. His 
manners were graceful, manly, and dignified. His general appear- 
ance never failed to engage the respect and esteem of all who ap- 
proached him. Reserved, but not haughty, in his disposition, he was 
accessible to all in concerns of business ; but he opened himself 
only to his confidential friends ; and no art or address could draw 
from him an opinion which be thought prudent to conceal. 

" He was not so much distinguished for brilliancy of genius as 

41 



completely silenced, and sheered off. The Constel- 
lation, having lost her mainmast, was too much in- 
jured to pursue her. The captain of the Vengeance 
is said to have twice surrendered during the contest, 
but his signals were not understood amidst the dark- 
ness of night and the confusion of battle. 

The United States, thus victorious in arms at home 
and on the ocean, commanded the respect of tlieir 
enemy ; and the Directory made overtures of peace. 
The president immediately appointed ministers, who, 
on their arrival at Paris, found the executive autho- 
rity in the possession of Bonaparte as first consul. 
They were promptly received, and in September, 
1800, a treaty was concluded satisfactory to both 
countries. 

The services of Washington had not been required 
in his capacity of commander in chief ; but he did 
not live to witness the restoration of peace. On 
Friday, December 13, while attending some improve- 
ments upon his estate, he was exposed to a light rain, 
which wetted his neck and hair. Unapprehensive of 
danger, he passed the afternoon in his usual maimer ; 
but at night was seized with an inflammatory aflec- 
tion of the windpipe, attended by fever, and a quick 
and laborious respiration. Aboat twelve or fourteen 
ounces of blood were taken from him. In the morn- 
ing, his family physician. Dr. Craik, was sent for ; 
but the utmost exertions of medical skill were applied 
in vain. Believing from the commencement of his 
complaint that it would be mortal, a few hours before 
his departure, and after repeated efforts to be under- 
stood, lie succeeded in expressing a desire that he 
might be permitted to die without being disquieted 
by unavailing attempts to rescue him from his fate. 
When he could no longer swallow, he undressed 
himself and got into bed, there to await his dissolu- 
tion. To his friend and physician he said, witli 
difficulty, " Doctor, I am dying, and have been dying 
for a long time ; but I am not afraid to die." Respi- 
ration became more and more contracted and imper- 
fect until half-past eleven on Saturday night, when, 
retaining the full possession of his intellect, he ex- 
pired without a struggle. Thus, in the sixty-eighth 
year of his age, died the father of his country.* In- 

for solidity of judgment, and consummate prudence of conduct. He 
was not so eminent for any one quality of greatness and worth, as 
for the union of those great, amiable, and good qualities, which are 
I'ery rarely combined in the .same character. 

" In doiirestic and private life, he blended the authority of tlif 
master with the care and kindness of the guardian and friend. 
Solicitous for the welfare of his slaves, while at Mount Vernon, ho 
every morning rode round his estates to examine their condition ; 
for the sick, physicians were provided ; and to the weak and infirm 
every necessary comfort was administered. The serviiude of the 
negroes lay with weight upon his mind ; lie often made it the sub- 
ject of conversation, and revolved several plans for their general 



3'iU 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



telligence of fliis event, as it rapidly spread, produced 
spontaneous, deep, and unaffected grief, suspending 
every other thought, and absorbing every different 
feeling. Congress, then in session at Philadelphia, 
immediately adjourned. On assembling the next 
day, the house of representatives resolved, " that the 
speaker's chair should be shrouded in black, and the 
members wear black during the session ; and that a 
joint committee should be appointed to devise the 
most suitable manner of paying honour to the memo- 
ry of the man first in war, first in peace, and first in 
the hearts of his countrymen." The senate of the 
United States, in an address to the president on this 
melancholy occasion, indulged their patriotic pride, 
while they did not transgress the bounds of truth, in 
speaking of their Washington. " Ancient and mo- 
dern names," said they, " are diminished before him. 
Greatness and guilt have too often been allied ; but 
his fame is whiter than it is brilliant. The destroy- 
ers of nations stood abashed at the majesty of his 
virtues. It reproved the intemperance of their am- 
bition, and darkened the splendour of victory. The 
scene is closed, and we are no longer anxious lest 
misfortune should sully his glory : he has travelled 
on to the end of his journey, and carried with him 
an increasing weight of honour ; he has deposited it 
safely where misfortune cannot tarnish it, — where 
malice cannot blast it." 

According to the unanimous resolution of congress, 
a funeral procession moved from the legislative hall 
to the German Lutheran church, where an oration 
Was delivered by General Lee, a representative from 
Virginia. The procession was grand and solemn ; 
the oration impressive and eloquent. Throughout 
the union similar marks of affliction were exhibited ; 
a whole people appeared in mourning. .In every 
part of the republic funeral orations were delivered, 
and the best talents of the nation were devoted to an 
expression of the nation's grief. 

In the year ISOO the seat of government of the 
United States was removed to Washington, in the 

emancipation. His industry was unremitted, and his method so 
exact, that all the complicated business of his military command 
and civil administration, was managed without confusion and with- 
out hurry. 

"Not feeling the hist of power, and ambitious only for honoura- 
ble fame, he devoted himself to his country upon the most disin- 
terested principles; and his actions wore not the semblance but the 
reality of virtue : the purity of his motives was accredited, and ab- 
solule confidence placed in his patriotism. While filling a public 
station, the performance of his -duty took the place of pleasure, 
emolument, and every private consideration. During the more 
critical years of the war, a smile was scarcely seen upon his coun- 
tenance ; he gave himself no moments of relaxation ; but his whole 
mind was engrossed to execute successiully his trust. 

" He was as eminent for piety as for patriotism. His public and 
private conduct evince, that he impressively felt a sense of the su- 



district of Columbia. After congratulatmg the peo- 
ple of the United States on the assembling of congress 
at the permanent seat of their government, and con- 
gress on the prospect of a residence not to be changed, 
the president said, " It would be unbecoming the 
representatives of this nation to assemble for the first 
time in this solemn temple, without looking up to the 
Supreme Ruler of the universe, and imploring his 
blessing. May this territory be the residence of vir- 
tue and happiness ! In this city may that piety and 
virtue, that wisdom and magnanimity, that constancy 
and self-government, which adorned the great cha- 
racter whose name it bears, be for ever held in vene- 
ration ! Here, and throughout our country, may 
simple manners, pure morals, and true religion, flourish 
for ever." 

At this period a presidential election again occur- 
red. From the time of the adoption of the constitu 
tion, the republican party had been gradually in- 
creasing in numbers. The two parties being now 
nearly equal, the contest inspired both with uncom- 
mon ardour. The federalists supported Mr. Adams 
and General Pinckney ; the republicans, Mr. Jefi'er- 
son and Colonel Burr. The two latter received a 
small majority of the electoral votes ; and as tliey 
received also an equal mmaber, the selection of one 
of them to be president devolved upon the house of 
representatives. After thirty-five trials, during Avhich 
the nation felt intense solicitude, Mr. Jefferson was 
chosen. Colonel Burr received the Azotes of the fede- 
ralists, and lost, in consequence, the confidence of his 
former friends. By the provisions of the constitution 
he became, of course, vice-president. On his inau- 
guration, Mr. Jefferson made the following speech to 
both houses of congress. 
" Friends and fellow-citizens, 
" Called upon to undertake the duties of the first 
executive office of our country, I avail myself of the 
presence of that portion of my fellow-citizens which 
is here assembled, to express my grateful thanks for 
the favour with which they have been pleased to look 



perintendence of God, and of the dependance of man. In his ad- 
dresses, while at the head of the army, and of the national govern- 
ment, he gratefully noticed the signal blessings of Providence, and 
fervently commended his country to divine benediction. In pri- 
vate, he was known to have been haliitually devout. In the esta- 
blishment of his presidential household, he reserved to himself the 
sabbath, free from the interruptions of private visits, or public bu- 
siness ; and, throughout the eight years of his civil administration, 
he gave to the institutions of Christianity the influence of his ex- 
ample. 

'■ Uniting the talents of the soldier with the qualifications of the 
statesman, and pursuing, unmoved by difliculties, the noblest end 
by the purest means, he had the supreme satisfaction of beholding 
the complete success of his great military and civil services, in the 
independence and happiness of his country." — Bancroft's Lite of 
Washington, vol. ii. p. 214. 



M M 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



321 



towards me. to declare a sincere consciousness, that 
the task is above my talents, and that I approach it 
with those anxious and awful presentiments, which 
the greatness of tlie charge, and the weakness of my 
powers, so justly inspire. A rising nation, spread 
over a wide and fruitful land, traversing all the seas 
with the rich productions of their industry, engaged 
in commerce with nations who feel power and forget 
right, advancing rapidly to destinies beyond the reach 
of mortal eye ; when I contemplate these transcendent 
objects, and see the honour, the happiness, and the 
hopes of this beloved country committed to the issue 
and the auspices of this day, I shrink from the con- 
templation, and humble myself before the magnitude 
of the undertaking. Utterly, indeed, should I despair, 
did not the presence of many, whom I here see, re 
mind me, that, in the other high authorities provided 
by our constitution, I shall fmd resources of wisdom, 
of virtue, and of zeal, on which to rely under all dif- 
ficulties. To you, then, gentlemen, who are charged 
with the sovereign functions of legislation, and to 
those associated with you, I look with encouragement 
for that guidance and support which may enable us 
to steer with safety the vessel in which we are all 
embarked, amidst the conflicting elements of a trou- 
bled world. 

" During the contest of opinion through which we 
have past, the animation of discussions and of exer- 
tions, has sometimes worn an aspect which might 
impose on strangers unused to think freely, and to 
speak and to write what they think ; but this being 
now decided by the voice of the nation, announced 
according to the rules of the constitution, all will of 
course arrange themselves under the will of the law, 
and unite in common efforts for the common good. 
All too will bear in mind this sacred principle, that 
tliough the will of the majority is in all cases to pre- 
vail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable ; 
that the minority possess tlieir equal rights, which 
equal laws must protect, and to violate which would 
be oppression. Let us then, fellow-citizens, imite 
with one heart and one mind, let us restore to social 
intercourse, that harmony and affection without 
which, liberty, and even life itself, are but dreary 
things. And let us reflect, that liaving banished 
from our land that religious intolerance under which 
mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gain- 
ed little, if we countenance a political intolerance, as 
despotic as wicked, and capable of as bitter and 
bloody persecutions. Durins: the throes and convul- 



sions of the ancient world. 



diu'ing 



the ag-onizing 



spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and 
slaughter his long lost liberty, it was not wonderful 



that the agitation of the billows should reach even 
this distant and peaceful shore ; that this should be 
more felt and feared by some, and less by others ; and 
should divide opinions as to measures of safety ; but 
every difference of opinion is not a difference of prin- 
ciple. We have called by different names brethren 
of the same principle. We are all republicans : we 
are all federalists. If there be any among us who 
would wish to dissolve this Union, or to change its 
republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monu- 
ments»of the safety with which error of opinion may 
be tolerated, where reason is left free to combat it. 
I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a re- 
publican government cannot be strong ; that this go- 
vernment is not strong enough. But would the 
honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experi- 
ment, abandon a government which has so far kept 
us free and firm, on the theoretic and visionary fear, 
that this government, the world's best hope, may, by 
possibility, want energy to preserve itself? I trust 
not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest 
government on earth. I believe it the only one, 
where every man, at the call of the law, would fly 
to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions 
of the public order as his own personal concern. 
Sometimes it is said, that man cannot be trusted with 
the government of himself. Can he then be trusted 
with the government of others ? Or, have we found 
angels in the form of kings, to govern him 7 Let his- 
tory answer this question. 

" Let us then, with courage and confidence, pursue 
our own federal and republican principles ; our at- 
tachment to union and representative government. 
Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from 
the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe ; 
too high minded to endure the degradations of the 
others ; possessing a chosen country, with room enough 
for our descendants to the thousandth and thousandth 
generation, entertaining a due sense of our equal right 
to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisitions of 
our own industry^, to honour and confidence from our 
fellow-citizens, resulting not from birth, but from our 
actions and their sense of them, enlightened by a be- 
nio-n reliirion, professed indeed and practised in va- 
rious forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, 
temperance, gratitude, and the love of man, acknow- 
ledo-ing and adoring an overruling providence, which, 
by all its dispensations, proves that it dehghts in the 
happiness of man here, and his greater happiness 
hereafter; with all these blessings, what more is 
necessary to make us a happy and prosperous people 7 
Still one thing more, fellow-citizens, a wise and frugal 
government, which shall restrain men from injuring 



322 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



one anotlier, shall leave them otherwise free to regu- 
late their own pursuits of industry and improvement, 
and shall not take from the mouth of labour the bread 
it has earned. This is the sum of good government ; 
and this is necessary to close the circle of our felici- 
ties. 

" About to enter, fellow-citizens, on the exercise of 
duties which comprehend every thing dear and valu- 
able to you, it is proper you should understand what 
I deem the essential principles of our government, 
and consequently, those which ought to skape its 
administration. I will compress them within the 
narrowest compass they will bear, stating the general 
principle, but not all its limitations. Equal and ex- 
act justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, 
religious or political : peace, commerce, and honest 
friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with 
none : the support of the state governments in all 
their rights, as the most competent administrations 
for our domestic concerns, and the surest bulwarks 
against anti-republican tendencies : the preservation 
of the general government in its whole constitutional 
vigour, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home, and 
safety abroad : a jealous care of the right of election 
by the people, a mild and safe corrective of abuses 
which are lopped by the sword of revolution where 
peaceable remedies are unprovided : absolute acqui- 
escence in the decisions of the majority, the vital 
principle of republics, from which there is no appeal 
but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent 
of despotism : a well disciplined militia, our best re- 
liance in peace, and for the first moments of war, till 
regulars may relieve them : the supremacy of the 
civil over the military authority : economy in the 
public expense, that labour may be lightly burdened : 
the honest payment of our debts and sacred preserva- 
tion of the public faith : encouragement of agriculture, 
and of commerce as its handmaid : the diffusion of 
information, and arraignment of all abuses at the bar 
of the public reason : freedom of religion ; freedom 
of the press ; and freedom of person, under the pro- 
tection of the habeas corpus : and trial by juries im- 
partially selected. These principles form the bright 
constellation, which has gone before us, and guided 
our steps through an age of revolution and reforma- 
tion. The wisdom of our sages, and blood of our 
heroes, have been devoted to their attainment : they 
should be the creed of our political faith, the text of 
civic instruction, the touchstone by v/hich to try the 
services of those we trust ; and should we wander 
from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us 
hasten to retrace our s(eps, and to regain the road 
which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety. 



" I repair, then, fellow-citizens, to the post you 
have assigned me. AVith experience enough in sub- 
ordinate oflices to have ^een the difficulties of this, 
the greatest of all, I have learned to expect that it 
will rarely fall to the lot of imperfect man, to retire 
from this station with the reputation, and the favour, 
which bring him into it. Without pretensions to 
that high confidence you reposed in our first and 
greatest revolutionary character, whose pre-eminent 
services had entitled him to the first pla,ce in his 
country's love, and destined for him the fairest page 
in the volume of faithful history, I ask so much 
confidence only as may give firmness and eflect to 
the legal administration of your affairs. I shall often 
go wrong through defect of judgment. When right, 
I shall often be thought wrong by those whose posi- 
tions will not command a view of the whole ground. 
I ask 5rour indulgence for my own errors, which will 
never be intentional ; and your support against the 
errors of others, who may condemn what they would 
not, if seen in all its parts. The approbation implied 
by your suflrage, is a great consolation to me for the 
past; and my future solicitude will be, to retain the 
good opinion of those who have bestowed it- in ad- 
vance, to conciliate that of others, by doing them all 
the good in my power, and to be instrumental to the 
happiness and freedom of all. 

" Relying then on the patronage of 3'our good will, 
I advance with obedience to the work, ready to re- 
tire from it whenever you become sensible how much 
better choices it is in your power to make. And may 
that infinite Power which rules the destinies of the 
universe, lead our councils to what is best, and give 
them a favourable issue foi your peace and pros- 
perity." 

A second census of the inhabitants of the United 
States was completed in 1801. They amounted to 
5,319,762, having in ten years increased nearly one 
million lour hundred thousand. In the same number 
of years the exports increased from nineteen to nine- 
ty-four millions, and the revenue from 4,771,000 to 
12,94.5,000 dollars. This rapid advance in the ca- 
reer of prosperity has no parallel in the history of 
nations, and is to be attributed principally to the in- 
stitutions of the country, which, securing equal pri- 
vileges to all, gave to the enterprise and industry of 
all free scope and full encouragement. 

In 1802, the state of Ohio was admitted into the 
union. It was formerly a portion of the north-west- 
ern territory, for the government of which, in 1787, 
an ordinance was passed by the continental congress. 
In thirty years from its first settlement, the number 
of its inhabitants exceeded half a million. The state 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



323 



of Tennessee, which was previonsly a part of North 
Carolina, and which hes between that state and the 
river Mississippi, had been admitted in 1796. 

The right of deposit at New Orleans, conceded to 
the citizens of the United States by Spain, and neces- 
sary to the people of the western country, had, until 
this period, been freely enjoyed. In October, tlie 
chief officer of that city prohibited the exercise .of it 
in future. This violation of a solemn engacemcnt 
produced, throughout the states of Ohio and Ken- 
tucky, indignant clamour and violent commotion. In 
congress a proposition was made to take possession 
by force of the whole province of Louisiana ; but a 
more pacific course was adopted. Knowing that the 
province had been ceded, although not transferred, to 
France, the president instituted a negotiation to ac- 
quire it by purchase. In April, 1803, a treaty was 
concluded, conveying it to the United States for fifteen 
millions of dollars. Its acquisition was considered 
by the United States of the greatest importance, as it 
gave them the entire control of a river which is one 
of the noblest in the world. * 

At this period, also, there was another important 
acquisition of territory. The friendly tribe of Kas- 
kaskia Indians, reduced by wars and other causes to 
a few individuals who were unable to defend them- 
selves against the neighbouring tribes, transferred its 
country to the United States ; reserving only a suf- 
ficiency to maintain its members in an agricultural 
way. The stipulations on the part of the United 
States were, to extend to them patronage and protec- 
tion, and to give them certain annual aids, in money, 
implements of agriculture, and other articles of their 
choice. This ceded country extends along the Mis- 
sissippi from the mouth of the Illinois to and up the 
Ohio ; and is esteemed as among the most fertile 
within the limits of the union. 

The United States had for some time enjoyed the 
undisputed repose of peace, with only one exception. 
Tripoli, the least considerable of the Barbary states, 
had made demands, founded neither in right nor in 
compact, and had denounced war on the failure of 
the American government to comply with them be- 
fore a given day. The president, on this occasion, 
sent a small squadron of frigates into the Mediterra- 
nean, with assurances to that power of the sincere 
desire of the American arovernment to remain in 
peace ; but with orders to protect our commerce 
against the threatened attack. It was a seasonable 
and salutary measure ; for the bey had already de- 
clared war ; and the American commerce in the 
Mediterranean was blockaded, while that of the At- 
lantic was in peril. The arrival of the squadron 



dispelled the danger. The Insurgente, which had 
been so honourably added to the American navy, 
and the Pickering-, of fourteen giuis, the former com- 
manded by Captain Fletcher, tlie latter by Captain 
Hillar. were lost in the equinoctial gale, in Septem- 
ber, 1800. In 1801, the Enterprise, of fourteen giuis, 
Captjun Sterrett, fell in with a Tripolilan ship of 
war of equal force. The action continued three 
hours and a half, the corsair fighting with great ob- 
stinacy, and evea desperation, until she struck, having 
lost fifty killed and wounded, while th."; Enterprise 
had not a man injured. In 1803, Commodore Preble 
assumed the command of the Mediterranean squadron, 
and after humbling the emperor of Morocco, who had 
begun a covert war upon American commerce, con- 
centrated most of his force before Tripoli. On ar- " 
riving ofl' that port. Captain Bainbridge, in the frigate 
Philadelphia, of forty-four guns, was sent into the 
harbour to reconnoitre. While in eager pursuit of a 
small vessel, he unfortunately advanced so far that 
the frigate grounded, and all attempts to remove her 
were in \'ain. The sea around her was immediately 
covered with Tripolitan gunboats, and Captain Bain- 
bridge was compelled to surrender. This misfortune, 
which threw a number of accomplished ofiicers and a 
valiant crew into oppressive bondage, and which shed 
a gloom over the whole nation, as it seemed at once 
to increase the difficulties of a peace a hundred fold, 
was soon relieved by one of the most daring and 
chivalrous exploits that is found in naval annals. 
Lieutenant Stephen Decatur, then one of Commodore 
Preble's subalterns, proposed a plan for re-capturing 
or destroying the Philadelphia. The American squad- 
ron was at that time lying at Syracuse. Agreeably 
to the plan proposed. Lieutenant Decatur, in the ketch 
Intrepid, four guns and seventy-five men, proceeded, 
under the escort of the Syren, Captain Stewart, to 
the harbour of Tripoli. The Philadelphia lay within 
half gun-shot of the bashaw's castle, and several 
cruisers and gunboats surrounded her with jealous 
vigilance. The Intrepid entered the harbour alone, 
about eight o'clock in the evening, and succeeded in 
getting near the Philadelphia, between ten and eleven 
o'clock, without having awakened suspicion of her 
hostile designs. This vessel had been captured from 
the Tripolitans, and, assuming on this occasion her 
former national appearance, was permitted to warp 
alongside, under the alleged pretence that she had 
lost all her anchors. The moment the vessel came 
in contact, Decatur and his followers leaped on board, 
and soon overwhelmed a crew which was paralyzed 
with consternation. Twenty of the Tripolitans ■ 
were killed. All the surrounding batteries being 



324 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



opened upon the Philadelphia, sh.e was immediately 
set on fire, and not abandoned until thorouglily 
wrapped in flames ; when, a favouring breeze spring- 
ing up, the Intrepid extricated herself from her prey, 
and sailed triumphantly out of the harbour amid the 
light of the conflagration. Not the slightest loss oc- 
curred on the side of the Americans to shade the 
splendour of the enterprise. 

In .Tuly, 1804, Commodore Preble brought to- 
gether all his forces before Tripoli, determined to 
try the effect of a bombardment. The enemy hav- 
ing sent some of his gunboats and galleys without 
the reef at the mouth of the harbour, tv.'o divisions 
of American gunboats were formed for the purpose 
of attacking them, while the large vessels assailed 
the batteries and town. On the 3d of August this 
plan was put in execution. The squadron ap- 
proached within gun-shot of the town, and opened a 
tremendous fire of shot and shells, which was as 
promptly returned by the Tripolitan batteries and 
shipping. At the same time the two divisions of 
gunboats, the first under the command of Captain 
Somers, the second under Captain Stephen Decatur, 
who had been promoted as a reward for his late 
achievement, advanced against those of the enemy. 
The squadron was about two hours under the en- 
emy's batteries, generally within pistol-shot, ranging 
by them in deliberate succession, alternately silen- 
cing their fires, and launching its thunders into the 
very palace of the bashaw ; while a more animated 
battle was raging in another quarter. Simulta- 
neously with the bombardment the American gun- 
boats had closed in desperate conflict with the enemy. 
Captain Decatur, bearing down upon one of superior 
force, soon carried her by boarding, when, taking 
his prize in tow, he grappled with another, and in 
hice manner transferred the fight to the enemy's 
dock. In the fierce encounter which followed this 
second attack. Captain Decatur, having broken liis 
sword, closed with the Turkish commander, and 
both falling in the struggle, gave him a mortal 
wound with a pistol-shot, just as the Turk was 
raising his dirk to plunge it into his breast. Lieu- 
tenant Trippe, of Captain Decatur's squadron, had 
boarded a third large gunboat, with only one mid- 
shipman and nine men, when his boat fell off, and 
left him to wage the unequal fight of eleven against 
thirty-six, which was the number of the enemy. 
Courage and resolution, however, converted this de- 
voted little band into a formidable host, which, after 
a sanguinary contest, obliged the numerous foe to 
yield, with the loss of fourteen killed and seven 
wounded. Lieutenant Trippe received eleven sabre 



wounds, and had three of his party wounded, I'ut 
none killed. Several bombardments and attd':ks 
succeeded each other at intervals throughout the 
month. Day after day death and devastation were 
poured into Tripoli with unsparing-perseverance, each 
attack exhibiting instances of valour and devotedness 
which will give lustre to history. The eyes of 
Europe were drawn to the spot where a young na- 
tion, scarcely emerged into notice, was signally 
chastising the despotic and lawless infidel, to whom 
some of her most powerful governments were then 
paying tribute. 

On the 4th of September, Commodore Preble, in 
order to try new experiments of annoyance, deter- 
mined to send a fireship into the enemy's harbour. 
The Intrepid was fitted out for this service, being filled 
with powder, shells, and other combustible materials. 
Captain Somers, who had often been the emulous 
rival of Decatur in the career of glory, was appoint- 
ed to conduct her in, having for his associates in 
the hazardous enterprise Lieutenants "VVadsworth 
an^ Israel, all volunteers. The Argus, Vixen, and 
Nautilus, were to convoy the Intrepid as far as the 
mouth of the harbour. Captain Somers and Lieu- 
tenant Wadsworth made choice of two of the fleet- 
est boats in the squadron, manned with picl;cd 
crews, to bring them out. At eight o'clock in ilie 
evening slie stood into the harbour with a moderate 
breeze. Several shot were fired at her from the 
batteries. She had nearly gained her place of des- 
tination when she exploded, without having made 
any of the signals previously concerted to show that 
the crew was safe. Night hung over the dreadful 
catastrophe, and left the whole squadron a prey to 
the most painful anxiety. The convoy hovered 
about the harbour until sunrise, when no rem.ains 
could be discovered either of the Intrepid or her 
boats. Doubt was turned into certainty, that she 
had prematurely blown up, as one of the enemy's 
gunboats was observed to be missing, and several 
others much shattered and damaged. Commodore 
Preble, in his account, says, that he was led to be- 
lieve " that those boats were detached from the 
enemy's flotilla to intercept the ketch, and without 
suspecting her to be a fireship, the missing boats had 
suddenly boarded her, when the gallant Somers and 
the heroes of his party observing the other three 
boats surrounding them, and no prospect of escape, 
determined at once to prefer death, and the destruc- 
tion of the enemy, to captivity and torturing slavery, 
put a match to the train leading directly to the 
magazine, which at once blew the whole into 
the air, and terminated their existence ;" and he 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



325 



adds, that his " conjectures respecting this affair are 
founded on a resolution which Captain Somers and 
Lieutenants Wadsworth and Israel had formed, 
neither to be taken by the enemv, nor suffer him to 
get possession of the powder on board the Intrepid."* 
Soon after these events, Commodore Preble gave up 
the command in the Mediterranean to Commodore 
Barron, and returned to the United States. His 

• Goldsborough's Naval Chronicle, p. 237. 

t In 1794, aproposilion was brought Ibrward for creating a navy, 
an-d after a sharp debate, a bill was passed by a majoriiy of two 
only, in the house of representatives, for building: four forty-four's 
and two thirty-six's. The most e.xperienced and skilful ship-build- 
ers in the country were sought for, and employed, and the work- 
began in earnest. Humphries and Hacket, master builders and 
modellers, did themselves great credit by the specimens they pro- 
duced, in 1798 and 1799, this country had built up a considera- 
ble navy; six forty-four's, three thirly-six's, .seven thirty-two's, and 
from fifteen to twenty, or more, smaller vessels of war. This sud- 
den creation of a naval force showed the maritime world, what the 
resources and energies of our nation were, whenever they should 
be pushed to develop them. In 1798, the nation were in a state of 
agitation, and the secretary of war, who was then charged with 
superintending the concerns of the navy, addressed a letter to the 
Hon. Samuel Sewall, ckn.irman of the commillce of Ike house of re- 
presenlnZives for the proteclion of commerce, and the defence of the 
couniry, containing his views of the necessary preparation for the 
exigencies of the times, to p'rotect our tcrrilory, properly, and sove- 
reigiUj. All our naval forces were soon put in requisition. An 
act was passed in May, 1798, which authorized " the president to 
direct our cruisers to seize, take, and bring into any port of the Uni- 
ted Slates, any vessel sailing under the authority of the French re- 
public, hovering on our coast for the purpose of committing depre- 
dations on vessels belonging to our citizens," &c. In conformity 
to this act. Captain Dale, in the Ganges, who had been fitted out 
with limited instructions, received those of a broader nature, but 
still limited to come strictly within the act of the 28th of May. 
During the summer, others were ordered out, and our commerce 
in the West India seas was well protected. Until this period, we 
\.a.d no regular and systematic arrangement in this department; 
'int at this period the cost of building and equipping the navies of 
other nations were examined, and rules for our own were readily 
to be found in them, if, in many items, they were considerably dif- 
ferent. The strongest arguments were used to show the propriety 
of efRcient measures, and were generally convincing and satisfac- 
tory. In this qxiasi war, as it was called by Mr. Adams at that 
time, the American navy took from the French republic, from 1798 
to 1801, between eighty and ninety armed vessels, and re-captured 
many American vessels, which the French cruisers had taken from 
the citizens of the United Slates. The most con.spicuous of the 
engagements in this naval contest, was that of the Constellation, 
Captain Truxton, and the Insurgenle, cf forty guns, and four hun- 
dred and nine men, in which the latter was taker ; and that of the 
same American s-hip and commander, with the Vengeance, a fifiy- 
four gun ship, which escaped after she had several times struck her 
flag. The next in point of size was the Eerceau, of twenty-four 
guns, and two hundred and twenty men, taken by the Boston, Cap- 
tain Little. Captain John Shaw, in the Enterprise, of twelve guns, 
captured six armed French vessels, and re-captured eleven Ameri- 
can vessels, in a cruise of eight months. In these engagcirients, in 
one of which he contended with superior force, he took forty-seven 
guns and three hundred and seventy-nine men, and in all of them 
together, the enemy had thirty-one killed and sixty-six wounded. 
Although there were a few mistakes in the naval affairs of that 
. period, yet, the whole course together, reflected the highest honour 
on our country, and gave evidence not only to France, but to the 
other nations, that we were fitted for a naval power, and should 
soon take our rank with the nations of Europe, on the high seas. 
Many young officers distinguished themselves, and gave early pro- 
mise of the high character which they have since sustained. The 



eminent services were enthusiastically acknowledged 
by his admiring fellow-citizens, as well as those of 
his associates in arms, " whose names," in the ex- 
pressive language of congress on the occasion, 
" ought to live in the recollection and affection of 
a grateful country, and whose conduct ought to be 
regarded as an example to future generations. "t 
While the squadron remained before Tripoli other 

whole cost of the creation and support of this navy was short of ten • 
millions of dollars; not equal to the revenue of our nation for one 
year of this war. 

Under the act of the third of Mnrch, 1801, all the ships and ves- 
sels belonging lo the navy of the United Slates, were sold, excepting 
thirteen, and these, mostly frigates ; tHey brought in the maikttbut 
a small proportion of their original cost. This sacrifice was a 
matter of no importance, in comparison wilh the glory we had 
gained; aye, something more than fame was gained. The success 
of our naval forces taught, not only otheis, but ourselves, that it did 
not require the pressure of a revolutionary struggle, to make us a 
maritime nation, in the true naval sense of the woid ; a nation who 
could make the greatest exertions to pioteet and extend a lawful 
commerce, upon the broadest basis. Avarice might have wished 
us to have risked nothing, and to have piiichasc(l our mercantile 
privileges by debasement and sycophancy to oilier nations; and li- 
midily preached lo us a long homily upon the mighty powers of 
these nations, and entered into deep calculations ujion the folly of 
risking any thing, when we were so weak and defenceless; but, 
thanks to heaven, the proud spirit of our lathers prevailed, and the 
honour of the nation was not compromised bj' parsimony or cow- 
ardice. It seemed a dream to all the woild, iliat a navy could rise 
upon the bosom of the ocean, by the power of an infant nation, in 
so sudden a manner. The fabled pines of Mount Ida were not 
formed into ships, for the fugitive Trojans, more rapidly than the 
oaks of our pasture-grounds and forests were thrown into naval 
batteries, for the protection of commerce, and our national dignity. 
Scarcely had it been published in Ihe English and coniinenlal ga- 
zelles, that our navy was sold otf, and that we were destitute of a 
ship of war, before the seas were whitened with the canvass of a 
navy from our porls, Ihat fled from no equal, and were caught by 
no superior force. 

Scarcely had our diflercnces wilh France been adjusted, befpre 
we were called lo contend with a new" foe; and then Ihe diminu- 
tion of our naval force was sorely fell. During our existence as 
colonies, our trade had been protected in the Mediterranean, by the 
naval power of the mother country; but after the peace of 1783, 
the protection of course ceased, and we were obliged to purchase 
an immunity from capture and slavery, from the sovereigniies of 
Morocco and Algiers. This tribute was gallins to a free people, 
but nothing else could be done lo save a valuable commerce, and 
we consoled ourselves that the most powerful christian nations had 
done the same, and some ol them were still doing the same ; and, 
in fact, all of them, in some way or olhcr, were slill tributai ies. In 
the year 1800, an indignity was oflered our Hag by the dey of Al- 
giers. The ship which was sent to carry our tribute was forcibly 
sent on a mission from Ihe dey to his master, Ihe Grand Seignior, 
and although it was managed in such a manner as to produce in 
the mind of the inasler,of the petty tyrant, a respect for the people 
of Ihe new world, by the address of the American commander, slill 
the insult was deeply felt in every part of our country. These 
powers on the coast of Africa were a terror to every mariner ; for 
he, who feared no storms, dreaded captivity in these countries more 
than death itself. The Barbary powers, Algiers, Tunis, Mororco. 
and Tripoli, had been the scourge of Christendom for ages. They 
had been pirates for a thousand years; from Ihe time Ihe Greeks 
had been driven from these shores lo the present day, Ihey had 
plundered the merchants trafficking in the Mediterranean, and made 
all persons Ihey could get into their po.ssession 'slaves ; and these 
unfortunate beings they either ransomed at a great price, or cruelly 
devoted to labour and insults of Ihe worst character. Spain, 
France, England, Portugal, Denmark, and Sweden, had suflered 



S26 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STA^fES. 



deeds of heroism were performed. William Eaton, 
who had been a captain in the American army, was, 
at the commencement of this war, consul at Tunis. 

immeasurably from the corsairs of lliese piratical governments, 
whenever they refused to pay a tribute for their safely. Tlicse 
corsairs were adventurous and skilful seamen, and lived and thrived 
on the depredations made on all " christian dogs," as they insult- 
ingly called their foe. They often swept the Adriatic, depredated 
on the coast of Spa-in, and Italy, and France, and infested all the 
seas of that region; and sometimes ventured on the Atlantic in 
search of prey. At different periods of history immense efforts 
had been made to subdue them. In the time of Ferdinand of 
Spain, he drove them from the seaboard, and for several years kept 
thein in fear and dread of him; but in 1615, Barbarossa, a Turk, 
and one who had been a corsair, got possession of Algiers, and by 
every species of cruelty and Jntrigue, extended his influence and 
power along the coast for some distance. He fell, as most tyianls 
have done, in violence and blood, and his brother became, for the 
security of him.self and friends, a tributary to the Grand Seignior. 
The formidable works erected by the Spaniards while they had pos- 
session of the country, were destroyed ; and with thirty thousand 
christian slaves, then unransomed, he built the wall and other works 
which now defend the city. Spain and Italy, and all Irne chris- 
tians, were in tortures at the treatment of their countrymen and 
fellow christians; and Charles V. of Spain, in 1641, made a bold 
elforl to extirpate this nest of pirates at once. With one hundred 
and twenty ships, twenty galleys, and thirty thousand men and gen- 
tlemen, who had entered into it from religious views, as it was con- 
sidered a holy war, he commenced his campaign. In this fickle 
climate the elements warred against him, and all this tremendous 
host were either destroyed by tempests, nr killed by the foe, or re- 
turned disheartened, notwithstanding the bull of the pope, and 
the blessing of the cardinals and priests upon the holy expedition. 
France once in later years, in a fit of resentment, made a spirited 
attack upon them, but did not follow il up with any permanent ef- 
forts. It seems mysterious, but so it was, that the United Slates 
should be the first power in modern times who could, or who did, 
keep in check the corsairs of those seas; and who dared to blow 
the castles round the heads of those who sought protection in them. 

In 1800, the bashaw of Tripoli was anxious to have tribute paid 
him also, and made his demand in a bold insulting manner. The 
Bey of Tunis also raised his voice for tribute. On the 15th of 
May, 1801, the bashaw of Tripoli declared war against the United 
Slakes. This was precisely the act our naval commanders were 
desirous of; but the horrors of slavery made a great impression upon 
the minds of some of our cit jzen.s, who clamoured to have every sa- 
crifice made, that we might be kept in security; fortunately this 
was not the general feeling. Before this declaration of war had 
been made, the president of the United Stales had sent Commodore 
Dale with a squadron of observation, consisting of three frigates 
and a schooner. His instructions were full of caution, yet not 
wanting in decision. On the 6th of August, 1801, Lieutenant 
Sterret, in the Enterprise, of twelve guns, took the first Tripolitan 
ship of war, or the first of any of these Barbary powers which ever 
struck to our flag. The prize mounted fourteen guns; she had 
twenty killed and thirty wounded in the action, but there was not 
an American injured. 

This fight fully showed our superiority in naval tactics and gun- 
nery over any thing these pirates conld produce. Early in 1802, 
B relief squadron was sent out to the Mediterranean ; Captain R. 
v. Morris was in command of il. The squadron was one of more 
efficiency than that of Commodore Dale's. It was well appointed, 
and provision made for ample supplies. In May, 1803, the bashaw 
of Tripoli proposed a peace ; his sine qua nom was two hundred 
thousand dollars, and the expenses of the war. The negotiation 
was instantly given up, and these terms considered inadmissible. 
He had become, however, quite tired of being blockaded in his ow^n 
port. In June, Captain Morris was suspended, for it became appa- 
rent that he did not act with sufficient energy ; nothing brilliant had 
teen done under his command. The trade it is true had been pro- 
tected, and probably he thought this the chief end of his duties. 
The secretary of the navy was not satisfied with this, and he ap- 



He there became acquainted with Hamet Caramanly, 
whom a younger brother had excluded from the 
throne of Tripoli. With him he concerted an ex- 



pointed Commodore Preble to take the command of the squadron. 
This was a fortunate appointment; Preble was a man of sterling 
talents, and well acquainted with his duty; of the most cool and 
determined bravery, and was panting for some occasion for distinc- 
tion. He had with him some noble spirits, Bainbridge, Decatur, 
and others, cast in the same mould, and animated by the same soul 
witli himself. The squadron had not only to blockade Tripoli, but 
to watch the movements of Algiers, Morocco, and Tunis; but on 
the dey of Algiers seeming in better nature than usual, and the 
emperor of Morocco coming to terms, Pieble made up his mind tc 
attack Tripoli with what force he had, and a few gun-boats he had 
hired at JS'aples. On the 3d of August, 1804, he made the first at- 
tack. These gun-boats gave our men an opporuinily of showing 
their personal strength, science, and bravery, in attack and defence ; 
for the combatants came, as in ancient limes, hand to hand and 
breast to breast. The minute details of this and the other attacks 
on this city, would furnish a story of as much jirowess and chival- 
rous gallantry as any of the warn in the Holy Land. The deeds of 
the lover-knights were then sung by the minstrel, and for ages after 
were breailied in bower and hall, and are not yet iorgotten, but still 
enamour the brave and the fair in this cool age of philosophy ; — shall 
our heroes want an historian 1 After the second attack, which was 
made on the 5th of the same month, the bashaw lowered his tcrn:s 
for peace, offering to take five hundred dollars for each prisoner, 
and require no stipulation for peace hereafter. This also was not 
admissible. On the 28th, another attack was made; and the next 
on tlie 3d of September. The fickleness of the seas in winter would 
not admit of any further attacks this season. T)ie next sunimei 
they were to be renewed with a vigorous determination to carry 
fire and sword into the palace of the bashaw. On the lOih of Sep- 
tember, Preble surrendered his command to Commodore Barron. 
The secretary said that this was a matter of necessity. The secre- 
tary was an honourable man. Enough was done to induce the 
bashaw to make peace on the 3d of June, 1805, on favourable terms, 
or rather on just terms. Thus ended a war which surprised the 
nations of Europe. They had often smiled to think tiie Uniteil 
States, a new-born nation, should be so presumptuous as to suppose 
that she could put down these predatory hordes, which had exacted 
tribute from all the commercial world, from time immemorial ; but 
it was done, and the lookers on were astonished at the events as 
they transpired. The Pope, who had ever been deeply interested 
in all these pagan wars, or rather, all these wars against pagan 
powers, declared that this infant nation had done more in a few 
years, in checking the insolence of these infidels, than all the na- 
tions of Europe for ages. The thunders of the Vatican had passed 
harmlessly over these pirates' heads, through more than ten succes- 
sors of St. Peter, until the United States had brought these infidels 
to terms by the absolute force of naval power. The head of the 
church saw that the people of a free nation had felt the degradation 
of paying tribute, and were deiennined to do so no longer than lliey 
could concentrate their energies, and direct them to bear upon the 
general foe of Christendom. The whole was indeed a wonder, that 
a nation that scarcely had risen into the great family of independent 
powers, should be able to grapple with, and in a measure subdue, 
these barbarians, who had been for so long a time the sconrgc of 
mankind. We had not taken one power alone, but all from the 
Atlantic to the Red Sea. The Doge, who had been wedded to the 
Adriatic, and promised for the dower of his bride, the dominion of 
the seas from the Delta of Egypt to the straits of Gibraltar, had 
never in the pride of aristocratic strength, claimed the honour of 
humbling the " insolent Turk" to the extent that the United Stales 
had done in a few years. The arm of liberty, when properly di- 
rected, was always deadly to despotism. These exertions gave our 
flag a rank among the nations of Europe, in these cla.ssical .seas, in 
which so great a proportion of all the sea-fights in the annals of 
man had taken place, from the early ages of fable and romance to 
modern times. The corsair, who had been the terror of the world, 
was now found a furious, but not unconquerable foe; and the bar- 
barians, whose tremendous fierceness had been the tale of wonder 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



3?7 



pedition against the reinning sovereign, and repaired 
to the United States to obtain permission and the 
means to undertake it. Perinission \Aais granted, 
the co-operation of the squadron recommended, and 
such pecuniary assistance as could be spared was 
afforded. To raise an army in Egypt, and lead it to 
attack the usurper in his dominions, was the pro- 
ject which had been concerted. In the beginning 
of 1805, Eaton met Hamet at Alexandria, and was 

in every age, seemed, in our mode of warfare, less dangerous than 
the aboriginals ve had been contending with from the cradle of our 
nation. We have sworn to pay no tribute in this region, but tliis 
were vain ; shall not the mighly dead demand the tribute of a tear? 
And shall this be denied 1 Shall not the lover of his country shed 
one sacred dew drop of nature to the niemoiy of Somers, Wads- 
worth, and Israel ■? Shall we repeat the glories of Salamis and of 
the Nile, and forget our own heroes who devoted themselves to de- 
struction for our honour 1 Oh! no; such actions are rare on the 
page of history, and shall not be forgotten ; the dullest of the sons 
of men .shall acknowledge that there docs exist, in the soul of the 
brave, a romantic love of country and of fame, when reminded of 
the deeds and fate of these victims; and shall we be wanting in 
these reminiscences ■? No; generous spirits ! you shall be brought 
forth on all proper occasions, and your country's historians charged 
with handing down to the latest posterity your noble sacrifice — that 
of self-immolation on your country's allar. Your business was to 
die, and you have finished it up; be it ours to take in charge your 
fame, and transmit it to future times. 

Here I shall stop as to the history of our navy, for all the inci- 
dents on which future history is to be founded, are fully blazoned 
in the newspapers of the daj', and so generally spread upon the 
pages of our literary and historical journals, that it would be 
premature, perhaps, to attempt to condense, connect, and correct 
them for history; the laurels of our navy are too green and dewy 
at this hour to be fit to garner up for preservation ; but suffice it now 
to say, that we are contented with the present size of our navy, and 
are proud of its fame in every stage of its growth. A navy should 
always be in proportion to the number, the wealth, the coinmerce, 
and the spirit of a people. It .should grow no faster than its duties 
are required, and never over represent the strength of a nation. 
Il5 growth should be so gradual that no ignorance of nautical sub- 
jects should ever be seen in the crew of a ship, and still new sailors 
should be instructed in every cruise. The greatest possible sci- 
ence and efficiency in the smallest possible cojnpass, should be the 
standing ma.xim of those who love a navy. It is not the creation 
of a navy, that we are now, as a nation, to think of; it is only the 
management and increase of that navy, that should be brought for- 
ward as subjects of consideration ; and for this increase we can 
have no particular an-iiety. Skilful artizans to build a navy have 
never been wanting in this country since its earliest days ; they 
abound now, and are possessed of all the improvements in the art 
of ship-building; and these are not a few. On our part of this 
continent we have timber enough for all the navies of the world ; 
our forests and pastures produce it faster than it can be used ; and 
science has taught us to make as much again as we used to, of 
what we have. In addition to these great stores, the providence of 
a late secretary of the navy, with the assistance of congress, has 
secured an abundance of the best of live oak, by reserving for the 
use of the government, an immense forest of this growth in Flori- 
da. This cost the nation but little more than the sagacious efforts 
of a man of political forecast; the worth of a statesman is seldom 
known until he passes away; and those who do the most good, 
often share the fate that the ignorant and time-serving deserve, or 
a worse one. We can never want for sailors, as long as our cod 
and whale fi.shery are pursued, and our foreign commerce is pro- 
tected. 

Our mariners have amounted to one hundred and eight thousand, 
and over; a fourth part of these can, on an emergency, be spared 
for the navy, and these, with a small proportion of fresh recruits, 

42 



appointed general of his forces. On the 6th of 
March, at the head of a respectable body of mounted 
Arabs, and about seventy Christians, he set out for 
Tripoli. His route lay across a desert one thousand 
miles in extent. On his march, he encountered 
peril, fatigue, and sutTering, the description of which 
would resemble the exaggerations of romance. On 
the 2.5th of April, having been fifty days on the 
march, he arrived before Derne, a Tripolitan city on 



would instantly make up a most formidable force for naval opera- 
tions. The iron and hemp, or its substitute, cotton, can easily be 
found here, and will be supplied as fast as wanted. The only ma- 
teriel we were ever charged to be wanting in, was scientific navi- 
gators, not liardy seamen, and these we are every day .schooling 
for our requisitions. The two hundred and fifty lieutenants, and 
the four hundred and sixteen midshipmen, will supply the place of 
those who, in the course of nature, pass away, and the list of our 
veteran naval olEcers is rapidly diminishing. Tho.se who come 
up will not naturally be greater men than their predecessors ; but 
it will not be denied thai their advantages for obtaining knowledge 
will be much greater. Bravery remains as it has been — and how 
could it be exceeded 1 — nautical science is advancing with us as in 
other countries. There is not a discovery in agriculture, the arts, 
or in manufacturing, that has not a bearing upon our navy, directly 
or indirectly. The cost of building, supporting, and educating a 
navy, is now nearly reduced to a standing certainty. The peojile 
can at once make calculations for themselves; there is no mystery 
about the matter ; for they can at a glance estimate the expenses 
of this branch of power. One man from every hundred persons, 
in our communitj', and two days labour every year for those per- 
sons in our countr)' capable of labour, will support a navy far su- 
perior to whatever the most ambitious statesman will ever ask of 
the country. And to whom is this paidl All to ourselves: mil- 
lions for defence^ biit not a cejit for tribute^ was the maxim of ottr in- 
fancy as a nation. This will be perpetual ; but a wiser one v ill 
he, never to ask, or seek for that power, that will make other na- 
tions tributary to us, except through the medium of a liberal reci- 
procity in commerce. That nation is hated, however much it may 
be feared, who domineers over another from the mere conscious, 
ness of power; and that nation despised, that succumbs, while it 
can maintain its existence and independence by any sacrifices 
whatever. We must not be too impatient for greatness; we are 
indeed apt to be so, for we have witnessed what no other nation 
has before seen, a people grow as rapidly into wealth and power as 
an enterprising individual ever did. Other nations have waited 
for centuries, for what we have experienced in the course of half 
a human life, a fourfold increase. The growth of the navy of our 
mother country, has been slow, compared with ours; but in triiih 
no comparison exists. They made their navy for self-existence, 
and for an extension of power ; ours grew out of a spirit of inde- 
pendence, and will, we trust, be maintained for the same glorious 
principle. But if all the ships we now own, were sunk in llie 
ocean, and every navy officer with them, gallant, skilful, and in- 
telligent as they are, the American navy would not be destroyed. 
The navy exists in the hearts and wills of the people; and in the 
event of its destruction, it would be re-created as certain as the ex- 
istence of the nation ; all prejudices against a navy have been over- 
come and destro)'ed for ever; and this is sufficient. The perma- 
nence of our navy depends on public opinion, and this is made up 
irrevocably. The decree of this republic has gone forth ; and none 
but the God of battles can rever.se it, and that decree is, llie United 
States must and shall be a naval power, and hrrfag shall he respected 
in every quarter of the globe. This decree rests on no contingency, 
no change of parly, no particular administration of government ; il 
is incorporated with our habits, it is a good share of our feelings, 
and it is, also, a part of our fame. A mighty, a growing people, 
whose impulses are " thought-execuling f-res," and whose sealed de- 
termination is fate, have lifted their voice, and it must be obeyed. 
— American Editor, 



328 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



the Mediterranean, and found in the harbour a part of 
the American squadron destined to assist him. He 
learnt also that the usurper, having received notice 
of his approach, had raised a considerable army, and 
was then within a day's march of the city. No time 
was therefore to be lost. The next morning he 
summoned the governor to surrender, who returned 
for answer, " My head or yours." The city was 
assaulted, and after a contest of two hours and a half, 
possession was gained. The Christians suffered 
severely, and the general was slightly wounded. 
Great exertions were immediately made to fortify 
the city. On the Sth of May it was attacked by the 
Tripolitan army. Although ten times more numer- 
ous than Eaton's band, the assailants, after persisting 
four hours in the attempt, were compelled to retire. 
On the 10th of June another battle was fought, in 

• Every country has its own chivalrous characters, and our own, 
young as it is, abounds in them. A volume would not contain the 
names of Ihose who have passed the ordinary bounds of duty, in the 
high callings of patriotic disjilay. From John Smith and Miles 
Siandisii, down to Wadsworth and his gallant friends, who made 
themselves a sacrifice on the altar of their country's glory, there 
have not been wanting men who emulated the heroes of antiquity. 
Among these may be ranked William Eaton, who was born at 
Woodstock, in Connecticut, on the 20lh of February, 1764. His 
father was a small farmer, and William was one of thirteen chil- 
dren. He was considered a bright boy, and distinguished himself 
in the common school in his native town, the good people of which 
thought him destined to make a superior man; but nothing offering 
to suit him in the way of traffic, or as a profession, lie, at sixteen 
years of age, enlisted as a common soldier. In this situation he 
remained until 1783, when he was discharged with the rank of 
corporal. He was now determined on the study of the languages, 
and by dint of application, yet with very litlle a.ssistance, he pre- 
pared himself to enter Dartmouth college. On leaving college, in 
order to earn a subsistence, he commenced a school, which he con- 
tinued for three years; but he was not satisfied with his employ- 
ment, and panted for something of a more active nature. The 
house of representatives in the state of Vermont, made him, for a 
time, their clerk, after which, by the recommendations of individu- 
als of that slate, he obtained a captain's commission in the army of 
the United States. He proceeded to the frontiers with his compa- 
ny, where he served under General Wayne, and gained the repu- 
tation of a gallant officer. In 1797, he was apjiointed consul at 
Tunis. In the discharge of his duties in this office, he was fre- 
quently embroiled with the Bey, and his life endangered by the 
daring and independent course he pursued. He may be said to 
have bearded the barbarian in his castle. The course of his con- 
duct in this situation was such as no representative of any christian 
power had ever set an example, and he escaped death by a miracle. 
About this time, the bashaw of Tripoli declared war against the 
United Slates. The reigning bashaw was a usurper, and the law- 
ful one, his brother, was at Tunis, in exile. Eaton concerted a 
plan with the exile, to attack Tripoli by land, while our squadron 
should co-operate with thern, on the sea shore. Eaton returned to 
the United Slates, and laid his plan before our government ; but 
they, thinking the scheme altogether too romantic, yet not wishing 
wholly to discourage it, made him agent for the government; and 
he sailed with the fleet for the Mediterranean. He proceeded to 
Alexandria, and by address and management, prevailed on the 
viceroy of Egypt to suffijr him to have an interview with the exiled 
Bey, who was now among the Mamalukes, in a most distressed 
situation. They met near Grand Cairo, and entered into a con- 
vention for the purpose of attacking Tripoli. Eaton was to be 
tommander in chief of the land forces. Their army consisted of a 



which the enemy were defeated. The next day tht 
American frigate Constitution arrived in the harbour, 
which so terrified the Tripolitans that they fled pre 
cipitately to the desert. The frigate came, however, 
to arrest the operations of Eaton in the midst of his 
brilliant and successful career. Alarmed at his 
progress, the reigning bashaw had ofl'ered terms of 
peace, which, being much more favourable than had 
before been offered, were accepted by Mr. Lear, the 
autliorized agent of the government. Sixty thousand 
dollars were given as a ransom for the unfortunate 
American prisoners, and an engagement was made 
to withdraw all support from Hainet. The nation, 
proud of the exploits of Eaton,' regretted this diplo- 
matic interference, but the treaty was subsequently 
ratified by the president and senate. 

During the year 1S04 the Del^tware Indians re- 
few American sailors, a small company of artillery, a few strag- 
gling Greeks, the servants of Hamet Bashaw, and some camel 
drivers. With this motley band, he dashed across the desert, in 
the most noble style, fearless of all difficulties. They were joined 
by a few Arabian cavalry, and after sulfering every hardship, 
arising Irom hunger, thirst, and a scorching sun, they reached 
Bomba, where they found ihe Argus and Hornet, under the com- 
mand of Captain Hull, who supplied him and his men with provi- 
sions. The army of near four liundred, continued their march to 
Derne. On the 25th of April, 1804, they encamped near the city, 
on an eminence which commanded the place, and forthwith sent in a 
flag to demand a surrender. The inhabitants of Derne thought the 
exiled Bey was demented, and treated Ihe summons with contempt. 
A furious assault was made by this strange army, and the place 
was carried after a short, but desperate action. Sixteen days after- 
wards, several thousand troops of the bashaw's army attacked the 
victors, but were repulsed wilh great loss. Shortly after llns, 
another attack was made upon Eaton's forces, and again the Tri- 
politans -were defeated. Eight days after this engagement, another 
battle was fought, in which Ealon contended with ten times his 
force. In this he would have been successful, but at the precise 
moment when victory was about to perch on his adventurous stand- 
ard, he received the appalling intelligence, ihat the American com- 
missioners in the fleet, had made a peace wilh the bashaw then in 
power. It was stipulated, that Eaton should evacuate Derne, and 
repair to the fleet. This was a death-blow to his hopes. He fell 
himself insulted and disgraced, to be obliged, after all his e.Nerliuns 
and sacrifices, to leave his friends like a recreant or a coward ; but 
there was no other course for him to pursue. Hamet Bashaw came 
to the United Slates, with a few of his followers, and the remaindcj 
of the army fled to the mountains. The commissioners acknow- 
ledged that his success paved the way to the treaty of peace. The 
president of the United States, in a message to congress, spoke 
highly of General Eaton's services ; and the citizens every where 
hailed him as worthy of a place in the lists of chivaliy. 

Something more substantial than praise was awarded him by ihe 
state of Massachusetts, the legislature of which granted him 10,000 
acres of land, as a reward for his heroism and services. Yet, not- 
withstanding all the honours bestowed on him, his feelings were 
wounded beyond a cure. He could not forget lhat the laurel w as 
within his grasp, and that it had been snatched from him, as he 
thought, by envious feelings at his prospect of brilliant success. 
The people of the town in which he resided, elected him as their 
repiesentalive to the legislature of Massachusetts, and he was re- 
ceived in Boston with every mark of attention. There he enter-cd 
deeply into public business, and seemed anxious to become an ora- 
tor. He had a good voice, a fine command of expressive language, 
and at first made a strong impre.ssion upon the public ; but he talked 
when he had not examined the subject, and often involved himself 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



329 



linquished to the United States their title to an ex- 
tensive tract east of the Mississippi, between the Wa- 
bash and Ohio, for which they were to receive annui- 
ties in animals and implements for agriculture, and 
in other necessaries. This was an important acqui- 
sition, not only for its extent and fertility, but be- 
cause, by its commanding the Ohio for three hun- 
dred miles, and nearly half that distance the Wabash, 
the produce of the settled country could be safely 
conveyed down those rivers, and, with the cession re- 
cently made by the Kaskaskias, it neai'ly consolidated 
the possessions of the United States north of the 
Ohio, from Lake Erie to the Mississippi. 

Early in the following year Mr. Jefferson was re- 
elected to fill the president's chair by the decided 
majority of sixty-two votes against sixteen, a cir- 
cumstance which he viewed as an indication of a 
great decay in the strength of the federal party.* 
George Clinton was also elected vice-president. 

The American government at this period began 
to be seriously affected by the contest ■w^iich was 
raging in Europe. Under the guidance of the 
splendid talents of Napoleon the military prowess of 
France had brought most of the European nations 
to her feet. England, however, still retained almost 
undisputed command of the ocean, expelling every 
hostile navy from the seas. America profited from 
the destruction of the ships and commerce of other 
nations ; being neutral, her vessels carried from 
port to port the productions of France and the de- 
pendant kingdoms ; and also to the ports of those 
kingdoms the manufactures of England : indeed, 
few ships were found on the ocean except those of 
the United States and Great Britain. These advan- 
tages were, however, too great to be long enjoyed 
unmolested. American ships carrying to Europe 
the produce of French colonies were, in the early 
stage of the war, captured by British cruisers, and 
condemned by their courts as lawful prizes ; and 
now several European ports under the control of 
France were, by British orders in council, dated in 
May, 1806, declared in a state of blockade, although not 
invested with a British fleet ; and American vessels 
attempting to enter those ports were also captured 
and condermied. France and her allies suffered, as 
well as the United States, from these proceedings ; 
but her vengeance fell not so much upon the belli- 



in blunders, from which he had no art to get free ; and at length 
lost his influence in debate. He was chafed by the slightest oppo- 
sition, and such irritability will never do for one who enters upon 
the arena of debate. He became irregular in his habits, and sought 
10 drown his sorrows in the wine cup; but he forgot that miserie.» 
6re sadly multiplied by drink, as images are in the vision of the 



gerent as upon the neutral party. By a decree, 
issued at Berlin in November, 1S06, the Frencli 
emperor declared tlie British Islands in a state of 
blockade, and of course authorized the capture of all 
neutral vessels attempting to trade with those islands. 
From these measures of both nations the commerce 
of the United States severely suflered, and their 
mercliants loudly demanded of the government re 
dress and protection. 

This was not the only grievance to which the 
contest between the European powers gave rise. 
Great Britain claimed a right to search for and seize 
English sailors, even on board neutral vessels while 
traversing the ocean. In the exercise of this pre- 
tended right, citizens of the United States were 
seized, dragged from their friends, transported to 
distant parts of the world, compelled to perform the 
duty of British sailors, and to fight with nations at 
peace with their own. Against this outrage upon 
personal liberty and the rights of American citizens, 
Washington, Adams, and Jefferson had remonstrated 
in vain. The abuse continued, and every year 
added to its aggravation. In June, 1S07, a circum 
stance occurred which highly and justly incensed the 
Americans. The frigate Chesapeake, being ordered 
on a cruise in the Mediterranean sea, under the com- 
mand of Commodore Barron, sailing from Hampton 
Roads, was come up with by the British ship of war 
Leopard, one of a squadron then at anchor within 
the Hmits of the United States. An oflicer was sent 
from the Leopard to the Chesapeake, with a note 
from the captain respecting some deserters from some 
of his Britannic majesty's ships, supposed to be ser- 
ving as part of the crew of the Chesapeake, and 
enclosing a copy of an order from Vice-Admiral 
Berkeley, requiring and directing the commanders of 
ships and vessels under his command, in case of 
meeting with the American frigate at sea, and with- 
out the limits of the United States, to show the order 
to her captain, and to require to search his ship for 
the deserters from certain ships therein named, and 
to proceed and search for them ; and if a similar de- 
mand should be made by the American, he was per- 
mitted to search for deserters from their service, ac- 
cording to the customs and usage of civilized nations 
on terms of amity with each other. Commodore 
Barron gave an answer, purporting that he knew of 



inebriated. He died in 181 1. In some of his compositions, there 
is a depth anfl force that is impressive. His mind was of an epic 
cast and had he lived in the days of the crusades, his name would 
have been numbered with the Dunois' of song. — Knapp's American 
Biography. 

• Memoirs and Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson, vol. iv. p. 31, 



330 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



no such men as were described ; that tlie recruiting 
oflicers for the Chesapeake had been particularly in- 
structed by the government, through him, not to en- 
ter any deserters from his Britannic Majesty's ships ; 
that he knew of none such being in her ; that he 
was instructed never to permit the crew of any sliip 
under his command to be mustered by any officers 
but her own ; that he was disposed to preserve har- 
mony, and hoped liis answer would prove satisfac- 
tory. The Leopard, shortly after this answer was 
received by her commander, ranged along side of the 
Chesapeake, and commenced a heavy fire upon her. 
The Chesapeake, unprepared for action, made no re- 
sistance, but having suffered much damage, and lost 
three men killed, and eighteen wounded, Connnodore 
Earron ordered his colours to be struck, and sent a 
lieutenant on board the Leopard, to inform her com- 
mander that he considered the Chesapeake her 
prize. The commander of the Leopard sent an 
officer on board, who took possession of the Chesa- 
peake, mustered her crew, and, carrying off four of 
her men, abandoned the ship. Commodore Barron, 
findmg that the Chesapeake was very much injured, 
returned, with the advice of his officers, to Hampton 
Roads. On receiving information of this outrage, 
the president, by proclamation, interdicted the har- 
bours and waters of the United States to all armed 
British vessels, forbade intercourse with thein, and 
ordered a sufficient force for the protection of Nor- 
folk, and such other preparations as the occasion appear- 
ed to require. An armed vessel of the United States 
was despatched with instructions to the American 
minister at London to call on the British govern- 
ment for the satisfaction and security which this 
outrage required. 

Bonaparte having declared his purpose of enfor- 
cing with rigour the Berlin decree ; the British go- 
vernment having solemnly asserted the right of search 
and impressment, and having intimated their inten- 
tion to adopt measures in retaliation of the French 
decree, the president recommended to congress that 
the seamen, ships, and merchandise of the United 
States should be detained in port to preserve them 
from the dangers which threatened them on the 
ocean ; and a law laying an indefinite embargo was 
in consequence enacted. A few days only had 
elapsed when information was received that Great 
Britain had prohibited neutrals, except upon most 
injurious conditions, from trading with France or 
her allies, comprising nearly every maritime nation 
of Europe. This was followed in a few weeks by 
a decree issued by Bonaparte, at Milan, declaring 
that every neutral vessel which should submit to be 



visited by a British ship, or comply with the terms 
demanded, should be confiscated, if afterwards found 
in his ports, or taken by his cruisers. Thus, at the 
date of the embargo, were orders and decrees in ex- 
istence rendering liable to capture almost every 
American vessel sailing on the ocean. In the New 
England states, the embargo, withholding the mer- 
chant from a career in which he had been highly 
prosperous, and in which he imagined that he might 
still be favoured by fortune, occasioned discontent and 
clamour. The federalists, more numerous there than 
in any other part of the union, pronounced it a measure 
unwise and oppressive. These representations, and 
the distress which the people endured, induced a zeal- 
ous opposition to the measures of the goArernment. 

The president, in his message on the opening of 
the tenth congress, stated the continued disregard 
shown by the belligerent nations to neutral rights, so 
destruciive to the American commerce ; and referred 
it to the wisdom of congress to decide on the course 
best adapted to such a state of things. " With the 
Barbary powers," he said, " we continue in harmony, 
with the exception of an unjustifiable proceeding of 
the dey of Algiers towards our consul to that regency," 
the character and circumstances of which he laid 
before congress. " With our Indian neighbours the 
public peace has been steadily maintained. From a 
conviction that we consider them as a part of our- 
selves, and cherish with sincerity their rights and 
interests, the attachment of the Indian tribes is gain- 
ing strength daily, is extending from the nearer to 
the more remote, and will amply requite us for the 
justice and friendship practised towards them. Hus- 
bandry and household manufacture are advancing 
among them, more rapidly with the southern than 
northern tribes, from circumstances of soil and cli- 
mate ; and one of the two great divisions of the 
Cherokee nation has now under consideration to soli- 
cit the friendship of the United States, and to be 
identified with us in laws and government in such 
progressive manner as we shall think best." 

Mr. Jefferson, following and confirming the exam- 
ple of Washington, determined not to continue in 
office for a longer term than eight years. " Never 
did a prisoner," says the president of the American 
republic, " released from his chains, feel such relief 
as I shall on shaking off the shackles of power. 
Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of 
science, by rendering them my supreme delight- 
But the enormities of the times in which I have 
lived have forced me to take a part in resisting them, 
and to commit myself 'on the boisterous ocean of 
political passions. I thank God for the opportunity 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



331 



of retiring from them without censure, and carrying 
with me the most consoling proofs of public appro- 
bation. I leave every thing in the hands of men so 
able to take care of them, that if we are destined to 
meet misfortunes it will be because no human wisdom 
could avert them."* 



CHAPTER V. 

ADMINISTRATION OF MR. MADISON. 

Mr. Jefferson was succeeded in the presidency 
by Mr. Madison. He stated in his inaugural address, 
that, " Unwilling to depart from examples of the 
most revered authority, I avail myself of the occa- 
sion, now presented, to express the profound im- 
pression made on me by the call of my country to 
the station, to the duties of which I am about to 
pledge myself, by the most solemn of sanctions. So 
.distinguished a mark of confidence, proceeding from 
the deliberate and tranquil suffrage of a free and 
virtuous nation, would, under any circumstances, 
have commanded my gratitude and devotion, as well 
as filled me with an awful sense of the trust to be 
assumed. Under the various circumstances which 
give peculiar solemnity to the existing period, I feel, 
that both the honour and the responsibility, allotted 
to me, are inexpressibly enhanced. 

" The present situation of the world is indeed 
without a parallel ; and that of our country full of 
difficulties. The pressure of these too is the more 
severely felt, because they have fallen upon us at a 
moment, when national prosperity being at a height 
not before attained, the contrast resulting from this 
change has been rendered the more strildng. Under 
the benign influence of our republican institutions, 
and the maintenance of peace with all nations, 
whilst so many of them where engaged in bloody 
and wasteful wars, the fruits of a just policy were 
enjoyed in an unrivalled growth" of our faculties and 
resources. Proofs of this were seen in the improve- 
ments of agriculture ; in the successful enterprises of 
commerce ; in the progress of manufact«res and use- 
ful arts ; in the increase of the public revenue, and 
the use made of it in reducing the public debt ; and 
in the valuable works and establishments every where 
multiplying over the face of our land. 

" It is a precious reflection, that the transition from 
this prosperous condition of our country to the scene, 
which has for some time been distressing us, is not 



♦ Memoirs, &c. vol. iv. p. 129. 



chargeable on any unwarrantable views, nor, as I trust, 
on any involuntary errors in the public councils. In- 
dulging no passions which trespass on the rights or 
the repose of other nations, it has been the true glory 
of tlie United States to cultivate peace, by observing ■ 
justice, and to entitle tliemselves to the respect of the 
nations at war by fulfilling their neutral" obligations 
with the most scrupulous impartiality. If there be 
candour in the world, the truth of these assertions will 
not be questioned. Posterity at least will do justice 
to them. 

" This unexceptionable course could not avail against 
the injustice and violence of the belligerent powers. 
In their rage against each other, or impelled by more 
direct motives, principles of retaliation have been in- 
troduced, equally contrary to universal reason and ac- 
knowledged law. How long their arbitrary edicts will 
be continued in spite of the demonstrations, that not 
even a pretext for them has been given by the United 
States, and of the fair and liberal attempts to induce 
a revocation of them, cannot be anticipated. Assur-* 
ing myself, that under every vicissitude, the determined 
spirit and united councils of the nation will be safe- 
guards to its honour, and its essential interests, I repair 
to the post assigned me with no other discouragement 
than what springs from my own inadequacy to its high 
duties. If I do not sink under the weight of this deep 
conviction, it is because I find some support in a con- 
sciousness of the purposes, and a confidence in the 
principles which I bring with me into this arduous 
service. 

" To cherish peace and friendly intercourse with all 
nations having correspondent dispositions ; to main- 
tain sincere neutrality towards belligerent nations ; to 
prefer, in all cases, amicable discussions and reason- 
able accommodation of difl"crences, to a decision of 
them by an appeal to arms ; to exclude foreign in- 
trigues and foreign partiahties, so degrading to all coun- 
tries and so baneful to free ones ; to foster a spirit of 
independence, too just to invade the rights of others, 
too proud to surrender our own, too liberal to indulge 
unworthy prejudices ourselves, and too elevated not to 
look down upon them in others ; to hold the union of 
the states as the basis of their peace and happiness ; 
to support the constitution, which is the cement of the 
union, as well in its limitations as in its authorities ; 
to respect the rights and authorities reserved to the 
states and to the peeple, as equally incorporated with 
and essential to the success of the general system ; to 
avoid the slightest interference with the rights of con- 
science or the functions of religion, so wisely exempt- 
ed from civil jurisdiction ; to preserve, in their full 
eneroy, the other salutary provisions in behalf of pri- 



332 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



viite and personal rights, and of the freedom of the 
press ; to observe economy in public expenditures ; to li- 
berate the public resources by an honourable discharge 
of the public debts ; to keep within the requisite limits 
a standing military force, always remembering, that 
an armed and trained militia is the firmest bulwark 
of republics, that without standing armies their liberty 
can never be in danger, nor, with large ones, safe ; to 
promote, by authorized means, improvements friendly 
to agriculture, to manufactures, and to external as well 
'\is internal commerce ; to favour, in like manner, the 
advancement of science and the diffusion of informa- 
tion, as the best aliment to true liberty ; to carry on 
the benevolent plans which have been so meritorious- 
ly applied to the conversion of our aboriginal neigh- 
bours, from the degradation and wretchedness of sa- 
vage life, to a participation of the improvements of 
which the human mind and manners are susceptible 
in a civilized state : — as far as sentiments and inten- 
tions such as these can aid the fulfilment of my duty, 
they will be a resource which cannot fail me. 

" It is my good fortune, moreover, to have the path 
in which I am to tread, lighted by examples of illus- 
trious services, successfully rendered in the most try- 
ing difficulties, by those who have marched before me. 
Of those of my immediate predecessor, it might least 
become me here to speak ; I may, however, be par- 
doned for not suppressing the sympat^iy, with which 
my heart is full, in the rich reward he enjoys in the 
benedictions of a beloved country, gratefully bestowed 
for exalted talents, zealously devoted, through a long 
career, to the advancement of its highest interest and 
happiness. But the source to \vhich I look for the 
aids, which alone can supply my deficiences, is in the 
well tried intelligence and virtue of my fellow-citizens, 
and in the councils of those representing them in tlie 
other departments associated in the care of the na- 
tional interests. In these, my confidence will, under 
every difficulty, be best placed ; next to that, we 
have all been encouraged to feel in the guardianship 
and guidance of that Almighty Being, whose power 
regulates the destiny of nations, whose blessings have 
been so conspicuously dispensed to this rising repub- 
lic, and to whom we are bound to address our devout 
gratitude for the past, as well as our fervent suppli- 
cations and best hopes for the future." 

One of the first acts of congress under the new 
president was to repeal the embargo ; but at the 
same time to prohibit all intercourse with France and 
England. 

In the non-intercourse law a provision was insert- 
ed, that if either nation should revoke her hostile 
edicts, and the president should announce that fact 



by proclamation, then the law should cease to be in 
force in regard to the nation so revoking. On tlie 
23d of April, Mr. Erskine, minister plenipotentiary 
from his Britannic majesty to the United States, 
pledged his court to repeal its anti-neutral decrees by 
the 10th of June ; and, in consequence of an arrange- 
ment now made with the British minister, the presi- 
dent proclaimed that commercial intercourse would 
be renewed on that day ; but this arrangement was 
disavowed by the ministry; and, in October, Mr. 
Erskine was replaced by Mr. Jackson, who soon 
giving ofience to the American government, all fur- 
ther intercourse with him was refused, and he was 
recalled. 

The Rambouillet decree, alleged to be designed to 
retaliate the act of congress, which forbade French 
vessels to enter the ports of the United States, was 
issued by Bonaparte on the 23d of March. By this 
decree, all American vessels and cargoes, arriving in 
any of the ports of France, or of countries occupied 
by French troops, were ordered to be seized and 
condemned. 

On the 1st of May congress passed an act, exclu- 
ding British and French armed vessels from the 
waters of the United States ; but providing, that if 
either of the above nations should modify its edicts 
before the 3d of March, 1811, so that they should 
cease to violate neutral commerce, of which fact the 
president was to give notice by proclamation, and the 
other nation should not, within three months after, 
pursue a similar course, commercial intercourse with 
the first might be renewed, but not with the other. 

In August the French government assured Mr. 
Armstrong, the American envoy at Paris, that the 
Berlin and Milan decrees were revoked, the revoca- 
tion to take effect on the first day of November ensu- 
ing. Confiding in this assurance, the president, on 
the second day of November, issued his proclamation, 
declaring that unrestrained commerce with France 
was allowed, but that all intercourse with Great Bri- 
tain was prohibited. 

Great Britain having previously expressed a will- 
ingness to repeal her orders, whenever France should 
repeal her decrees, was now called upon by the 
American envoy to fulfil that engagement. The 
British ministry objected, however, that the French 
decrees could not be considered as repealed, a letter 
from the minister of state not being, for that purpose, 
a document of sufiicient authority ; and still persist- 
ed to enforce the orders in council. For this pur- 
pose British ships of war were stationed before the 
principal harbours of the United States. All Ameri- 
can merchantmen, departing or returning, were 



i 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



333 



boarded, searched, and many of them sent to British 
ports as legal prizes. The contempt in which the 
British officers held the Republican navy, in one in- 
stance, led to an action. Commodore Rogers, in the 
President frigate, met in the evening a vessel on the 
coast of Virginia : he hailed ; but, instead of receiv- 
ing an answer, was hailed in turn, and a shot was fired, 
which struck the mainmast of the President. The 
fire was instantly returned by the commodore, and 
continued for a few minutes, \vhen, finding his anta- 
gonist was of inferior force, and that her guns wer« 
almost silenced, he desisted. On hailing again, an 
answer was given, that the ship M'as the British sloop 
of war. Little Belt, of eighteen guns. Thirty-two of 
her men were killed and wounded, and the ship was 
much disabled. 

For several years the Indian tribes, residing near 
the sources of the Mississippi, had occupied themselves 
in murdering and robbing the white settlers in their 
vicinity. At length the frontier inhabitants, behig 
seriously alarmed by their hostile indications, in the 
autumn of 181 1 Governor Harrison resolved to move 
towards the Prophet's town, on the AN^abash, with a 
body of Kentucky and Indiana militia, and the fourth 
United States regiment, under Colonel Boyd, to de- 
mand satisfaction of the Indians, and to put a stop to 
their threatened hostilities. His expedition was 
made early in November. On his approach within 
a few miles of the Prophet's town, the principal chiefs 
came out with offers of peace and submission, and 
requested the governor to encamp for the night ; but 
this was only a treacherous artifice. At four in the 
morning the camp was luriously assailed, and a 
bloody contest ensued ; the Indians were however 
repulsed. The loss on the part of the Americans 
was sixty-two killed, and one hundred and twenty- 
six woimded, and a still greater number on the side 
of the Indians. Governor Harrison, having destroy- 
ed the Prophet's town, and established forts, returned 
to Vincennes. 

In November reparation was made by the British 
for the attack on the Chesapeake. Mr. Foster, the 
British envoy, informed the secretary of the United 
States, that he was instructed to repeat to the Ameri- 
can government the prompt disavowal made by his 
majesty, on being apprized of the unauthorized act of 
the officer in command of his naval forces on the 
coast of America, whose recall from a highly important 
and honourable command immediately ensued, as a 
mark of his majesty's disapprobation ; that he was 
authorized to offer, in addition to that disavowal on 
the part of his royal highness, the immediate restora- 
tion, as far as circumstances would admit, of the men 



who, in consequence of Admiral Berkeley's orders, 
were forcibly taken out of the Chesapeake, to the 
vessels from which they were taken ; or, if that ship 
were no longer in commission, to such seaport of the 
United States as the American government may name 
for the purpose ; and that he was also authorized to 
offer to the American government a suitable pecunia- 
ry provision for the suflerers, in consequence of the 
attack on the Chesapeake, including the families of 
those seamen who fell in the action, and of the wound- 
ed survivors. The president acceded to these pro- 
positions; and the officer commanding the Chesapeake, 
then lying in the harbour of Boston, was instructed 
to receive the men who were to be restored to that 
ship. The British envoy, however, could give no 
assurance that his government was disposed to make 
a satisfactory arrangement of the stibject of impress- 
ment, or to repeal the orders in council. These 
orders, on the contrary, continued to be enforced with 
rigour ; and, on the restoration of a free commerce 
with France, a large number of American vessels, 
laden with rich cargoes, and destined to her ports, 
fell info the power of British cruisers, which, since 
1803, had captured nine hundred American vessels. 

Early in November, 1811, President Madison 
summoned the congress. His message indicating an 
apprehension of hostilities Math Great Britain, tlie 
committee of foreign relations in the house of repre- 
sentatives reported resolutions for filling up the ranks 
of the army ; for raising an additional force of ten 
thousand men ; for authorizing the president to accept 
the services of fifty thousand volunteers, and for or- 
dering out the militia when he should judge it neces- 
sary; for repairing the navy; and for authorizing 
the arming of merchantmen in self-defence. A bill 
from the senate, for raising twenty-five thousand men, 
after much discussion, was also agreed to by the house. 

The American congress, although continuing (lie 
preparations for war, still cherislied the hope that 
a change of policy in Europe would render unneces- 
sary an appeal to arms till May in the following 
year. Towards the close of that season, the Hornet 
arrived from London, bringing information that no 
prospect existed of a favourable change. On the 1st 
of June, the president sent a message to congress, 
recounting the wrongs received from Great Britain, 
and submitting the question, whether tJie United 
States should continue to endure them, or resort to 
? The message was considered with closed 



war 



doors. On the ISth, an act was passed, declaring 
war against Great Britain ; and the next day a pro- 
clamation was issued. Against this declaration, 
however, the representatives, belonging to the federal 



334 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



party, presented a solemn protest, which was written 
with great ability. 

At the time of the declaration of Avar, General 
Hull was also governor of the Michigan territory, of 
which Detroit is the capital. On the 12th of July, 
with two thousand regulars and volunteers, he cross- 
ed the river dividing the United States from Cana- 
da, apparently intending to attack Maiden, and 
thence to proceed to Montreal. Information was, 
however, received, that Mackinaw, an American post 
above Detroit, had surrendered to a large body of 
British and Indians, who were rushing down the 
river in numbers sufficient to overwhelm the Ameri- 
can forces. Panic-struck, General Hull hastened 
back to Detroit. General Brock, the commander at 
Maiden, pursued him, and erected batteries opposite 
Detroit. The next day, meeting with no resistance, 
General Brock resolved to March directly forward 
and assault the fort. The American troops awaited 
the approach of the enemy, and anticipated victory ; 
but, to their dismay, General Hull opened a corres- 
pondence, which ended in the surrender of the army, 
and of the territory of Michigan. An event so dis- 
graceful, occurring in a quarter where success was 
confidently anticipated, caused the greatest mortifi- 
cation and amazement throughout the union. 

General Van Rensselaer, of the New York militia, 
had the command of the troops which were called 
the army of the centre. His head-quarters were at 
Lewistown on the river Niagara, and on the opposite 
side was Q,ueenstown, a fortified British post. The 
militia displaying great eagerness to be led against 
the enemy, the general determined to crTsss the river 
at the head of about one thousand men : though 
successful at first, he was compelled, after a long 
and obstinate engagement, to surrender. General 
Brock, the British commander, fell in rallying his 
troops. 

The army of the north, which was under the im- 
mediate command of General Dearborn, was station- 
ed at Greenbush, near Albany, and at Plattsburgh, 
on Lake Champlain. From the latter post, a de- 
tachment marched a short distance into Canada, 
surprised a small body of British and Indians, and 
destroyed a considerable quantity of public stores. 
Other movements were an.xiously expected by the 
people ; but, after the misfortunes of Detroit and Ni- 
agara, the general deemed it inexpedient to engage 
in any important enterprise. 

While, on land, defeat and disgrace attended the 
arms of the republic, on the ocean they gained vic- 
tories, which compensated their loss, and relieved 
their wounded pride. On the 19tli of August, Cap- 



tain Hull, commanding the Constitution, of fort^r-four 
ginis, fell in with the British frigate, Le Guerriere. 
She advanced towards the Constitution, firing broad- 
sides at intervals ; the American reserved her fire 
till she had approached within half pistol shot, when 
a tremendous cannonade was directed upon her, 
and in thirty minutes, every mast and nearly every 
spar being shot away, Captain Dacres struck his flag. 
Of the crew, fifty were killed and sixty-four wound- 
ed ; while the Constitution had only seven killed 
and seven wounded. The Guerriere received so 
much injury, that it was thought to be impossible 
to get her into port, and she was burned. Captain 
Hull, on his return to the United States, was v/el- 
comed with enthusiasm by his grateful and admiring 
countrymen. The vast diflerence in the number of 
killed and wounded certainly evinced great skill, as 
well as bravery, on the part of the American seamen. 
But tliis was the first only of a series of naval victo- 
ries. On the 18th of October, Captain Jones, in the 
Wasp, of eighteen guns, captured the Frolic, of 
twenty-two, after- a bloody conflict of three-quarters 
of an hour. In this action the Americans obtained 
a victory over a superior force ; and, on their part, 
but eight were killed and wounded, while on that of 
the enemy about eighty. The Wasp was unfortu- 
nately captured, soon after her victory, by a British 
ship of the line. On the 25th, the frigate United 
States, commanded by Captain Decatur, captured the 
British frigate Macedonian. In this instance, also, 
tlie disparity of loss was astonishingly great : on the 
part of the enemy, a hundred and four were killed 
and wounded ; on that of the Americans but eleven. 
The United States brought her prize safely to New 
York. A most desperate action was fought, on the 
29th of December, between the Constitution, of forty- 
four guns, then commanded by Captain Bainbridge, 
and the British frigate Java, of thirty-eight. The 
combat continued more than three hours ; nor did 
the Java strike till she was reduced to a mere wreck. 
Of her crew, a hundred and sixty one were killed 
and wounded, while of that of the Constitution there 
were only thirty-four. 

These naval victories were peculiarly gratifying 
to the feelings of the Americans ; they were gained 
in the midst of disasters on land, and by that class of 
citizens whose rights had been violated ; they V\^ere 
gained over a nation whom long-continued success 
had taught to consider themselves lords of the sea, and 
who had confidently affirmed that the whole Ameri- 
can navy would soon be swept from the ocean. 
Many British merchantmen were also captured, both 
by the American navy and by privateers, which is- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



33S 



sued from almost every port, and were remarkably- 
successful. The number of prizes made during the 
first seven months of the war exceeded five hundred. 

At the commencement of the session of congress, 
held in the autumn of 1812, the president, in his 
message, stated that immediately after the declaration 
of war, he communicated to the British government 
the terms on which its progress might he arrested ; 
that these terms were, the repeal of the orders in 
council, the discharge of American seamen, and the j 
abandonment of the practice of impressment ; and 
that the ministry had declined to accede to his offers. 
He also stated that, at an early period of the war, he 
had received official information of the repeal of the 
orders in council ; that two propositions for an ar- 
mistice had been made to him, both of which he had 
rejected, as they could not have been accepted with- 
out conceding to Great Britain the right of impress- 
ment. The rejection of these propositions was ap- 
proved by the national representatives, who, far fmm 
abandoning the ground they had taken, adopted more 
vigorous measures for the prosecution of the war. 

While the war was proceeding in America, a 
friendly power abroad interposed for its termination. 
Soon after the spring session of congress, an offer 
was communicated from the emperor of Russia of 
his mediation, as the common friend of the United 
States and Great Britain, for the purpose of facilita- 
ting a peace between them. The offer was immedi- 
ately accepted by the American government, and 
provision made for the contemplated negotiation. 
Albert Gallatin, James A. Bayard, and John Q,uincy 
Adams, were appointed commissioners, and invested 
with the requisite powers to conclude a treaty of 
peace with persons clothed with like powers on the 
part of Great Britain. They were also authorized 
to enter into such conventional regulations of the 
commerce between the two countries as might be 
mutually advantageous. The two first named en- 
voys preceded to join their colleague at St. Peters- 
burgh, where he then was as resident minister from 
the United States. A commission was also given to 
the envoys, authorizing them to conclude a treaty of 
commerce with Russia, with a view to strengthen 
the amicable relations, and improve the beneficial in- 
tercourse, between the two countries. 

On the 24th of May, congress was convened by 
proclamation of the president. Laws were enacted, 
imposing a direct tax of three millions of dollars ; 
authorizing the collection of various internal duties ; 
providing for a loan of seven and a half millions of 
dollars ; and prohibiting the merchant vessels of the 
United States from sailing under British licenses 
43 



Near the close of the session, a conamittee appointed 
to inquire into the subject made a long report upon 
the spirit and manner in which the war had been 
conducted by the British. 

The scene of the campaign of 1813 was princi- 
pally in the north, towards Canada. Brigadier- 
General Winchester, of the United States army, and 
nearly five hundred men, oflicers and soldiers, were 
made prisoners at Frenchlown, by a division of the 
British army from Detroit, with their Indian allies, 
under Colonel Procter. Colonel Procter leaving the 
Americans without a guard, the Indians returned, 
and deeds of horror followed. The wounded officers 
were dragged from the houses, killed, and scalped in 
the streets. The buildings were set on fire. Some 
who attempted to escape were forced back into the 
flames, while others were put to death by the toma- 
hawk, and left shockingly mangled in the highway. 
The infamy of this butchery does not fall upon the 
perpetrators alone, but extends to those who were able, 
and were bound by a solemn engagement, to restrain 
them. The battle and massacre at Frenchtown 
clothed Kentucky and Ohio in mourning. Other 
volunteers, indignant at the treachery and cruelty 
of their foes, hastened to the aid of Harrison. He 
marched to the rapids of the Miami, where he erected 
a fort, which he called Forts Meigs, in honour of the 
governor of Ohio. On the 1st of May it was invest- 
ed by a large number of Indians, and by a party of 
British troops from Maiden, the whole commanded 
by Colonel Procter. An unsuccessful attempt to 
raise the siege was made by General Clay, at the head 
of twelve hundred Kentuckians ; but the fort contin- 
ued to be defended with bravery and skill. The Indi- 
ans, unaccustomed to sieges, became weary and dis- 
contented ; and, on the 8th of May, they deserted 
their allies. The British, despairing of success, then 
made a precipitate retreat. 

On the northern frontier a body of troops'had been 
assembled, under the command of General Dearborn, 
at Sackett's Harbour, and great exertions were made 
by Commodore Chauncey to build and equip a squad- 
ron on Lake Ontario, sufficiently powerful to con- 
tend with that of the British. By the 25th of April 
the naval preparations were so far completed, that 
the general and seventeen thousand troops were 
conveyed across the lake to the attack of York, the 
capital of Upper Canada. On the 27th, an advan- 
ced party, commanded by Brigadier-General Pike, 
who was born in a camp, and bred a soldier from 
his birth, landed, although opposed at the water's 
edge by a superior force. After a short but severe 
conflict, the British were driven to their fortifica- 



336 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



tions. The rest of the troops having landed, the 
whole party pressed forward, carried the first battery 
by assault, and were moving towards the main 
works, when the English magazine blew up, with a 
tremendous explosion, hurling upon the advancing 
troops immense quantities of stone and timber. 
Numbers were killed ; the gallant Pike received a 
mortal wound ; the troops halted for a moment, but, 
recovering from the shock, again pressed forward, 
and soon gained possession of the town. Of the 
British troops, one hundred were killed, nearly three 
hundred were wounded, and the same number made 
prisoner^. 

The object of the expedition attained, the squad- 
ron and troops returned to Sackett's Harbour, and 
subsequently sailed to Fort George, situated at the 
head of the lake. After a warm engagement, the 
British abandoned the fort and retired to the heights, 
at the head of Burlington Bay. 

While the greater part of the American army was 
thus employed, the British made an attack upon the 
important post of Sackett's Harbour. On the 27th 
of May, their squadron appeared before the town. 
Alarm guns instantly assembled the citizens of the 
neighbourhood. General Brown's force amounted 
to about one thousand men ; a slight breastwork 
was hastily thrown up at the only place were the 
British could land, and behind this he placed the 
militia, the regulars, under Colonel Backus, forming 
a second line. On the morning of the 29th, one 
thousand British troops landed from the squadron, 
and advanced towards the breastwork ; the militia 
gave way, but by the bravery of the regulars, under 
the skilful arrangement of General Brown, the 
British were repulsed, and re-embarked so hastily 
as to leave behind most of their wounded. 

The sea coast was harassed by predatory warfare, 
carried on by large detachments from the powerful 
navy of Great Britain. One squadron, stationed in 
Delaware Bay, captured and burnt every merchant 
vessel which came within its reach, while a more 
powerful squadron, commanded by Admiral Cock- 
burn, destroyed the farm-houses and gentlemen's seats 
along the shore of Chesapeake Bay. Frenchtown, 
' Havre-de-Grace, Fredricktown, and Georgetown were 
sacked and burnt. Norfolk was saved from a similar 
fate by the determined bravery of a small force sta- 
tioned on Craney Island, in the harbour. A furious 
attack was made upon Hampton, which, notwith- 
standing the gallant resistance of its small garrison, 
was captured. 

The ocean was the theatre of sanguinary conflicts. 
Captain Lawrence, in the sloop of war Hornet, on 



the 23d of February, met the British brig Peacoclc, 
and a fierce combat ensued. In less than fifteen 
minutes the Peacock struck her colours, displaying 
at the same time a signal of distress. The victors 
hastened to the relief of the vanquished ; the same 
strength which had been exerted to conquer was 
equally ready to save ; but the Peacock sank before 
all her crew could be removed, carrying down nine 
British seamen, and three brave and generous Ameri- 
cans. On his return to the United States, Captain 
Lawrence was promoted to the command of the fri- 
gate Chesapeake, then in the harbour of Boston. For 
several weeks the British frigate Shannon, of equal 
force, had been cruising before the port ; and Cap- 
tain Broke, her commander, had announced his wish 
to meet, in single combat, an American frigate. In- 
flamed by this challenge, Captain Lawrence, although 
his crew was just enlisted, set sail on the 1st of June 
to seek the Shannon. Towards evening of the same 
day they met, and instantly engaged, with unexam- 
pled fury. In a very few minutes, and in quick 
succession, the sailing master of the Chesapeake was 
killed. Captain Lawrence and three lieutenants were 
severely wounded, her rigging was so cut to pieces 
that she fell on board the Shannon, Captain Lawrence 
jeceived a second and mortal wound, find was car- 
ried below ; at this instant. Captain Broke, at the 
head of his marines, gallantly boarded the Chesa- 
peake, when resistance ceased, and the American flag 
was struck by the British. Of the crew of the Shan- 
non twenty-four were killed and fifty-six wounded. 
Of that of the Chesapeake, forty-eight were killed 
and nearly one hundred wounded. This unexpected 
defeat impelled the Americans to seek for circum- 
stances consoling to their pride, and in the journals 
of the day many such were stated to have preceded 
and attended the action. The youthful and intrepid 
Lawrence was lamented, with sorrow deep, sincere, 
and lasting. When carried below, he was asked if 
the colours should be struck. " No," he replied, 
" they shall wave while I live." Delirious from ex- 
cess of suffering, he continued to exclaim, " Don't 
give up the ship !" — an expression consecrated by his 
countrymen. He uttered but few other words du- 
ring the four days that he survived his defeat. 

The next encounter at sea was between the Ameri- 
can brig Argus and the British brig Pelican, in which 
the latter was victorious. Soon after, the American 
brig Enterprise, commanded by Lieutenant Burrows, 
captured the British brig Boxer, commanded by Cap- 
tain Blyth. Both commanders were killed in the 
action, and were buried, each by the other's side, in 
Portland. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



337 



While each nation was busily employed in equip- 
ping a squadron on Lake Erie, General Clay remain- 
ed inactive at Fort Meig-s. About the last of July, 
a large number of British and Indians appeared be- 
fore the fort, hoping to entice the garrison to a gene- 
ral action in the field. After waiting a few days 
without succeeding, they decamped, and proceeded 
to Fort Stephenson, on the river Sandusky. This 
fort was little more than a picketing, surrounded by a 
ditch, and the garrison consisted of but one hundred 
and sixty men, who were commanded by Major 
Croghan, a youth of twenty-one. The force of the 
assailants was estimated at about four hundred in 
uniform, and as many Indians ; they were repulsed, 
and their loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners, is 
supposed to have exceeded one hundred and fifty, 
those of the remaindero,who were not able to escape 
were taken off during the night by the Indians. The 
whole loss of Major Croghan during the siege was 
one killed and scA'^en slightly wounded. About three 
the next morning the British sailed down the river, 
leaving behind them a boat containing clothing and 
considerable military stores. 

By the exertions of Commodore Perry, an Ameri- 
can squadron had been fitted out on Lake Erie early 
in September. It consisted of nine small vessels, in 
all carrying fifty-four guns. A British squadron had 
also been built and equipped, under the superintend- 
ence of Commodore Barclay. It consisted of six 
vessels, mounting sixty-three guns. Commodore 
Perry, immediately sailing, offered battle to his ad- 
versary, and on the lUth of September, the British 
commander left the harbour of Maiden to accept the 
offer. In a few hours the wind shifted, giving the 
Americans the advantage. Perry, forming the line 
of battle, hoisted his flag, on which were inscribed 
the words of the dying Lawrence, " Don't give up 
the ship." Loud huzzas from all the vessels pro- 
claimed the animation which this motto inspired. 
About noon the firing commenced; and after a short 
action two of the British vessels surrendered, and 
the rest of the American squadron now joining in 
the battle, the victory was rendered decisive and 
complete. The British loss was forty-one lulled, and 
ninety-four wounded. The American loss was 
twenty-seven killed, and ninety-six wounded, of 
which number twenty-one were killed and sixty-two 
wounded on board the flag-ship liawrence, whose 
whole complement of able bodied men before the ac- 
tion was about one hundred. The commodore gave 
intelligence of the victory to General Harrison in 
these words : " We have met the enemy, and they 
are ours. Two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and 



one sloop." T^^ Americans were now masters of 
the lake ; but the territory of Michigan was still ia 
the possession of Colonel Procter. The next move- 
ments were against the British and Indians at 'De- 
troit and Maiden. General Harrison had previously 
assembled a portion of the Ohio militia on the San- 
dusky river ; and on the 7th of September four 
thousand from Kentucky, the flower of the state, with 
Governor Shelby at their head, arrived at his camp. 
With the co-operation of the fleet, it was determined 
to proceed at once to Maiden. On the 27th the 
troops were received on board, and reached. Maiden 
on the same day; but the British had, in the mean 
time, destroyed the fort and public stores, and had 
retreated along the Thames towards the Moravian 
villages, together with Tecumseh's Indians, amount- 
ing to twelve or fifteen hundred. It was now re- 
solved to proceed in pursuit of Procter. On the 5th 
of October a severe battle was fought between the two 
armies at the river Thames, and the British army 
was taken by the Americans. In this battle Tecum- 
seh was killed, and the Indians fied. The British 
loss was nineteen regulars killed, and fifty wound- 
ed, and about six hundred prisoners. The American 
loss, in killed and wounded, amounted to upwards of 
fifty. Procter made his escape down the Thames. 
On the 29th of September the Americans took pos- 
session of Detroit, which, on the approach of Harri- 
son's army, had been abandoned by the British. Pre- 
parations were now made for subduing Upper Canada, 
and taking Montreal; but owing to the difficulties 
attending the concentration of the troops, and perhaps 
also to the want of vigour in the commanders, that 
project was abandoned, and the army under Wilkin- 
son, marching to French Mills, there encamped for 
the winter. This abortive issue of the campaign 
occasioned murmurs throughout the nation, and the 
causes which led to it have never been fully develop- 
ed. The severest censure fell upon General Arm- 
strong, who was secretary of war, and upon General 
Hampton. Th^ latter soon after resigned his com- 
mission in the army, and General Izard was selected • 
to conmiand the post at Plattsburgh. 

Major-General Harrison, commander in chief of 
the eighth military district in the United States, issued 
a proclamation, stating, that the enemy having been 
driven from the territory of Michigan, and a part of 
the army under his command having taken possession 
of it, it became necessary that the civil government 
of the territory should be re-established, and the for- 
mer officers resume the exercise of their authority. 
He therefore proclaimed, that all appointments and 
commissions which have been derived from British 



338 



HISTORY OF THE UJNITED STATES. 



officers were at an end ; that the citizens were re- 
stored to all the rights and privileges which they en- 
joyed previously to the capitulation made by General 
HuJl on the 15th of August, 1812; and, until the 
will of tlie government should be known, directed 
that all persons having civil offices in the territory of 
Michigan, at the period of the capitulation of Detroit, 
should resume the exercise of the powers appertain- 
ing to their offices respectively. 

The United States squadron, chased by Commo- 
dore Hardy with a superior naval force, had taken 
refuge in the harbour of New London, where the 
decaj^ed and feeble state of the fortifications affijrded a 
precarious defence. Tlie menacing appearance of the 
British squadron at the entrance of the harbour, and 
the strong probability that the town would be destroy- 
ed in the conffict, which had been long expected, pro- 
duced among the inhabitants the greatest consterna- 
tion. In this moment of alarm,-the major-general of 
the third division, and the brigadier-general of the 
third brigade, considered themselves justified, at the 
earnest entreaty of the citizens, in summoning the 
militia to their assistance. Governor Smith, of Con- 
necticut, approved this proceeding, and immediately 
forwarded supplies, and adopted measures of defence. 
" On this occasion," said the governor to the legisla- 
ture, " I could not hesitate as to the course which it 
became my duty to pursue. The government of 
Connecticut, the last to invite hostilities, should be 
the first to repel aggression." 

The Indians at the southern extremity of the union 
had imbibed the same hostile spirit as those at the 
north-western. They had been visited by Tecumseh, 
and by his eloquence had been persuaded that the 
great spirit required them to unite and attempt the 
extirpation of the whites. In the fall of 1812, a 
cruel war was carried on by the Creeks and Semi- 
noles against the frontier inhabitants of Georgia. 
General Jackson, at the head of two thousand five 
hundred volunteers from Tennessee, marched into 
tlie country of the Indians. Overawed by his pre- 
sence, they desisted for a time from hostility ; but, 
after his return, their animosity burst forth with in- 
creased and fital violence. Dreading their cruelty, 
about three hundred men, women, and children, 
sought safety in Fort Mimms, in the Tensaw settle- 
ment. Although frequent warnings of an intended 
attack had been giveh them, yet, at noon day, on the 
Snth of August, they were surprised by a party of 
six hundred Indians, who, with axes, cut their way 
into the fort, and drove the people inio the houses 
which it enclosed. To these they set fire. Many 
persons were burnt, and many killed by the toma- 



hawk. Only seventeen escaped to carry the liorrid 
tidings to the neighbouring stations. The whites 
resolved on vengeance. Again General Jackson, nt 
the head of three thousand five hundred militia of 
Tennessee, marched into the southern wilderness. 
A detachment under General Cofiee encountering at 
Tallushatchie a body of Indians, a sanguinary con- 
flict ensued. The latter fought with desperation, 
neither giving nor receiving quarter, unlil nearly 
every warrior had perished. Yet still was the spirit 
of the Creeks unsubdued, and their faith in victory 
unshaken. Witli no little sagacity and skill they 
selected and fortified another position on the Talla- 
poosa, called by themselves Tohopeka, and by the 
whites Horse-shoe Bend. Here nearly a thousand 
warriors, animated with a fierce and determined 
resolution, were collected. Three thousand men, 
commanded by General Jackson, marched to attack 
this post. To prevent escape, a detachment under 
General Cofl^ee encircled the Bend. The main body 
advanced to the fortress ; and for a few minutes the 
opposing forces were engaged muzzle to muzzle at 
the port-holes ; but at length the troops, leaping over 
the walls, mingled in furious combat with the savages. 
When the Indians, fleeing to the river, beheld the 
troops on the opposite bank, they returned and fought 
with increased fury and desperation. Six hundred 
warriors were killed ; four only yielded themselves 
prisoners ; the remaining three hundred escaped. 
Of the whites, fifty-five were killed, and one hundred 
and forty-six wounded. It was deemed probable 
that further resistance would be made by the Indians 
at a place called the Hickory-ground ; but on General 
Jackson's arriving thither in April, 1814, the princi- 
pal chiefs came out to meet him, and among them 
was Wetherford, a hatf-blood, distinguished equally 
for his talents and cruelty. " I am in your power," 
said he, " do with me what you please. I have done 
the white people all the harm I could. I have fought 
them, and fought them bravely. There was a time 
when I had a choice ; I have none now, even hope 
is ended. Once I could animate my warriors ; but 
I cannot animate the dead. They can no longer 
hear my voice ; their bones are at Tallushatchie, 
Talladega, Emuckfaw, and Tohopeka. While there 
was a chance of success I never supplicated peace ; 
but my people are gone, and I now ask it for my na- 
tion and myself" Peace was concluded, and Gene- 
ral Jackson and his troops enjoyed an honourable 
but short repose. 

It was the declared intention of the British to lay 
waste the whole American coast, Irom Maine to 
Georgia. Of this intention demonstration was made 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



339 



by their descent upon Pettipauge, and the destruction 
which followed in that harbour. Early in April, a 
number of British barges, supposed to contain about 
two hundred and twenty men, entered the mouth of 
Connecticut River, passed up seven or eight miles, 
and came on shore at a part of Saybrook called Petti- 
pauge, where they destroyed about twenty-five ves- 
sels. Guards of militia were placed without delay 
at nearly all the vulnerable points on the seaboard, 
and where troops could not be stationed, patrols of 
videttes were constantly maintained. 

On the 25th of April, Admiral Cochrane declared, 
in addition to the ports and places blockaded by Ad- 
miral Warren, all the remaining ports, harbours, bays, 
creeks, rivers, inlets, outlets, islands, and sea coasts 
of the United States, from Black Point, on Long 
Island Sound, to the northern and eastern boundaries 
between the United States and tlie British province 
of New Brunswick, to be in a state of strict and rigo- 
rous blockade. On the other hand, the president of 
the United States issued a proclamation, declaring 
that the blockade proclaimed by the Diitish of the 
whole Atlantic coast of the United States, nearly two 
thousand miles in extent, being incapabfe of execution 
by any adequate force actually stationed for the pur- 
pose, formed no awful prohibition or obstacle to such 
neutral and friendly vessels as may choose to visit and 
trade with the United States ; and strictly ordered 
and instructed all the public armed vessels of the 
United States, and all private armed vessels commis- 
sioned as privateers, or with letters of marque and 
reprisal, not to interrupt, detain, or molest any vessels 
belonging to neutral powers, bound to any port or 
place within the jurisdiction of the United States ; 
but, on the contrary, to render all such vessels all the 
aid and kind offices which they might need or require. 

The pacification in Europe offered to the British 
a large disposable force, both naval and military, and 
with it the means of giving to the war in America 
a character of new and increased activity and ex- 
tent. The friends of the administration anticipated 
a severer conflict, and prepared for greater sacrifices 
and greater sufl'erings. Its opposers, where difficul- 
ties thickened and danger pressed, were encouraged 
to make more vigorous efforts to wrest the reins of 
authority from men who, they asserted, had shown 
themselves incompetent to hold them. The president 
deemed it advisable to strengthen the line of the 
Atlantic, and therefore called on the executive of 
several states to organize and hold in readiness for 
immediate service a corps of ninety-three thousand 
five hundred men. 

The hostile movements on the northern frontier 



were now becoming vigorous and interesting. In 
the beginning of .Tuly, General Brown, who had been 
assiduously employed in disciplining his troops, cross- 
ed the Niagara with about three thousand men, and 
took possession, without opposition, of Fort Erie. In 
a strong position at Chippewa, a few miles distant, 
was intrenched an equal juunber of British troops, 
commanded by General Riall. On the 4th, General 
Brown approached their works ; and the next day, 
on the plains of Chippewa, an obstinate and sangui- 
nary battle was fought, which compelled the British 
to retire to their intrenchments. In this action, 
which was fought with great judgment and coolness 
on both sides, the loss of the Americans was about 
four hundred men, that of the British was upwards of 
five hundred. Soon afterwards, General Riall, aban- 
doning his works, retired to the heights of Burlington. 
Here Lieutenant-General Drummond, with a large 
re-enforcemeht, joined him, and assuming the com- 
mand, led back the army towards the American camp. 
On the 25th was fought the battle of Bridgewater, 
which began at four in the afternoon, and continued 
until midnight. After a desperate conflict, the British 
troops were withdrawn, and the Americans left in 
possession of the field. The loss on both sides was 
severe, and nearly equal. Generals Brown and Scott 
having both been severely wounded, the command 
devolved upon General Ripley. He remained a few 
hours upon the hill, collected the wounded, and then 
returned unmolested to the camp. This battle was 
fought near the cataract of Niagara, whose roar was 
silenced by the thunder of cannon and the din of 
arms, but was distinctly heard during the pauses of 
the fight. The American general foimd his force so 
much weakened, that he deemed it prudent again to 
occupy Fort Erie. On the 4th of August it was in- 
vested by General Drummond with five tnousand 
troops. In the night between the 14th and 15th, 
the besiegers made a daring assault upon the fort, 
which was repelled with conspicuous gallantry by 
the garrison, the former losing more than nine hun- 
dred men, the latter but eighty-four. The siege was 
still continued. On the 2d of September, General 
Bri>wn, having recovered from his wounds, threw 
himself into the fort, and took command of the garri- 
son. For their fate great anxiety was felt by the 
nation, which was, however, in some degree removed, 
by the march from Plattsburgh of five thousand men. 
to their relief After an hour of close fighting tliey 
entered the fort, having killed, wounded, and taken 
one thousand of the British. The loss of the Ameri- 
cans was also considerable, amounting to more than 
five hundred. On the 21st of September, the forty- 



340 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



ninth day of the siege, General Drummond withdrew 
his forces. 

The march of the troops from Plattsburgh having 
left that post almost defenceless, the enemy determin- 
ed to attack it by land, and, at the same time, to at- 
tempt the destruction of the American flotilla on 
Lake Champlain. On the 3d of September, Sir 
George Prevost, the governor-general of Canada, at 
the head of fourteen thousand men, entered the ter- 
ritories of the United States. On the 6tlr they arri- 
ved at Plattsburgh. It is situated near Lake Cham- 
plain, on the northern bank of the small river Sara- 
nac. On their approach, the American troops, who 
were posted on the opposite bank, tore up the planks 
of the bridges, with which they formed slight breast- 
works, and prepared to dispute the passage of the 
stream. The British employed themselves for se- 
veral days in erecting batteries, wliile the American 
forces were daily augmented by the arrival of vo- 
lunteers and militia. Early in the morning of the 
11th, the British squadron, commanded by Commo- 
dore Downie, appeared off the harbour of Plattsburgh, 
where that of the United States, commanded by 
Commodore Macdonough, lay at anchor prepared for 
battle. At nine o'clock the action commenced. 
Seldom has there been a more furious encounter 
than tlie bosom of this transparent and peaceful 
lake was now called to witness. During the naval 
conflict, the British on land began a heavy cannonade 
upon the American lines, and attempted at ditferent 
places to cross the Saranac ; but as often as the 
British advanced into the water they were repelled 
by a destructive fire from the militia. At half past 
eleven the shout of victory heard along the Ameri- 
can lines announced the result of the battle on the 
lake. Thus deprived of naval aid, in the afternoon 
the Britisli withdrew to their intrenchments, and in 
the night they commenced a precipitate retreat. 
Upon the lake the American loss was one hundred 
and ten ; the British one hundred and ninety-four, 
besides prisoners. On land, the American loss was 
one hundred and nineteen ; that of "the British has 
been estimated as high as two thousand five hun- 
dred. 

The inhabitants of the middle and southern 
states, anticipating a great augmentation of the Eng- 
lish force, and uncertain where the blow would fall, 
made exertions to place every exposed position in a 
posture of defence. About the middle of August, 
a British squadron of between fifty and sixty sail 
arrived in the Chesapeake, with troops destined for 
the attack of Wasliington, the capital of the United 
States. A body of five thousand of them having 



landed, an action was fought at Bladensburgh, six 
miles from Washington. General Winder command- 
ed the whole American force ; Commodore Barney 
the flotilla. The British were commanded by Major- 
General Ross and Rear-Admiral Cockburn. The 
Americans were repulsed, and the British advanced 
towards the capital. A body of militia had been 
assembled in this emergency ; but the president and 
heads of departments, on reviewing the force brought 
out for defence, despaired of success, and dispersed. 
General Ross, at the head of about seven hundred 
men, took possession of Washington, and burned the 
capitol, or senate-house, the President's house, and 
public offices, the arsenal, the navy yard, and the 
bridge over the Potomac. The loss of the British 
in this expedition was nearly a thousand men, in 
killed, wounded, and missing ; the loss of the Ameri- 
cans was ten or twelve killed, and thirty or forty 
wounded. Commodore Barney's horse was killed 
under him, and himself wounded in the thigh and 
taken prisoner ; but he was paroled on the field of 
battle for his bravery. The capture of Washington 
reflected no credit upon those by whom it ought to 
have been defended ; but the destruction of the na- 
tional edifices was still more disgraceful to the cha- 
racter of the invaders. The whole civilized world 
exclaimed against the act, as a violation of the rules 
of modern warfare. The capitals of most of the 
European kingdoms had lately been in the power of 
an enemy ; but in no instance had the conqueror 
been guilty of similar conduct. The act was also as 
impolitic as it was barbarous ; it naturally excited 
an indignant spirit throughout the republic, and led 
its inhabitants to vie with each other in exerting all 
their faculties to overcome the ravagers of their 
country. 

After the capture of Washington, the British army 
re-embarked on board the fleet in the Patuxent, and 
Admiral Cockburn moved down that river, and pro- 
ceeded up the Chesapeake. On tlie 29th of August, 
the corporation of Alexandria submitted to articles 
of capitulation, and the city was delivered up to the 
British. On the 11th of September, the British ad- 
miral appeared at the mouth of the Patapsco, four- 
teen miles from Baltimore, with a fleet of ships of 
war and transports amounting to fifty sail. The 
next day six thousand troops were landed at North 
Point, and commenced their march towards the city. 
In this march, when the foremost ranks were ha- 
rassed by a brisk fire from a wood, Major-General 
Ross was mortally wounded. A battle was fought 
on this day. The American forces, the militia, and 
the inhabitants of Baltimore, made a gallant defence, 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



341 



but were compelled to retreat ; the British, however, 
abandoning the attempt to get possession of the city, 
retired to their shipping during the night of the 13th 
of September. 

On the ocean, the Essex, commanded by Captain 
Porter, after a bloody combat, struck to a British 
frigate and sloop of war, whose united force was 
much superior. The American sloop Peacock cap- 
tured the Epervie'of equal force. The sloop Wasp, 
commanded by Captain Blakely, captured the Rein- 
deer, and afterwards, in the same cruise, sank the 
Avon, both of superior force. She made several 
other prizes, but never returned into port ; she . pro- 
bably foundered at sea. 

The closing scene of this unnecessary and dis- 
graceful war, the more detestable when contemplated 
as a series of tiuman sacrifices for the preservation 
of a commercial system, was creditable to the ge- 
nius and bravery of the American republic. The 
operations of the British in Louisiana were commen- 
ced by a small expedition, the naval part under the 
command of Captain Percy, and the troops under 
Colonel Nicholls. They landed and took forcible 
possession of Pensacola, and were aided by the 
Spaniards in all their proceedings ; they collected 
all the Indians that v/ould resort to their standard ; 
and Colonel Nicholls then sent an ofRcer to the 
piratical establishment at Barrataria to enlist the chief, 
Lafitte, and his followers, in their cause ; the most 
liberal and tempting offers were made them. These 
people, however, showed a decided preference for the 
American cause ; they deceived tfie English by de- 
lay ; conveyed intelligence of their designs to the 
Governor at New Orleans, and offered their services 
to defend the country. Disappointed in securing 
their aid, the expedition proceeded to the attack of 
Fort Bowyer, on Mobile point, commanded by Major 
Lawrence, with one hundred and thirty men. The 
result, however, was a loss to the besiegers of more 
than two hundred men ; the commodore's ship was 
so disabled that they set fire to her, and she blew up, 
and the remaining three vessels, shattered and filled 
with wounded men, returned to Pensacola. While 
the British thus sheltered in this place, where they 
were busily occupied in bringing over the Indians 
to join them. General Jackson formed an expedition 
of about four thousand men, regulars and militia, to 
dislodge them. He summoned the town, was re- 
fused entrance by the Spanish governor, and his flag 
of truce was fired upon ; the British soldiers being 
in the forts, where their flag had been hoisted, in 
conjunction with the Spanish, the day before the 
American forces appeared. Preparations were imme- 



diately made to carry the place ; one battery having 
been taken by storm, with slight loss on either side, 
the governor surrendered, the English having previ- 
ously retired on board their ships. The forts below, 
which commanded the passage, were blown up, and 
this enabled the English fleet to put to sea. 

General Jackson then evacuated the Spanish ter- 
ritory, and marched his troops back to Mobile and 
New Orleans, which he reached on the second day 
of December. Having reviewed a corps of vol an 
teers the day of his arrival, he immediately proceed- 
ed to visit every post in the neighbourliood, to give 
orders for adding fortifications, and establishing de- 
fensive works and outposts in every spot where the 
enemy might be expected, as there was the greatest 
uncertainty where a landing would be made ; he 
mingled with the citizens, and infused into the greater 
part his own spirit and energy. By his presence- 
and exhortations they were animated to exertions ot 
which before they were not supposed to be capable. 
All who could wield a spade, or carry a musket, 
were either put to work upon the fortifications, or 
trained in the art of defending them. The Missis- 
sippi, lipon the eastern bank of which New Orleans 
stands, flows to the ocean in several channels ; one 
leaving the main stream above the city, runs east of 
it, and forms in its course Lake Ponchartrain and 
Lake Borgne. Early in December, the British en- 
tered this channel, with a force of about eight thou- 
sand men, a part of whom had just left the shores of 
the Chesapeake, the remainder having arrived direct 
from England. A small squadron of gunboats, 
under Lieutenant Jones, was despatched to oppose 
their passage into the lake. These were mei by a 
superior force, and after a spirited conflict, in which 
the killed and wounded of the British exceeded the 
whole niunber of the Americans, they were compel- 
led to surrender. The loss of the gunboats left no 
means of watching the movements of the enemy, 
or of ascertaining where the landing would be made. 
Orders were given for increased vigilance at every 
post ; the people of colour were formed into a batta. 
lion ; the offer of the Barratarians to volunteer, on 
condition of a pardon for previous ofl'ences, if they 
conducted themselves with bravery ;ind fidelity, was 
accepted. General Jackson, after applying to the 
legislature to suspend the act of habeas corpus, and 
finding that they were consuming these extreme 
moments in discussion, proclaimed martial law, and 
from that moment his means became more commen- 
surate with the weight of responsibilty he had to 
sustain. 

On the 22d, the British, having landed, took a 



348 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



position near the main channel of the river, about 
eight miles below tlie city. In the evening of the 
23d, General Jackson made a sudden and furious at- 
tack upon their camp. They were thrown into dis- 
order ; but they soon rallied, and fought with a 
bravery at least equal to that of the assailants. Sat- 
isfied with the advantage first gained, he withdrew 
his troops, fortified a strong position four miles be- 
low New Orleans, and supported it by batteries 
erected on the west bank of the river. On the 28th 
of December, and the 1st of January, vigorous but 
unsuccessful attacks were made upon these fortifica- 
tions by the English. In the mean time, both armies 
had received re-enforcements ; and General Sir E. 
Pakenham, the British commander, resolved to exert 
all his strength in a combined attack upon the Ameri- 
can positions on both sides of the river. With al- 
most incredible industry, he caused a canal, leading 
from a creek emptying itself into Lake Borgne to 
the main channel 9f the Mississippi, to be dug, that 
he tnight remove a part of his boats and artillery to 
that river. On the 7th of January, from the move- 
ments observed in the British camp, a speedy attack 
was anticipated. This was made early on the Sth. 
The British troops, formed in a close cohunn of 
about sixty men in front, the men shouldering their 
muskets, all carrying fascines, and some with ladders, 
advanced towards the American fortifications, from 
whence an incessant fire was kept up on the column, 
which continued to advance, until the musketry of 
tlie troops of Tennessee and Kentucky, joined with 
the fire of the artillery, began to make an impression 
on it which soon threw it into confusion. For some 
time the British oflicers succeeded in animating the 
courage of their troops, making them advance ob- 
liquely to the left, to avoid the fire of a battery, 
every discharge from which opened the column, 
and mowed down whole files, which were almost in- 
stantaneously replaced by new troops coming up 
close after the first : but these also shared the same 
fate, until at last, after twenty-five minutes continual 
firing, through which a few platoons advanced to 
the edge of the ditch, the column entirely broke, and 
part of the troops dispersed, and ran to take shelter 
among the bushes on the right. The rest retired to 
the ditch where they had been when first perceived, 
four hundred yards from the American lines. There 
the oflicers with some difficulty rallied their troops, 
and again drew them up for a second attack, the 
soldiers having laid down their knapsacks at the 
edge of the ditch, that they might be less encum- 
bered. And now, for the second time, the column, 
recruited with the troops that formed the rear, ad- 



vanced. Again it was received with the same gall- 
ing fire of musketry and artillery, till it at last 
broke aaain, and retired in the utmost confusion. 
In vain did the officers now endeavour, as before, to 
revive the courage of their men ; to no purpose did 
they strike them with the flat of their swords, to 
force them to advance : they were insensible of every 
thing but danger, and saw nothing but death, which 
had struck so many of their commdes. The attack 
had hardly begun, when the British commander-in- 
chief, Sir Edward Pakenham, fell a victim to his 
own intrepidity, while endeavouring to animate his 
troops with ardour for the assault. Soon after his 
fall, two other generals, Keane and Gibbs, were car- 
ried oft' the field of battle, dangerously wounded. A 
great number of officers of rank had fallen : the 
ground over which the column had 'marched was 
strewed with the dead and wounded. Such slaugh- 
ter on their side, with scarcely any loss on the 
American, spread consternation through' the British 
ranks, as they were now convinced of the impossi- 
bility of carrying the lines, and saw that even to 
advance was certain death. Some of the British 
troops had penetrated into the wood towards the ex- 
tremity of the American line, to make a false attack, 
or to ascertain whether a real one were practicable. 
These the troops under General Coffee no sooner 
perceived, than they opened on them a brisk fire 
with their rifles, which made them retire. The 
greater part of those who, on the column's being re 
pulsed, had taken shelter in the thickets, only esca- 
ped the batteries t6 be killed by the musketry. Du- 
ring the whole hour that the attack lasted, the 
American fire did not slacken for a single moment. 
By half after eight in the morning, the fire of the 
musketry had ceased. The whole plain on the left, 
as also the side of the river, from the road to the edge 
of the water, was covered with the British soldiers 
Avho had fallen. About four hundred wounded pri- 
soners were taken, and at least double that number 
of wounded men escaped into the British camp ; and 
a space of ground, extending from the ditch of the 
American lines to that on which the enemy drew up 
his troops, two hundred and fifty yards in length, by 
about two hundred in breadth, was literally covered 
with men, either dead or severely woimded.* Per- 
haps a greater disparity of loss never occurred ; that 
of the British in killed, wounded, and prisoners, in 
this attack, which was not made with sufficient judg- 
ment, and which, besides, was embarrassed by un- 
foreseen cirucmstances, was upwards of two thou- 

* Historical Memoir of the War in Louisiana, by Major A. L 
Latoiir, Engineer in the United States Army.^ — Philadelphia, 1816 



HiSl'ORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



343 



sand men ; the killed and wounded of the Americans 
was only thirteen. 

The events of the day on the west side of the 
river present a striking instance of the vmcertainty 
of military operations. There the Americans were 
thrice the number of their brave assailants, and were 
protected by intrenchments ; but they ingloriously 
fled. They were closely pursued, until the British 
party, receiving intelligence of the defeat of the main 
army, withdrew from pursuit, and recrossed the river. 
They then returned and resumed possession of their- 
intrenchments. General Lambert, upon whom the 
command of the British army had devolved, having 
lost all hopefe of success, prepared to return to his 
shipping. In his retreat he was not molested : Gene- 
ral Jackson wisely resolving to hazard nothing that 
he had gained, in attempting to gain still .more. 

The Americans naturally indulged in ecstasies of 
joy for this signal victory. Te Deum was sung at 
New Orleans, and every demonstration of gratitude 
manifested by the inhabitants of the Union generally. 
In speaking of gratitude on this occasion, however, 
we must not omit a ludicrous instance of the mean- 
ness which party-spirit will sometimes exhibit. The 
state of Louisiana passed votes of thanks to several 
of the officers concerned in the defence, and omitted 
General Jackson.* 

Although the results of the war had been honour- 
able to the American arms, a large portion of the in- 
habitants of the New England states were unceasingly 
opposed to the measures of the administration. The 
governor of Massachusetts convoked the general 
court of that state ; the legislature of Connecticut 
was about to hold its usual semi-annual session ; and 

* The reason for Ihis omission was, that, while they were 
wrangling and delaying to suspend the habeas corpus in a moment 
of the most imperious necessity, the general, to save the country, 
proclaimed martial law. In conseqi^^nce of the omission of thanks 
by the legislature, some of the citizens of New Orleans presenied 
an address to the general; the answer to which is highly characte- 
ristic of the gallant officer, now president of the United States: — 
" Although born and bred in the land of freedom," says the gene- 
ral, " popular favour has always been with me a secondary object. 
My first wish in political life has been, lo be useful to my country. 
Yet I am not insensible to the good opinion of my fellow-citizens; 
I would do much to obtain it ; but I can not, for this purpose, sa- 
crifice my own conscience, or what I conceive to be the interests of 
my country. These principles have prepared me to receive with 
just satisfaction the address )'ou have presented. The first wish 
of my heart, the safely of our country, has been accomplished ; and 
it affords me the greatest happiness to know, that the means taken 
to secure this object, have met the approbation of those who have 
had the best opportunities of judging of their piopriety, and who, 
from their various relations, might be supposed the most ready to 
censure any which had been improperly resorted to. The^istinc- 
tion you draw, gentlemen, between those who only declaim about 
civil rights, and those who fight to maintain them, shows how just 
and practical a knowledge you have of the true principles of liber- 
ty--without such knowledge all theory is useless or mischievous. 
tt is mRtter of surprise, that they who boast themselves the cham- 

44 



the legislature of Rhode Island also assembled. When 
these several bodies met, what should be done in this 
unexampled state of affairs became a subject of most 
solemn deliberation. To insure unity of views and 
concert in action, the legislature of Massachusetts 
proposed a ' Conference' by delegates from the legis- 
latures of the New England states, and of any other 
states that might accede to the measure. Their re- 
solution for this purpose, and the circular letter ac- 
companying it, show, that the duty proposed to be 
assigned to these delegates was merely to devise and 
recommend to the states, measures for their security 
and defence, and such mewures as were "not repug- 
nant to their federal obligations as members of the 
Union." The proposition was readily assented to by 
several states, and the delegates appointed in pur- 
suance of it met at Hartford, on the 15th of Decem- 
ber following. The convention recommended, 1. 
That the states they represent take measures to pro- 
tect their citizens from " forcible draughts, conscrip- 
tions, or impressments, not authorized by the consti- 
tution of the United States." 2. That an earnest 
application be made to the government of the United 
States, requesting their consent to some arrangement, 
whereby the states separately, or in concert, may take 
upon themselves the defence of their territory against 
the enemy, and that a reasonable portion of the taxes 
collected within the states be appropriated to this 
object. 3. That the several governors be authorized 
by law to employ the military force under their com- 
mand in assisting any state requesting it, to ijfpel the 
invasions of the public enemy. 4. That several 
amendments of the constitution of the United States, 
calculated in their view to prevent a recurrence *of 



pions of those lights and privileges, should not, when they were 
first put in danger by the proclamation of martial law, have mani- 
fested that lively sensibility of which they have since made so os- 
tentatious a display. So far, however, was this from being the 
case, that this measure not only met, then, the open support of tho.se 
who, when their country was invaded, thought resistance a virtue, 
and the silent approbation of all, but even received the particular 
recommendation and encouragement of many who now inveigh 
the most bitterly against it. It was not until a victory, secured by 
that very measure, had lessened the danger which occasioned the 
resort to it, that the present feeling guardians of our rights disco- 
vered that the commanding general ought to have suffered his posts 
to be abandoned through the interference of a foreign agent — his 
ranks to be thinned by desertion, and his whole army lo be brokeu 
to pieces by mutiny ; while yet a powerful force of the enemy re- 
mained on our coast, and within a few hours sail of your city. 
Under these circumstances, fellow-soldiers, your resolution to let 
others declaim about privileges and constitutional rights, will never 
draw upon you the charge of being indifferent to those inestimable 
blessings: your attachment lo them has been proved by a stronger 
title — that of having nobly fought to preserve them. You, who 
have thus supported them against the open pretensions of a power- 
ful enemy, will never, I trust, surrender them to the underhand 
machinations of men who stand aloof in the hour of peril, and 
who, when the danger is gone, claim to be the 'defenders of your 
constitution.' " 



344 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



the evils of which they complain, be proposed by the 
states they represent for adoption either by the state 
legislatures, or by a convention chosen by the people 
of each state. Lastly, That if the application of 
these states to the government of the United States 
should be unsuccessful, and peace should not be con- 
cluded, and the defence of these states be still ne- 
glected, it would, in their opinion, be expedient for 
the legislatures of the several states to appoint dele- 
gates to another convention, to meet at Boston, in 
June, with such powers and instructions as the exi- 
gency of a crisis so momentous may require. The 
effect of these proceeding* upon the public mind in 
the aggrieved states, was alike seasonable and salu- 
tary. The very proposal to call a convention, and 
the confidence reposed in the men delegated to that 
trust, served greatly to allay the passions, and to in- 
spire confidence and hope. Nor was the influence 
of this body upon the national councils less percepti- 

♦ It could hardly tie expected that a -writer not residing in this 
country, could, if he wished to, be an impartial historian in all 
things, and give his readers a precise account of the effects of the 
war of 1812 on the United States. Il was, in many respects, an 
expensive contest, every thing having been done by the government 
to great disadvantage, from t"he i'act, that no preparations had been 
made for the crisis; but the national debt was nothing, in compari- 
son with the advantageous change the war produced in the reason- 
ing and habits of the people. This event brought the work shops 
from Europe to our own shores, and we were taught how to ac- 
quire and 10 maintain a true state of independence. Perliaps in 
the zeal of a new pursuit, the manufacturing interest was too far 
extended, but this evil will, in the end, cure itself. The maxim of 
political economy, that was once broached by the Edinburgh Review, 
that " th^Americans should not be allowed to make a hob-nail," 
will no longer be repeated. The empire of the arts and manufac- 
tures is now divided between the two countries. We have as much 
of it as we desire, and can extend it to our wants. As the learned 
aufhor of this history, Mr. Hinton, has said but little of political 
economy, the American editor may be pardoned for an otherwise 
prolix note. 

As our country now presents herself to our view, we feel a self- 
congratulation and patriotic pride, that is at once just and useful. 
National pride is always found with pure patriotism. Tweniy-four 
states, independent in all their civil polity and domestic relations, 
confederated to form one great people, is a novelty under the sun. 
These states, stretching through so many degrees of latitude, give 
a great variety of climate and of productions. The agricultural 
capacity of the country, as a whole, is not only equal to all our own 
wants, but to the wants of all others, if they should make us their 
granary. Most of the stales are lilted for manufacturing; nature 
supplying water power to an incalculable extent. This country is 
also wonderfully fitted for commerce, from its extended seaboard, 
and numerous safe harbours, and great navigable rivers. Il is well 
calculated for a great naval power, as our ship-timber is abundant, 
and may be cultivated to any extent required ; and our river navi- 
gation and fisheries are nurseries for seamen. It is as yet so thinly 
settled, compared to its territory, that we can have no anxiety of a 
crowded population. The institutions of law, medicine, and di- 
vinity, are in a most flourishing condition, and we count more than 
half a hundred colleges, with an immense number of minor schools. 
It is a country full uf inventive power, which puts every particle 
of mind into action. It is also remarkable for enterprise, and the 
people seize upon all the improvements of other nations. It has a 
mass of population, which have, more than any other people, sound 
minds in sound bodies, arising more from ils moriil and political 



ble. Within three weeks after the adjournment of 
the Convention and the publication of their report, 
an act passed both liouses of the national legislature, 
and received the signature of the president, authori- 
zing and requiring him to " receive into the service 
of the United States any corps of troops which may 
have been or may be raised, organized, and oflicered, 
under the authority of any of the states," to be " em- 
ployed in the state raising the same, or an adjoining 
state, and not elsewhere, except with the consent o 
the executive of the state raising the same." Before 
the commissioners who were sent to confer with the 
government could reach Washington, a bill passed the 
senate, providing for the payment of the troops and 
militia already called into service under the authority 
of the states. The arrival of the treaty of peace at 
this juncture, rendered all farther proceedings un- 
necessary.* 

During the preceding year, the British government 



character, than from any other causes. It is a country that has 

no national religion, but within her borders every one worships 
God in his own way, if lie do not disturb his neighbour ; a country 
without giadcs in society tixed by law, and where primogeniture 
and entailment do not exist. It is a country where every one has 
a right to bear arms for protection and defence, and which could 
muster two millions of soldiers, if they were necessary, for self- 
defence. It is a country increasing in population, arts, sciences, 
letters, and wealth, with the comforts and enjoyments of social life, 
faster than any other in the world. In short, it is a counlry that 
" knov'S her rights, and knowing, dares maintain" Ihcm. 

Should we be content to take this heritage of ours, without be- 
ing mindful what it cost our ancestors to present it to us, as it is 1 
Or should we examine the subject most minutely, as we have time 
or leisure 1 

Ours is the first nation in the annals of history, tliat became 
masters of themselves at once. Freedom has, in general, been 
gained slowly, and lost rapidly. The magna charta of British 
liberties, although the foundation of our free insiitnlions, was 
noihing more than a siring of concessions from a tyrant to barons 
and bishops, who were too strong for him. The great mass of the 
people had, afler this, to gain their rights by slow degrees from thr 
feudal lords of the country. This was done by the yeomanry, ar- 
tisans, merchants, lawyers, and judges, by dclerminaiiun and per- 
severance. It is much more difticull to wrest power from aristo- 
crats than from kings ; and in the hands of the former it has been 
more dangerous and cruel than in the latter. The Alexanders, 
Cesars, and Charlcmagnes, had clemency and generosity in their 
nature; while the five hundred magnates of Venice, wrapt in the 
petty consequence of aristocratic pride, bi-eathed their cruel edicts 
with malignity. Our government emanated from ourselves, and 
was formed with wholesome jealousies and cautious reservations, 
and has since been watched with the utmost scrupulosity. But we 
are in no danger: the staff is in our own hands; we can change 
the rulers often, if we do not like them, and they can do us but 
little harm, even at the worst that we can imagine. 

Il would require a volume lo touch upon all ihe prominent fea- 
tures of our history. We will therefore leave the broad-ca.^t view 
of our counlry, to make a few observations on the origin and Ihc 
progress of the arts ; Iheir necessary connexion with the happiness 
of a gfeat portion of our community ; their uses in national de- 
fence ; for the advancement of national prosperity ; for the support 
of national independence and national pride and glory; and their 
influence in forming the social, intellectual, moral, and political 
character of man. 

The arts undoubtedly made great progress in early times, for 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



345 



had declined to treat under the mediation of Russia, 
and a direct negotiation had been agreed on. Ghent 

they had their origin in necessity, and she is the mother of inven- 
tion. Every new and useful invention was not only hailed as a 
blessing to mankind, but its aulhor was at once raised to a divinity, 
and worshipped with the gods. The Scriptures, the oldest of all 
histories extant, give the invention of dress to Deity, but man him- 
self soon sought out many inventions, for he was madii but Utile 
lower than the angels, in all the capacities of acquiring knowledge. 
He must have improved rapidly, for it is said, " Cain builded a 
city;" certain it is, that the monuments of primitive architecture 
remain in the East, for the astonishment of the traveller of the pre- 
sent day. Time has not been able to destrny ihem, nor has the 
much-learned antiquary satisfied us of the precise time when these 
temples and pyramids were erected. 

In early Greece, the arts, both useful and polite, were held in high 
estimation. The acute and tasteful Athenians were artists and 
connoisseurs from childhood. Some of their greatest men came 
out of their workshops. Socrates was a sculptor, and Demosthenes, 
the master orator cf that and every other age, spent a good portion 
of his boyhood in his father's manufactory of swords and common 
cutlery. And such was his knowledge of the business, that he im- 
peached the int(?griiy of his guaidians, when only seventeen years 
cf age, and won his cause by an argument from his own mouth. 
The Parthenon alone is a suflicicnt proof of the successful atten- 
tion paid the arts in Athens, in her happiest days. 

In Rome, the arts, thongh often patronized by individuals, did 
not hold the same rank as in Athens ; the nation was too fierce 
and warlike for their successful cultivation. The passion for con- 
quest swallowed up a taste for the arts. The spoils of conquered 
provmces made them forget the honest earnings of industry, and 
with them, the fame of skilful artists. The early Roman emperors 
bei-ame the patrons of letters and the arts; in truth, the arts and 
letters were inseparable, if not equally cherished at the same time. 
Religious zeal uniting with the skill and science of the architect, 
in the first centuries of Christianity, was turned to the erection of 
monasteries and churches, and some of thern remain to this day, as 
the highest specimens of talent and taste. 

The arts were then almost exclusively confined to architecture; 
at least, the higher efforts of the artists were certainly to be found 
in public, edifices. Naval architecture was still in its infancy; 
very little improvement had been made in ship-building, until tlie 
use of cannon on board of the large vessels, and this was not until 
1444. In 1485, the Great Harry, as she was called, was built by 
Henry VII. Wonder as she was to the nations, her tonnage was 
but little more than one of our sloops of war. 

Printing came in use about the time cannon were brought into 
naval warfare. These two inventions changed the character of 
Europe in less than half a century, and by the time our fathers 
came to settle this country, science, the arts, and particularly let- 
ters, had made great advances. They brought with them all the 
elementary learning of the age, and sufficient of practical skill for 
their purposes ; but the cultivation of the soil soon offered more in- 
ducements than the workshops, and the mechanics were nearly lost 
in the farmers, visiting their shops only in the winter season. Do- 
mestic manufacturing was however carried on, as far as they could 
find flax and wool, and hides for leather; and for the first century, 
there can be no doubt, that more than half of the ordinary wants 
of the population were supplied within doors. Domestic industry 
was every where encouraged, and every house was a busy woik- 
shop, particularly in female industry. The hum of the spinning- 
wheel, and the sound of the shuttle, were heard in all our borders, 
and before the close of the first century, some parts of our country 
exported shoes and hats to the AVest Indies, somewhat clandestine- 
ly, for fear of the mother country; but their great traffic was in 
vessels built here, and sold to the colonists of Spain. It was not 
uncommon to get off in them some of these articles of home manu- 
facture. Our manufacturing interests had a great accession of in- 
telligence and industry in the host of Huguenots who fled lo this 
country, after the revocation of the edict of Nantz, in 1686. Their 
descendants are among the most respectable of our countrymen at 
this day. Prosperity, and a new order of manufacturing, was every 



was uhimately determined as the place of meeting ; 
and in the autumn of 1S14 the commissioners prose- 
where found with them. At that period the French were much in 
advance of ^the English in the excellence of their goods. Before 
the close of the first century, foundries were erected in several of 
our colonies, and a considerable supply of iron was had from them. 

The arts are necessary for the advancement of national prosperi- 
ty. It has been said by some politicians, that the United States 
should, for centuries to come, keep her u-urkshops in Europe. 
This maxim, perhaps, was well enough lo a certain extent, so far 
as it related to the finest goods, when we were building up a go- 
vernment, and had the carrying-trade of the world, and wlien the 
wars in Europe increased the value of our exports, by very high 
prices paid for all articles of provision ; but now the scene is 
changed, and the balance of trade is against us, and as we hava 
less to buy with, we must trust, in a good measure, to our own re- 
sources, and reflect upon what is best for this country in general. 

Putting out of the computation the two millions of slaves in our 
country, we have more than ten millions of free white inhabitants, 
and most of them live well. The demand for articles of necessity, 
comfort, and luxury,' together with the elegancies of taste, is im- 
mense. If these can be had among ourselves easier than by com- 
merce, why should they not be produced 1 

The arts are necessary for national defence. No country can he 
safe, happy, great, or glorious, without every means for self-defence 
within herself Our seaboard is as yet but partially fortified, and 
even where strong works have been erected, they are not as yet 
entirely supplied with cannon, nor can they be for years lo come, 
unless the government quicken its hand in supplying them. 

To preserve peace we must be prepared for war. I long for the 
" Salurnian rule" as well as the most ardent member of the peace 
society can do, but my belief is, that a golden age must be preserved 
by the implements of war — those sharp instruments forged in an 
iron age. In twenty years, with judicious appropriations, our sea- 
coast and frontiers will be amply fortified in a substantial and per- 
manent manner. The army is growing up in the best of all possi- 
ble forms, in the expanded intelligence of the officers, and not in 
useless numbers of soldiers, that can be raised in a day, and disci- 
plined in a few weeks. Our navy is gradually increasing, and 
there is no danger that discipline and nautical skill will be retro- 
grade with them. The day has passed, when men can be covered 
with glory, without being fraught with knowledge, and adorned 
with virtue. There is no danger of our becoming a martial peo- 
ple, and running into a love of conquest. The danger is on the 
other hand, that commerce, agricullure, and the peaceful arts,' the 
sciences, and letters, will engross our attention, and leave us too 
little of martial or naval spirit. It was ordained or suflered by 
the Almighty, that our nation should grow up through great and 
protracted struggles. Every step of our national progress, up lo 
our independence, has been of jjainful exertion, and loss of blood. 
This country has, in its various portions, and in different ages of 
its existence, been engaged in more than fifty wars, and fought 
more than a hundred battles, by land and sea, before the war of the 
revolution commenced. "We have not been a nation of peace froni 
our birth, nor' can we exist, if we at once beat our su^o■rds into 
ploughshares, and our spears into pruning hooks. In such a slate, 
the Philistines would be upon us. This is the decree of the God 
of battles, that freedom can be preserved only Vf brav'e hearts and 
muscular arms ; and it is equally true, that the most powerful, when 
enlightened, are the most generou.s.' 

The arts are necessary for the strength, the honour, pride, and 
glory of a nation. The strength of a nation consists o( high-souled 
men, but also in battlement, wall, and toucr ; in a word, in their pos- 
sessions ; such wealth as is real, and will go down to posterity im- 
proved and increased. Save tlie soil on which we live, most of our 
wealth and strength has been the growth of about half a century. 

The fact is, that every attempt made by England to retard the 
progress of the arts in this country, has, in the end, been one of 
the sources of their advancement. 

The first attack upon the arts and commerce of this country, wa.s 
the famous Navigation Act, passed in 1651, two years after the 
death of Charles I., by the parliament of the commonwealth, and 



346 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



ciited their labours, but at first with very doubtful 
success. By the 24th of December, a treaty was 

confirmed and enlarged by Charles II., in 1660. By this act the 
whole commerce of the colonies would have been nearly destroyed, 
il'it had been regarded, but it was evaded in many ways. 

In 1761, the British government began to draw closer the cords of 
commercial restrictions. In 1765, the sugar act was passed. And 
the same year the stamp act. The eflect of this throughout the co- 
lonies was electrical. The irritation continued until the war 
broke out. 

The elfects of the non-importation agreement gave great impulse 
to domestic inanufaclures. The class which graduated at Harvard 
College in 1770, appeared in clothes of domestic manufacture. An 
iinpulse was given to spinning and weaving, in all parts of the 
country ; but it was hard to cut off the people from the use of Bri- 
tish goods at once. The manufacturing of leather had, from the 
early settlement, been considerably attended to by the colonists. 

The arts, at the commencement of the struggle, were in a low 
stale. There was but a small sujiply of powder, and only four 
cannon, to begin the fight with. There was a scarcity of me- 
chanics; but many of the mechanics from the enemy deserted to us 
after the defeat of the Hessians at Trenton. 

The effects of the peace of 1783 were a sad blow to the arts for 
many years. The manufactures of England were poured in upon 
us, and the importer could undersell the artist. The prosperity of 
the carrying trade, from the peace of 1733 until 1806, enriched the 
United States beyond calculation. The decline of commerce, after 
1806, brought on some attention to the arts, but their progress was 
slow. pt , 

The war pf 1812 had a beneficial effect on the arts ; it trans- 
planted the work-shops from England to the United States. Now 
we can be said to be independent; before we were not. The at- 
tention to our manufacturing interests will in the end benefit the 
jnerchant, the farmer, and the whole mass of society, in a pecuniary 
point of view. Lyceums have been established; lectures given; 
knowledge generally diffused, and political economy studied. 

There is no danger of the number of mechanics increasing too 
rapidly in this country, for their proportion has not yer reached but 
a small part of the maximum that the nation will bear. In Eng- 
land, one hundred agricultural families will support sixty-six other 
families. These are calculated in the following manner : 1 priest, 
2 lawyers, 4 medical men, 4 schoolmasters, 6 tailors, 8 carpenters, 
5 smiths, 3 braziers, 2 cabinet-makers, 14 manufacturers, 10 tra- 
ders, or clerks, or accountants. Now we do not average any thing 
like this, while Great Britain nearly doubles it, in some portions of 
the calculation. Her land is better cultivated than ours, but we 
are not limited or confined. 

Some mechanics are apprehensive of labour-saving machines; 
but we have no just reason to fear any thing from this quarter yet. 
In the year 1776, Hargrave, in England, invented the first spinning- 
jenny, an invention which has saved countless millions to the king- 
dom, and I believe the wages of the workers in cotton is as great, 
in proportion to articles of living, as they were before this inven- 
tion. In England, it is calculated that there are 15,000 steam-en- 
gines at work, which ■will average twenty-five horsepower; but we 
can never want but a small portion of this number, as our country 
abounds with the best of all power — the water-power, which was 
but little known when our ancestors came to this country. 

Among the mechanics of a former age, many distinguished men 
have arisen to adorn every walk of life. They have passed from 
the work-shop to the battle field, and from thence to the hall of le- 
gislation, and to the bench of justice. It was not alone the mental 
culture of these men that made them great; it was their moral 
education that gave them the high stand they took in society. 
They were educated in the doctrines of strict obedience, and were 
not indulged in any romantic ideas of self-government; but were 
content with their lime of service that the wisdom of the law had 
directed. This was one cause of their superiority; they waited 
patiently to become free, and masters of themselves; and when 
they had reached the proper age, they were equal to their business, 
and set up with the confidence of their fellow-citizens. These men 
had acquired habits of industry and firmness of purpose, and start- 



agreed upon and signed by the plenipotentiaries of 
the respective powers at Ghent ; and in February of 



ed in life with a moral weight of character. Society opened its 
arms to receive them, and they came fairly into the ranks of men, 
having been thoroughly initiated into the art, craft, and mystery 
they professed, as far as it was taught in their day. T.hey had re- 
ceived parental, a.s well as professional education. They were di-. 
reefed by men whose hearts were right, who laboured for their chil- 
dren, that they might be good, leaving it to Providence to direct 
them in future life. Honesty and integrity are the basis of every 
character, and this their fathers knew. 

" Though they, each tome of human lore unknown, 
The brilliant path of science never trod, 
The sacred volume claim'd their hearts alone, 
Which taught the way to glory and to God. 

" Here Ihey from Truth's eternal fountain drew 
The pure and gladdening water day by day; 
Learnt, since our days are evil, fleet, and few 
To walk in Wisdom's bright and peaceful way." 

When the moral character is found to be correct and sutetan. 
lial, every particle of intelligence tells. The great man, who con- 
ducted our revolulion as chief in arms, owed his success to the 
weight of his moral character, more than to his genius and milita- 
ry skill, however great they might have been. Honesty and in- 
tegrity is credit every where, and in all stations. Themislocles 
was a greater man than Arislides ; but the advice of the latter was 
followed, when he agreed that what Themislocles counselled would 
be beneficial to his country, but woultr at the same lime take from 
the honesty and good faith of the nation. 

It is my sincere belief, that the artists, mechanics, and manufac- 
turers, at the present day, are as elevated in the scale of morals, 
as the agriculturists and the professional men of the country. The 
fear of corruption was the foundation of the opinion of our states- 
men, that our work-shops should be long kept in Europe. Those 
who have introduced them here, were willing to be responsible (or 
the result, and time has proved that they knew what they were 
doing. Some of the best schools in our country are connected with 
the manufacturing interests. The great proportion of those chil- 
dren connected with the establishments at Lowel, Chelmsford, and 
other places, are better educated than the great mass of the yeo- 
manry throughout our country. I speak from an acquaintance with 
the fact. 

The education of all cla.-^ses should be watched with a hundred 
eyes ; the philanthropist of the present age should never forget, 
that no plans of benefiting mankind are worth a single thought, 
unless they are connected with educalion. Not that education 
which gives a smattering of all things to every one, but that which 
teaches every one to think wisely and to act well. We are piivi- 
leged in this respect above all oilier nations who have preceded us, 
for they began the arts when mental and moral cultivation were 
low; we came to regard them when we. had considered and rea- 
soned upon other matters of vital importance. We had agreed on 
forms of governments, adopted constitutions, erected tribunals of 
justice, and passed wise laws for the piotection of property, and 
life, and public peace, and security, before the arts began to be 
cherished to any considerable extent. But we should not be satis- 
fied by thinking that we began right ; we must keep constantly in 
the right, to do justice to ourselves as a nation. There is no diffi- 
culty in this; it is only to see that every successive age has the 
proper degree of education offered them; not only offered, hut at- 
tended to. But few can become learned by the simple love of in 
Iclligence. The recompense of reward must be set before the eyes 
of the young, to stiinulate them to exertion. We must not only 
tell them that knowledge is power, but demonstrate it. 

We oflen reason erroneously upon nations, and the happiness 
they enjoy; we draw upon our imaginations instead of our judg- 
ments. We consider an age of successful war as one of happiness, 
as well as of glory. Nothing is more common than to hear la- 
mentations over Greece. The days of her worthies are called 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



347 



the following year it received the ratification of the 
president.* 

While the people of the United States were re- 
joicing- at the return of peace, their attention was 
called to a new scene of war. By a message from 
tlie president to the house of representatives, with a 



Back; her great men conjured up ; the political wisdom of Solon, 
the military prowess of Miltiades, and the eloquence of Demos- 
thenes, are set before us. Here Sappho sung, and Lais danced. 
Here Ilissus flowed on and fell in lovely cascades,* and Hymeltus 
was covered with flowers and honey ; then the Muses haunted 
every grove, and the reign of Apollo was unquestioned. In ail 
this we forget that Athens was cursed with slaves; that at times she 
had 200,000 slaves to 30,000 freemen; and that, like some of our 
southern states, the freemen lived in constant dread t^f them. 
Sparta also, with all her freedom, had her Helots, a race she was 
obliged to keep from increasing too fast, by repeated assassinations. 
The young reader revels in the descriptions of ancient Greece, 
and thinks that nothing can ever be made of her now. It is per- 
haps ciuel to dissolve a charm so refreshing to the classical mind, 
but it is our duty to look at these things with the eye of reason. 
Athens is now without slaves. All her citizens are free ; she has 
sent to this country some of her learned men, to learn the nature 
of our improvements, and they are engaged in their duties; they 
will carry back numerous models from our patent office and our 
manufacturing towns. They will build mills on the sacred streams; 
perforate Pindus and Hymetius for ores, and becoming a manufac- 
turing, commercial, and naval people, will resume a new station; 
if not one of as much glory, yet one of more true happiness. 
Former ages have been called after the metals in use among man- 
kind — an age of gold, of silver, of brass, or iron. Political econo- 
mists have discarded these terms, leaving them to the poet only, 
and have assumed new names, such as an age of invention, of in- 
dustry, o[ productiveness, all centering in utility. It is true, the na- 
tural world does not now furnish tlie hero with monsters to over- 
come, or prodigies to describe, such as the age of chivalr}' pro- 
duced, yet there is still enough of things unknown to demand the 
utmost exertions of the human mind. Genius and taste may be 
occupied, if the days of romance are past. 

The useful arts, in their regular course, cherish the fine arts. 
The great quantities of paper manufactured in this country facili- 
tates the multiplication of books. Competition among publishers 
leads to good editions, ornamented with engravings. Twenty-five 
years ago, when Delaplaine began his Repository, there was hardly 
an engraver in this country, and now there are hundreds fully em- 
ployed. As the engraver finds employment, the painter sees his 
art becoming more in fashion. And the sculptor has now some 
chance of fame with the painters and engravers. From the con- 
sumption of the single article of paper in the United Slates, the 
folly of keeping our work-sliops in Europe may be seen. There 
is not enough of the precious metals in our banks, from Louisiana 
to Maine, to purchase paper sufficient to supply the market for three 
years. Many other articles would illustrate our position, that we 
must be a manufacturing people to he a prosperous people. 

The jse of the article of iron is great almost beyond calculation. 
Two hundred and ten thousand tons of iron are used in this country 
every year, about one half of which we make ourselves, and ours is 
the best that can be found. In the article of shoes, forty millions of 
l^airs of shoes and boots are made in a year, for home consump- 
tion, and for foreign markets. For harnesses and saddles, also, a 
large amount of capital is paid yearly, and a great portion of these 
was formerly imported. Does not every ridge, every jilain, in fact, 
every tree and every blade of grass, feel the influence of this do- 
niestic industiyl Every village throughout the manufacturing 
districts, feels the efl^ects of this labour; and do not the seaports 
flourish as much, or more, than they did when we had .to depend 
entirely on England and on France for all our manufactures^ 
Every thing done for the manufacturing interests assists every 
other class in the community. The greater consumption of do- 
mestic goods, the better price the farmer will gel for his produce. 



report o( the secretary of state, it appeared that the 
dey of Algiers had violently, and without just cause, 
obliged the consul of the United States, and all the 
American citizens in Algiers, to leave that place, in 
violation of the treaty then subsisting between the 
two nations ; that he had exacted from the consul, 



There is a common chain that binds all interests together in this 
country, when a sound judgment is exercised in our national coun- 
cils. The harmony of the whole is the safety of the whole. This 
must teach us how wise it is to select the best and most discerning 
men for rulers, and not to trust (mr dearest inteiests to those whn 
wish to ride into power on their talents as demagogues or syco- 
phants. 

We think that we are now living in peace. The echo of the 
last groan of the Indian has passed over his smouldering wigwam, 
and the cliildren of Black Hawk are no more. The border-tioopei 
has cleft them down, and thrown the fiie-brand into their dAvellings. 
This no doubt was policj', but the philanthropist weeps at the ne- 
ces.sily of it. 

We think that having achieved our independence by a lot!g and 
painful struggle, and having a second time tried our strength with 
England, that we are, and shall long remain, in peace with her. 
If, in the mind of the warrior, all is peace, because the sword is 
not red with blood ; if all is peace, because no vessel of war is 
proudlj' carrying her thunders along our coast, to destroy our com- 
merce, and no din of martial preparation is hea'd ; the political 
ccouomisl and thinking statesman sees that En<i.ind, as a giant 
with a bundled hands and as many eyes, is waj^iiig an honest war 
upon our industry, invention, and prosperity. She has a right to 
take care of her own industry, by every fair policy. This is a war 
which we must see and feel may be wasting to us ; but the sword 
can not, by international law, and should not, by any excitement, 
leap from its scabbard, to decide the rivalry of mind and industry. 
We must meet policy by policy, until we find the effect of our 
unity, strength, and wisdom. Such a contest will be a preservative 
of peace between the two nations, and a lasting blessing to the 
world. — American Editor. 

* By the first article of this treaty it was agreed, that there shall 
be a firm and universal peace between his Britannic Majesty and 
the United States, and between their respective countries, territo- 
ries, cities, towns, and people, of every degree, without exception 
of places or per.sons ; and that all hostilities, both by sea and laud, 
shall cease as soon as this treaty shall have been ratified by both 
parties. By the third article, aW prisoners of war taken on either 
side, as well by land as by sea, shall be restored as soon as practi- 
cable after the ratifications of this treat)'. By the fourth article, 
the decision of the conflicting claims cf the United States and of 
Great Britain to several islands in the bay of Passamaquoddy, was 
referred to two commissioners, one to be appointed by his Britan- 
nic Majesty, and one by the president of the United States, with 
the advice and consent of the senate; and it was agreed, in the 
event of the two commissioners differing upon all or any of the 
matters referred to them, or of their not acting, they shall make 
report or reports to their respective governments, which report or 
reports they agreed to refer to some friendly sovereign or stale, to 
be then named for that purpose, and engaged to consider such de- 
cision to he final and conclusive. By the ninth a."-t>le, the United 
States engaged to put an end, immediately after the ratification of 
the present treaty, to hostilities with all the tribes or nations of In- 
dians, with whom they may be at war at the time of such ratifica- 
tion, provided they shall agree to desist from all hostilities against 
the United States; and his Britannic Majest)', on his part, entered 
into a correspondent engagement on the like condition of their de- 
sisting from all hostilities against him and his subjects. The tenth 
article has respect to Ihe abolilion of the slave trade: "Whereas 
the traffic in slaves is irreconcilable with the principles of huuifrii- 
ty and justice ; and whereas both his majesty and the United States 
are desirous of continuing their efforts to prcmote its entire aboli- 
tion ; it is hereby agreed that both the contracting parties si all use 
their best endeavours to accomplish so desirable an object." 



348 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



under pain of immediate imprisonment, a large sum 
of money, to wlaicli lie had no just claim ; and that 
these acts of violence and outrage had been followed 
by the capture of at least one American vessel, and 
by the seizure of an American citizen on board of a 
neutral vessel ; that the captured persons were yet 
held in captivity, with the exception of two of them, 
who had been ransomed ; that every effort to obtain 
the release of the others had proved abortive ; and 
that there was some reason to believe they were held 
by the dey as means by which he calculated to extort 
from the United States a degrading treaty. The 
president observed, that the considerations which 
rendered it unnecessary and unimportant to commence 
hostile operations on the part of the United States, 
were now terminated by the peace with Great Britain, 
which opened the prospect of an active and valuable 
trade of their citizens within the range of the Alge- 
rine cruisers ; and recommended to congress the con- 
sideration of an act declaring the existence of a state 
of war between the United States and the dey of 
Algiers, and of such provisions as might be re- 
quisite for the prosecution of it to a successful 
issue. A committee of congress, to whom was re- 
ferred a bill " for the protection of the commerce 
of the United States against the Algerine cruisers," 
after a statement of facts, concluded their report 
by expressing their united opinion, " that the dey 
of Algiers considers his treaty with the United 
States as at an end, and is wao-ing- war with them ;" 
and in March war was declared against the Alge- 
rincs. 

An expedition was immediately ordered to the 
Mediterranean, under the command of Commodore 
Bainbridge. The squadron in advance on that ser- 
vice, under Commodore Decatur, lost not a moment 
after its arrival in the Mediterranean, in seeking the 
naval force of the enemy, then cruising in that sea, 
and succeeded in capturing two of his ships, one of 
them commanded by the Algerine admiral. The 
American commander, after this demonstration of 
skill and prowess, hastened to the port of Algiers, 
where he readily obtained peace, in the stipulated 
terms of which the rights and honour of the United 
States were particularly consulted, by a perpetual re- 
linquishment, on the part of the dey, of all pretensions 
to tribute from them. The impressions thus made, 
strengthened by subsequent transactions with the re- 
gencies of Tunis and Tripoli, by the appearance of 
the larger force which followed under Commodore 
Bainbridge,»and by the judicious precautionary ar- 
rangements left by him in that quarter, afforded a 
reasonable prospect of future security for the valuable 



portion of American commerce which passes within 
reach of the Barbary cruisers.* 

President Madison, in his message to the congress 
of 1S16, having adverted to the peace of Europe and 
to that of the United States with Great Britain, said, 
he had the " satisfaction to state, generally, that they 
remained in amity with foreign powers." He pro- 
ceeded to say, that the posture of afl'airs with Algiers 
at that moment was not known ; but that the dey 
had found a pretext for complaining of a violation of 
the last treaty, and presenting as the alternative, war 
or a renewal of the former treaty, which stipulated, 
among other things, an annual tribute. " The an- 
swer," says the president, "with an explicit declara- 
tion that the United States preferred war to tribute, 
required his recognition and observance of the treaty 
last made, which abolishes tribute, and the slavery 
of our captured citizens. The result of the answer 
has not been received. Should he renew his warfare 
on our commerce, we rely on the protection it will 
find in our naval force actually in the Mediterranean. 
With the other Barbary states our afiairs have under- 
gone no change. With reference to the aborigines 
of our own country," he continues, " the Indian tribes 
within our limits appear also disposed to remain in 
peace. From several of them purchases' of lands 
have been made, particularly favourable to the wishes 
and security of our frontier settlements as well as to 
the general interests of the nation. In some instan- 
ces, tlie titles, though not supported by due prool", 
and clashing those of one tribe with the claims of 
another, have been extinguished by double purchases, 
the benevolent policy of the United States preferring 
the augmented expense to the hazard of doing injus- 
tice, or to the enforcement of justice against a feeble 
and untutored people, by means involving or threat- 
ening an effusion of blood. I am happy to add, that 
the tranquillity which has been restored among the 
tribes themselves, as well as between them and our 
own population, will favour the resimiption o-f the 
work of civilization, which had made an encouraging 
progress among some tribes ; and that the facility is 
increasinsf for extendine: that divided and individual 
ownership, which exists now in moveable property 
only, to the soil itself; and of thus establishing, in 
the culture and improvement of it, the true founda- 
tion for a transit from the habits of a savage to the 
arts and comforts of social life." 

The doubtful state of the relations between the 
United States and the dey of Algiers, to which the 
president alluded in his message, arose either from a 

* Message of the president to congress, December 3, 1816. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



349 



strong impulse of the love of extortion in the dey, or 
from the influence of some foreign personages ;* the 
rising differences were, however, settled by the pru- 
dent management of the American consul, Mr. Sha- 
ler, and peace has not since been broken on the part 
of the Algerines. 

Among the incidents of domestic interest which 
indicate the rapid growth and increasing prosperity 
of the republic, we may notice the foHnation of the 
territory of Indiana into a state, and its admission 
into the union ; the progress of canals in various 
states ; ihe institution of a national bank ; and the 
arrival of many thousand emigrants, chiefly from 
Great Britain. t Treaties were, during this year, ne- 
gotiated with the Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Chero- 
kee Indians, ceding large portions of their respective 
territories to the United States, and acknowledging 
their tribes to be under the protection of the republic. 



CHAPTER VI. 

ADMINISTRATIONS OF JAMES JIONROE, JOHN aUINCY 
ADAMS, AND PART OF THAT OF ANDRJEW JACK- 
SON. 

The events of the existing generation can never 
be considered fully ripe for the historian ; we have 
therefore been concise in our narrative of recent 
transactions. The closing cliapter of this narrative, 
although comprising a period of eighteen years, will 
exhibit still more strikingly a happy brevity, through 
the absence of events which constitute the chief ma- 
terials of history ; and our earnest hope is, that every 
succeeding decade will possess an equally diminished 
claim on the historic pen — an indication that an in- 
terchange of benevolent acts constitutes an increasmg 
proportion of national proceedings, giving little to 
record, but much to enjoy. Ambition and the love 
of glory, the brilliant but delusive ofl^spring of dis- 
ordered minds, may excite to deeds which engage the 
admiration of the unreflecting mass of mankind ; but 
they are deeds which, while they gratify the pride of 
a few, blast the happiness of multitudes ; and, like 
family feuds, spread their baneful influence through 
distant generations. Under the heated and deadly 
glare of military glory, the arts and sciences which 
contribute to the enjoyment of life wither, and give 
place to the luxurious growth of rancorous weeds, 
whose blossoms are decked, indeed, with gorgeous 



* Norlh American Review, vol. xxii. p. 422. 
t This year, 1192 American and foreign vessels arrived at New 
York, bringing to that port alone 7122 passengers. 



colours, but whose fruit is the dust of bitterness and 
despair. 

A circumstance peculiar to the con.stitution of the 
United States, also tends to abridge our present la- 
bours; — the history of the United States during the 
remainder of the period we propose to include rela- 
ting chiefly to measures of internal improvement, 
which are, for the most part, conducted by the re- 
spective states, and not by the general government, 
the arrangements of the work necessarily transfer 
our notice of these transactions to a subsequent sec- 
tion, which will treat of them in connexion with the 
statistics and topography of the states in which they 
have occurred. 

The term of Mr. Madison's administration having 
expired in the year 1817, James Monroe was inau- 
gurated president, and Daniel D. Tompkins vice- 
president. On his' inauguration, Mr. Monroe deliver- 
ed the following: address to both houses of congress : — 

" I should be destitute of feeling, if I was not deeply 
aftecied by the strong proof which my fellow-citizens 
have given me of their confidence, in calling nie to the 
high oflice, wliose functions I am about to assume. 
As the expression of their good opinion of my con- 
duct in the public service, I derive from it a grati- 
fication, which those who are conscious of having" 
done all that they could to merit it, can alone feel. 
My sensibility is increased by a just estimate of the 
importance of the trust, and of the nature and extent 
of its duties ; with the proper discharge of which, the 
highest interests of a great and free people are inti- 
mately connected. Conscious of my own deficiency. 
I cannot enter on these duties without great anxiety 
for the result. From a just responsibility I will 
never shrink ; calculating with confidence, that in 
my best eflbrts to promote the public welfare, my mo- 
tives will always be duly appreciated, and my con- 
duct be viewed with that candour and indulgence 
whi^h I have experienced in other stations. 

" In commencing the duties of the chief executive 
office, it has been the practice of the distinguished 
men who have gone before me, to explain the prin- 
ciples which would govern them in their respective 
administrations. In following their venerated exam- 
ple, my attention is naturally drawn to the great 
causes which have contributed, in a principal degree, 
to produce the present happy condition of the United 
States. They will best explain the nature of our 
duties, and shed much light on the policy which 
ought to be pursued in future. 

" From the commencement of our revolution to 
the present day, almost forty years have elapsed, and 
from the establishment of this constitution, twenty- 



350 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



eight. Throvigh this whole term the government 
has been what may emphatically be called, self-go- 
vernment ; and what has been the effect ? To 
whatever object we turn our attention, whether it 
relates to our foreign or domestic concerns, we find 
abundant cause to felicitate ourselves in the excel- 
lence of our institutions. During a period fraught 
with difficulties, and marked by very extraordinary 
eventSj the United States have flourished beyond ex- 
ample. Their citizens, individually, have been happy, 
and the nation prosperous. 

" Under this constitution, our commerce has been 
wisely regulated with foreign nations, and between 
the states ; new states have been admitted into our 
union; our territory has been enlarged, by fair and 
honourable treaty, and with great advantage to the 
original states ; the states respectively, protected by 
the national government, under a mild parental sys- 
tem, against foreign dangers, and enjoying within 
their separate spheres, by a wise partition of power, 
a just proportion of the sovereignty, have improved 
their police, extended their settlements, and attained 
a strength and maturity, which are the best proofs of 
wholesome laws, well administered. And if we look 
to tlie condition of individuals, what a proud spectacle 
does it exhibit 1 On whom has oppression fallen in 
any quarter of our union? Who has been deprived 
of any right of person or property ? Who restrain- 
ed in offering his vows in the mode in which he 
prefers, to the Divine Author of his being'.' It is 
well known, that all these blessings have been enjoy- 
ed in their fullest extent ; and I add with peculiar 
satisfaction, that there has been no example of a 
capital punishment being inflicted on any one for the 
crime of high treason. 

" Some, who might admit the competency of our 
government to these beneficent duties, might doubt 
it in trials which put to the test its strength and efli- 
ciency, as a member of the great community of nations. 
Here, too, experience has aflbrded us the most satis- 
factory proof in its favour. Just as this constitution 
was put into action, several of the principal states of 
Europe had become much agitated, and some of them 
seriously convulsed. Destructive wars ensued, which 
have, of late only, been terminated. In the course of 
these conflicts, the United States received great in- 
jury from several of the parties. It was their in- 
terest to stand aloof from the contest ; to demand 
justice from the party committing the injury ; and to 
cultivate, by a fair and honourable conduct, the friend- 
ship of all. War became, at length, inevitable, and 
the result has shown, that our government is equal 
to that, the greatest of trials, under the most unfavour- 



able circumstances. Of the virtue of the people, and 
of the heroic exploits of the army, the navy, and the 
militia, I need not speak. 

" Such, then, is the happy government under which 
we live : a government adequate to every purpose 
for which the social compact is formed ; a govern- 
ment elective in all its branches, under which every 
citizen may, by his merit, obtain the higliest trust 
recognised bjk the constitution ; which contains 
within it no cause of discord ; none to put at vari- 
ance one portion of the community v/ith another ; a 
government which protects every citizen in the full 
enjoyment of his rights, and is able to protect the 
nation against injustice from foreign powers. 

" Other considerations of the highest importance 
admonish us to cherish our union, and cling to the 
government which supports it. Fortunate as we are 
in our political institutions, we have not been less so 
in other circumstances, on which our prosperity and 
happiness essentially depend. Situated within the 
temperate zone, and extending through many degrees 
of latitude along the Atlantic, the United States enjoy 
all the varieties of climate, and every production in- 
cident to that portion of the globe. Penetrating, 
internally, to the great lakes, and beyond the source 
of the great rivers which communicate through our 
whole interior, no country was ever happier with 
respect to its domain. Blessed too with a fertile soil, 
our produce has always been very abundant, leaving, 
even in years the least favourable, a surplus for the 
wants of our fellow men in other countries. Such 
is our peculiar felicity, that there is not a part of our 
union that is not particularly interested in preserving 
it. The great agricultural interest of the nation 
prospers under its protection. Local interests are 
not less fostered by it. Our fellow-citizens of the 
norfli, engaged in navigation, find great encourage- 
ment in being made the favoured carriers of the vast 
productions of the other portions of the United States, 
while the inhabitants of these are amply recompen- 
sed, in their turn, by the nursery for seamen and 
naval force, thus formed and reared up for the sup- 
port of our common rights. Our manufactures find 
a generous encouragement by the policy which 
patronizes domestic industry ; and the surplus of our 
produce, a steady and profitable market by local 
wants, in less favoured parts at home. 

" Such, then, being the highly favoured condition 
ol our country, it is the interest of every citizen to 
maintain it. What are the dangers which menace 
us 7 If any exist, they ought to be ascertained and 
guarded against. 

" In explaining my sentiments on this subject, it 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



351 



may be asked, what raised us to the present happy 
state? How did we accomplish the revohition ? 
How remedy the defects of the first instrument of our 
union, by infusing into the national government 
sufficient power for national purposes, without im- 
pairing the just rights of the states, or affecting those 
of individuals ? How sustain, and pass with glory 
through the late war ? The government has been 
in the hands of the people. To tlie people, therefore, 
and to the faithful and able depositories of their trust, 
is the credit due. Had the people of the United 
States been educated in different principles ; had 
they been less intelligent, less independent, or less 
virtuous, can it be believed that we should have 
maintained the same steady and consistent career, or 
been blessed Avitli the same success ? While then 
the constituent body retains its present sound and 
healthful state, every thing will be safe. They will 
choose competent and faithful representatives of every 
department. It is only when the people become ig- 
norant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a 
populace, that they are incapable of exercising the 
sovereignty. Usurpation is then an easy attainment, 
and a usurper soon found. The people themselves 
become the willing instruments of their own debase- 
ment and ruin. Let us then look to the great cause, 
and endeavour to preserve it in full force. Let us, 
by all wise and constitutional measures, promote in- 
telligence among the people, as the best means of 
preserving our liberties. 

" Dangers from abroad are not less deserving of at- 
tention. Experiencing the fortune of other nations, 
the United States may be again involved in war, and 
it may, in that event, be the object of the adverse 
party to overset our government, to break our union, 
and demolish us as a nation. Our distance from 
Europe, and the just, moderate, and pacific policy of 
our government, may form some security h gainst 
these dangers, but they ought to be anticipated and 
guarded against. Many of our citizens are engaged 
in cominerce and navigation, and all of them are in 
a certain degree dependent on their prosperous state. 
Many are engaged in the fisheries. These interests 
are exposed to invasion in the wars between other 
powers, and we should disregard the faithful admo- 
nition of experience if we did not expect it. We 
must support our rights or lose our character, and 
with it perhaps our liberties. A people who fail to 
do it, can scarcely be said to hold a place among in- 
dependent nations. National honour is national 
property of the highest value. The sentiment in the 
mind of every citizen, is national strength. It ought 
therefore to be cherished. 
45 



" To secure us against these dangers, our coast 
and inland frontiers should be fortified, our army and 
navy regulated upon just principles as to the force ol 
each, be kept in perfect order, and our militia be 
placed on the best practicable footing. To put our 
extensive coast in such a state of defence, as to secure 
our cities and interior from invasion, will be attended 
with expense, but the work when finished will be 
permanent, and it is fair to presume that a single 
campaign of invasion, by a naval force superior to 
our own, aided by a few thousand land troops, would 
expose us to greater expense, without taking into the 
estimate the loss of property, and distress of our citi- 
zens, than would be suflicient for this great work. 
Our land and naval forces should be moderate, but 
adequate to the necessary purposes. The former to 
o-arrison and preserve our fortifications and to meet 
the first invasions of a foreign foe ; and, Avhile con- 
stituting the elements of a greater force, to preserve 
the science, as well as all the necessary implements 
of war, in a state to he brought into activity in the 
event of war. The latter, retained within the limits 
proper in a state of peace, might aid in maintaining 
tlie neutrality of the United States with dignity in 
the wars of other powers, and in saving the property 
of their citizens from spoliation. In time of war, 
with the enlargement of which the great naval re- 
sources of the country render it susceptible, and 
which should be duly fostered in time of peace, it 
would contribute essentially both as an auxiliary of 
defence, and as a powerful engine of annoyance, to 
diminish the calamities of war, and to bring the 
war to a speedy and honourable termination. 

" But it always ought to be held prominently in 
view, that the safety of these states, and of every 
thing dear to a free people, must depend in an eminent 
degree on the militia. Invasions may be made, too 
formidable to be resisted by any land and naval force, 
which it would comport either with the principles of 
our government, or the circumstances of the United 
States, to maintain. In such cases, recourse must be 
had to the great body of the people, and in a manner 
to produce the best effect. It is of the highest im- 
portance, therefore, that they be so organized and 
trained, as to be prepared for any emergency. The 
arrangement should be such, as to put at the com- 
mand of the government the ardent patriotism and 
youthful vigour of the country. If formed on equal 
and just principles, it cannot be oppressive. It is 
the crisis which makes the pressure, and not the laws 
which provide a remedy for it. This arrangement 
should be formed too in time of peace, to be better 
prepared for war. With such an organization of 



35S 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



such a people, the United States have nothing to dread 
from foreign invasion. At its approach, an over- 
wlielming force of gallant men might always be put 
in motion. 

" Other interests of high importance will claim at- 
tention, among which the improvement of our coun- 
try by rpads and canals, proceedmg always with a 
constitutional sanction, holds a distinguished place. 
By thus facilitating the intercourse between the 
states, we shall add much to the convenience and 
comfort of our fellow-citizens ; much to the ornament 
of the country ; and, what is of a greater importance, 
we shall shorten distances, and by making each part 
more accessible to, and dependent on the other, we 
shall bind the union more closely together. Nature 
has done so much for us by intersecting the country 
with so many great rivers, bays, and lakes, approach- 
ing from distant points so near to each other, that 
the inducement to complete the work seems to be 
peculiarly strong. A more interesting spectacle was 
perhaps never seen than is exhibited within the 
United States ; a territory so vast, and advantageous- 
ly situated, containing objects so grand, so useful, so 
happily connected in all their parts. 

" Our manufactures will likewise require the sys- 
tematic and fostering care of the government. Pos- 
sessing, as we do, all the raw materials, the fruit of 
our own soil and industry, we ought not to depend 
in the degree we have done on the supplies from 
other countries. While we are thus dependent, the 
sudden event of war unsought and imexpected, can 
not fail to plunge us into the most serious ditSculties. 
It is important, too, that the capital which nourishes 
our manufactures should be domestic, as its influence 
in that cose, instead of exhausting, as it may do in 
foreign hands, would be felt advantageously on 
agriculture, and every other branch of industry. 
Equally important is it to provide at home a market 
for our raw materials, as by extending the competi- 
tion, it will enhance the price, and protect the cul- 
tivator against the casualties incident to foreign 
markets. 

" With the Indian tribes it is our duty to cultivate 
friendly relations, and to act with kindness and libe- 
rality in all our transactions. Equally proper is it to 
persevere in our efforts to extend to them the advan- 
tages of civilization. 

" The great amount of our revenue, and the flour- 
ishing state of the treasury, are a full proof of the 
competency of the national resources for any emer- 
gency, as they are, of the willingness of our fellow- 
citizens to bear the burdens which the public neces- 
sities require. The vast amount of vacant lands, 



the value of which daily augments, forms an addi- 
tional resource of great extent and duration. These 
resources, besides accomplishing every other necessary 
purpose, put it completely in the power of the United 
States to discharge the national debt at an early 
period. Peace is the best time for improvement 
and preparation of every kind ; it is in peace that 
our commerce flourishes most, that taxes are most 
easily paid, and that the revenue is most productive. 

" The executive is charged officially, in the depart- 
ments under it, with the disbursement of the public 
money, and is responsible for the faithful application of 
it to the purposes for which it is raised. The legis- 
lature is the watchful guard over the public purse. 
It is its duty to see that the disbursement has been 
honestly made. To meet the requisite responsibility, 
every facility should be afforded to the executive to 
enable it to bring the public agents, intrusted with 
the public money, strictly and promptly to account. 
Nothing should be presumed against them ; but if, 
with the requisite faculties, the public money is suf- 
fered to lie, long and uselessly, in their hands, they 
will not be the only defaulters, nor will the demoral- 
izing effect be confined to them. It will evince a 
relaxation, and want of tone in the administration, 
which will be felt by the whole community. I shall 
do all that I can, to secure economy and fidelity in 
this important branch of the administration, and I 
doubt not, that the legislature will perform its duty 
with equal zeal. A thorough examination should be 
regularly made, and I will promote it. 

" It is particularly gratifying to me, to enter on 
the discharge of these duties, at a time when the 
United States are blessed with peace. It is a state 
most consistent with their prosperity and happiness. 
It will be my sincere desire to preserve it so far as 
depends on the executive, on just principles with all 
nations, claiming nothing unreasonable of any, and 
rendering to each what is its due. 

" Equally gratifying is it, to witness the increased 
harmony of opinion which pervades our union. Dis- 
cord does not belong to our system. Union is recom- 
mended, as well by the free and benign principles of 
our government, extending its blessings to every in- 
dividual, as by the other eminent advantages attend- 
ing it. The American people have encountered to- 
gether great dangers, and sustained severe trials with 
success. They constitute one great family with a 
common interest. Experience has enlightened us on 
some questions of essential importance to the country. 
The progress has been slow, dictated by a just re- 
flection, and faithful regard to every interest connect- 
ed with it. To promote this harmony, in accord 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



353 



with the principles of our republican government, and 
in a manner to give them the most complete effect, 
and to advance in all other respects the best interests 
of our union, will be the object of my constant and 
zealous exertioiis. 

" Never did a government commence under au- 
spices so favourable, nor ever was success so complete. 
If we look to the history of other nations, ancient and 
modern, we find no example of a growth so rapid, so 
gigantic ; of a people so prosperous and happy. In 
contemplating what we have still to perform, the 
heart of every citizen must expand with joy when he 
reflects how near our government has approached to 
pesfection ; that in respect to it, we have no essential 
improvement to make ; that tlie great object is to 
preserve it in the essential principles and features 
which characterize it, and, that is to be done, by pre- 
serving the virtue and enlightening the minds of the 
people ; and as a security against foreign dangers, to 
adopt such arrangements as are indispensable to the 
support of our independence, our rights, and liberties. 
If we persevere in the career in which we have ad- 
vanced so far, and in the path already traced, we 
cannot fail, by the favour of a gracious Providence, 
to attain the high destiny which seems to await us. 

" In the administration of the illustrious men who 
have preceded me in this high station, with some of 
whom I have been connected by the closest ties from 
early life, examples are presented, which will always 
be found highly instructive, and useful to their suc- 
cessors. From these I shall endeavour to derive all 
the advantages which they may afford. Of my im- 
mediate predecessor, under whom so important a 
portion of this great and successful experiment has 
been made, I shall be pardoned for expressing my 
earnest wishes that he may long enjoy, in his retire- 
ment, the affections of a grateful country, the best 
reward of exalted talents, and the most faithful and 
meritorious services. Relying on the aid to be deri- 
ved from the other departments of the government, I 
enter on the trust to which I have been called by the 
suffrages of my fellow-citizens, with my fervent 
prayers to the Almighty, that lie will be graciously 
pleased to continue to us that protection, which He 
has already so conspicuously displayed in our favour." 

During this year the republic received another 
accession by the erection of the territory of Mississippi 
into a state, and its admission into the union. By 
the act of admission it is provided, that the public 
lands, while belonging to the United States, and for 
five years from the day of sale, shall be exempted 
from all taxes ; that lands belonging to the citizens 
of the United States residing without the state, shall 



never be taxed higher than lands belonging to per- 
sons residing within the state ; and that the river 
Mississippi, and the navigable rivers and waters 
leaduig into it, or into the gulf of Mexico, shall be 
common highways, and for ever free of toll or duty 
to all the citizens of the United States. In return for 
this concession, congress provided, that, after paying 
a debt to Georgia and indemnifying certain claimants, 
five per cent, of the net proceeds of the public lands, 
lying within the state, shall be devoted to the making 
of roads and canals for the benefit of the state. 

In the summer of this year an expedition was un- 
dertaken against East Florida by persons claiming to 
act under the authority of some of the revolted Spa- 
nish colonies. The leader of this expedition styled 
himself " Citizen Gregor M'Gregor, brigadier-general 
of the armies of the united provinces of New Grenada 
and Venezuela, and general in chief, employed to 
liberate the provinces of both the Floridas, commis- 
sioned by the supreme governments of Mexico and 
South America." The persons that combined for 
this purpose took possession of Amelia Island, at the 
mouth of St. Mary's River, near the boundary of the 
state of Georgia. The president, apprised of this 
transaction, ordered an expedition, consisting of naval 
and land forces, to repel the invaders, and to occupy 
the island. A squadron, under the command of 
J. D. Henley, with troops under the command of 
James Banhead, arrived off Amelia Island on the 22d 
of December, and the next day took possession of it, 
hoisting the American flag at Fernandina. The 
president, in a message to congress relative to the 
capture, observed, " In expelling these adventurers 
from these posts, it was not intended to make any 
conquest from Spain, or to injure, in any degree, the 
cause of the colonies." The real reason of the mea- 
sure seems to have been, that the invasion interfered 
with endeavours which were then making on the 
part of the United States to obtain the cession of the 
Floridas from the Spaniards. 

In the following year the union received the acces- 
sion of another state, that of Illinois. At the time of 
its admission, the government of the United States* 
granted to the state one section or thirty-sixth part of 
every township for the support of schools, and three 
per cent, of the net proceeds of the United States 
lands lying within the state for the encouragement of 
learning, of which one sixth part must be exclusively 
bestowed on a college or university. The constitu- 
tion happily provides, that no more slaves shall be 
introduced into the state. In 1819 the Alabama ter- 
ritory was admitted as a state into the union ; and 
the Arkansaw territory was, by an act of congress, 



354 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



eroded into a territorial government. In the follow- 
ing year the district of Maine was separated from 
Massachusetts, formed into a distinct state, and ad- 
mitted into the union. 

During this year the American congress did tliem- 
selves honour by providing more eflectually against 
carrying on the slave trade. The enactment declared, 
that if any citizen of the United States, being of the 
ship's company of any foreign ship or vessel engaged 
in the slave trade, or any person whatever being of 
the crew or ship's company of any ship or vessel 
owned by, or navigated for, any citizens of the United 
States, shall on foreign shore seize anj' negro or mu- 
latto, not held to service or labour by the laws either 
of the states or territories of the United States, 
with intent to make him a slave, or shall decoy or 
forcibly bring or receive him on board with such in- 
tent, he shall be adjudged a pirate, and on conviction 
shall suffer death. 

A treaty for the cession of the Floridas was con- 
cluded at Washington, February 22, 1819, between 
Spain and the United States. In the year 1821 it 
was reluctantly ratified by the king of Spain, and 
possession was taken of those provinces according to 
the terms of the treaty. On the 1st of July, General 
Jackson, who had been appointed governor of the 
Floridas, issued a proclamation, declaring " tliat the 
government heretofore exercised over the said pro- 
vinces under the authority of Spain has ceased, and 
that that of the United States of America is establish- 
ed over the same ; that the inhabitants thereof will 
be incorporated in the union of the United States, as 
soon as may be consistent with the principles of the 
federal constitution, and admitted to the enjoyment 
of all the privileges, rights, and immunities of the 
citizens of the United States ; that in the mean time 
tliey shall be maintained and protected in the free 
enjoyment of their liberty, property, and the religion 
they profess ; that all laws and municipal regulations 
which were in existence at the cessation of the late 
government remain in full force, and all civil officers 
charged with their execution," with certain exceptions 
and limitations, " are continued in their functions." 
On the 7th of July, the colonel commandant, Don 
Jose Gallava, commissioner on the part of his Catho- 
lic majesty, made to Major-General Jackson, the com- 
missioner of the United States, a delivery of the keys 
of the town of Pensacola, of the archives, documents, 
and other articles, mentioned in the inventories, de- 
claring that he releases from their oath of allegiance 
to Spain the citizens and inhabitants of West Florida 
who may choose to remain under the dominion of the 
United States. On the same day, Colonel Joseph Cop- 



pinger, governor of East Florida, issued a proclama- 
tion to the inhabitants, announcing that, on the 10th 
day of this month, "possession will be given to Colo- 
nel Robert Butler, the commissioner legally authorized 
by the United States." The American authorities 
were accordingly put in possession of the Floridas. 

During this year Missouri was admitted as a state 
into the union, forming the eleventh- state added to the 
thirteen confederated states which signed the declara- 
tion of independence, making the present number of 
the United States twenty-four. The proposition for the 
admission of this state, which was brought forward 
in the session of 1819, produced vehement discussion 
in the congress, and excited an intense intejest 
throughout the whole union. The inhabitants of 
Missouri, the territory having been considered as a 
part of Louisiana, had derived from their connexion 
with the Spaniards and French the custom, which 
they deemed equivalent to the right, of possessing 
slaves ; it was proposed, however, in admitting the 
territory to the privileges of a state, to prevent the 
increase and to insure the ultimate abolition of 
slavery, by the insertion of the following clause : — • 
" Provided, that the further introduction of slavery 
or involuntary servitude be prohibited, except for the 
punishmcHt of crimes whereof the party shall have 
been duly convicted ; and that all the children born 
within the said state after the admission thereof into 
the Union shall be free at the age of twenty-five 
years." Judging from the previous views and mea- 
sures of the general government, in similar and 
analogous cases, it could hardly have been conjec- 
tured, that the result of proposing such a limited and 
qualified restriction would be doubtful. The house 
of representatives, after a short but animated debate, 
refused to pass the bill without the restriction ; but 
the senate refused to pass the bill Avith it ; conse- 
quently the bill itself was lost, and Missouri still con- 
tinued under her former territorial government. Such 
was the rapidity with which the several proceedings 
passed in the two houses of congress, that it was 
scarcely known beyond its walls that such a question 
was agitated, before it was decided. When, how- 
ever, it came to be generally known what principles 
had been advanced, what votes had been given, with 
what ardour and vehemence the advocates of slavery 
had urged their demands, not merely upon the jus- 
tice, the reason, and good sense of congress, but upon 
tlieir interests, their prejudices, and their fears, by 
how slender a majority a measure had been checked, 
which, in the estimation of many of the best friends 
of American liberty, would have been productive of 
incalculable and interminable mischiefs, it excited a 



HISTORY cTf the UNITED STATES. 



355 



feeling of universal surprise and alarm. It is in 
structive to observe that many of the stanchest ad 
vocates of liberal ideas, who delighted in appropriating*' 
to themselves exclusively the name of republicans, suf- 
fered their jealousy of the interference of the congress 
in the internal government of an individual state, to 
engage them on the side of the perpetuators of sla- 
very. Jefferson, who prided himself in being the 
devoted friend of liberty, thus expresses himself: 
" The real question, as seen in the states afflicted 
with this unfortunate population, is, are our slaves to 
be presented with freedom and a dagger 1 For, if 
congress has the power to regulate the conditions of 
the iuhal)itants of the states within the states, it will 
be but another exercise of that power to declare that 
all shall be free. Are we then to see again Athenian 
and Lacedemonian confederacies ? — to wage another 
Peloponnesian war to settle the ascendency between 
them 1 Or is this the tocsin of merely a servile war ? 
That remains to be seen ; but not, I hope, by you or 
me. Surely they will parley awhile, and give us 
time to get out of the way.'" The consequence of 
this combination of the advocates of the sovereignty 
of individual states with those who make a traffic of 
the bodies of their fellow men, was the passing of tlie 
bill for the admission of Missouri in the next session 
of the congress, without the restricting clause ; a cir- 
cumstance which occasioned the deep regret and 
mortification of most of the inhabitants of the north- 
ern states, and excited feelings which it has been 
feared by many may ultimately lead to a dissolution 
of the union. t 

No circumstances of particular interest in the 
transactions of the general government occurred till 
the year 182-1, when articles of a convention between 
the United States of America and Great Britain for 
the suppression of the African slave trade, were 
subscribed at London by plenipotentiaries appointed 
for that purpose. By the first article, the com- 
manders and commissioned officers of each of the 
two high contracting parties, duly authorized by 
their respective governments to cruise on the coast 
of Africa, America, and the West Indies, for the 
suppression of the slave trade, are empowered, under 
certain restrictions, to detain, examine, capture, and 
deliver over for trial and adjudication by some com- 
ptt3nt tribunal, any ship or vessel concerned in the 



* Memoirs, vol. iv. p. 347. 

t " The coincidence of a marked principle, moral and political, 
with a geographical line, once conceived, I feared would never 
more be obliterated from the mind ; that it would be recurrino- on 
every occasion, and renewing irritations, until it would kindle such 
mutual and mortal hatred, as to render separation preferable to 
Blemal discord. I have been among the most sanguine in believing 



illicit traffic of slaves, and carrying the flag of thp 
other. 

In the spring of this year a convention was also 
concluded between the United States of America 
and the emperor of Russia. By the third article of 
this convention it was agreed, " that, hereafter, there 
shall not be formed by the citizens of the United 
States, or under the authority of the said States, any 
establishment upon the northern [north-west] coast 
of America, nor in any of the islands adjacent, to 
the north of fifty-four degrees and forty minutes of 
north latitude ; and that, in the same manner, there 
shall be none formed by Russian subjects, or under 
the authority of Russia, south of the same parallel." 

This year is signalized in American history by 
the visit of the venerable La Fayette, on the express 
invitation of congress. He arrived in the harbour 
of New York on the 13th of August, and proceeded 
to the residence of the vice-president at Staten Island. 
A committee of the corporation of the city of New 
York, and a great number of distinguislicd citizens, 
proceeded to Staten Island to welcome him to their 
capital. A splendid escort of steamboats, decorated 
with the flags of every nation, and bearing thou- 
sands of citizens, brought him to the view of assem- 
bled multitudes at New York, who manifested their 
joy at beholding him, by acclamations, and by tears. 
At the city hall the officers of the city and many 
citizens were presented to him ; and he was wel- 
comed by an address from tlie mayor. While he 
was at New York, deputations from Philadelphia, 
Baltimore, New Haven, and from many other cities, 
arrived with invitations for him to visit them. After 
remaining a few days at New York, he proceeded 
to Boston, where he met with the same cordial recep- 
tion. The general soon after returned to New York, 
visited Albany and the town's on Hudson River, 
and afterwards passed through the intermediate 
states to Virg-inia. He returned to Washington du- 
ring the session of congress, and remained there 
several weeks. Congress voted him the sum of two 
hundred thousand dollars, and a township of land, as a 
remuneration, in part, of his services during the war of 
the revolution, and as a testimony of their gratitude. 

General Lafayette was present at the imposing ce- 
remony of laying the corner stone of the Bunker 
Hill Monument, on the 17th of June, 1825, to wliich 



that our union would be of long duration. I now doubt it much, 
and see the event at no great distance, and the direct consequence 
of this question ; not by the line which has been so confidently 
counted on ; the laws of nature control this ; but by tlie Potomac, 
Ohio, and Missouri, or, more probably, the Mississippi upwards to 
our northern boundary."— Jefferson's Memoirs, vol. iv. p. 331. 



856 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



he had been invited by the Association formed for 
the purpose of erecting a memorial to those wliich fell 
in the battle of June 17, 1775.* 

♦ The sun rose clear, on the fiftieth anniversary of Bunker's 
Hill ; and thousands of voices, joined with the cheerful sound of 
bells and the roar of artillery, saluted him with their patriotic 
shouts. Al seven A. M. passing through this crowd, which was 
excited by glorious recollections of the 17th of June, 1775, General 
Lafayette proceeded to the grand lodge of Massachusetts, where 
deputations from the grand lodges of Maine, New Hampshire, 
Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, and New Jersey, were as- 
sembled, with the officers of the chapter of the Knights Templars, 
to receive and compliment him. 

At ten o'clock, 2,000 Free-masons, si.tteen companies of volun- 
teer infantry, a corps of mounted militia, with the different corpo- 
rations, and the civil and military authorities, proceeded to the 
stale-house, where the procession was formed under the inspection 
of Gen. Lyman; while the Grand Masters of the Masonic order 
went for Gen. Lafayette, who had returned to the house of Mr. 
Lloyd, on leaving the lodge. 

At half past ten the procession began to move : it consisted of 
about 7,000 persons; two hundred officers and soldiers of the re- 
volution marched in front, and forty veterans, glorious relics of the 
bailie of Bunker's Hill, followed them in eight open carriages. 
They were decorated with a broad ribbon, on which was this in- 
scrijition : — "I7th June, 1775." Some of them had on their 
shoulders the cartridge-belts they had worn on that memorable 
day; and one of them, who had been a drummer, still bore the 
drum with which he had several times rallied the American bat- 
talions, when broken by the English columns. Behind them 
marched a long line of persons formed of the numerous subscribers 
to the monument, si,\ abreast ; and 2,000 Masons, clad in rich or- 
naments, and bearing the instruments and symbols of their order. 
Last came Gen. Lafayette, in an elegant carriage, drawn by six 
heantiful white horses. Next behind him followed a long line of 
coaches, in which were his son, his secretary, the governor of Mas- 
sachusetts and his staff; finally, a great number of persons of dis- 
tinction, natives and strangers. This column proceeded, with the 
sound of music and ringing of bells, through the midst of 200,000 
citizens, who had assembled from all the stales of the union ; while 
the general was at iniervals saluted by artillery and general accla- 
mations. He arrived at Bunker's Hill at half past twelve, and the 
whole crowd was soon ranged in regular order on the hill, where 
the monument was to be erected, to witness the national gratitude 
expressed to the first heroes of the revolution. 

The humble pyramid erected in former times, overthe remains 
of Warren and his companions, which we had seen on our first 
visit to Bunker's Hill, had disappeared. Prom the largest piece of 
wood it contained, a cane had been formed, which was mounted 
with gold, and bore an inscription referring to its origin, and sta- 
ling, that it had been presented by the Masons of Charlestown to 
Gen. Lafayette, who accepted it as a precious relic of the American 
revolution. A large excavation which had been made at that place, 
showed that the new monument was to be raised on the same spot. 

A few moments after we had taken our places around that exca- 
vation, and silence had been obtained throughout the numerous 
crowd that surrounded, awaiting the ceremony in solemn silence, 
the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, accompa- 
nied by the principal dignitaries of the order, Brother Lafayette, 
Mr. Webster, and the principal architect, proceeded to lay the first 
stone of the monuinent, with the forms prescribed by the Masonic 
order. In an iron chest were placed medals, pieces of money, and 
a silver plate, on which was engraved the order of ceremonies. 
This bo.x was placed under the stone, on which the Grand Master 
poured wheat, oil, and wine; while. the Rev. Mr. Allen, the chap- 
lain of the day, pronounced the benediction. The Masonic com- 
mand to finish the monument was then given, and a salute of ar- 
tillery announced that this part of the ceremony was accomplished. 

The procession then moved to a vast ampliitheaire, formed on 
the northeastern declivity of the hill. At the centre of its base was 
raised a covered platform, from which the orator of the day was 
to raije his voice, and address an audience of 15,000 persons, as- 



In the year 1825, John Quincy Adams was in- 
augurated president of the United States, and John 
f^;;. Calhoun, vice-president. On his inauguration, 



sembled in the amphitheatre. All the revolutionary officers and 
soldiers, several of whom had come from great distances to witness 
this solemnity, were seated opposite the stage, the survivors of 
Bunker's Hill forming a little group in their front. At the head 
of that party was placed, in alarge chair, the only surviving gene- 
ral of the revolution, Lafayette. Immediately behind were 2,000 
ladies, brilliantly dressed, who seemed to form a guard of honour 
for those venerable old men, and to protect them from the tumultu- 
ous throng of the crowd. Beyond the ladies, more than 10,000 
persons were seated on the numerous benches which were placed 
on the side of the hill, the lop of which was crowned by upwards 
of 30,000 spectators, who, although beyond the reach of the ora- 
tor's voice, stood motionless, and in the most profound silence. 
After the agitation which necessarily accompanies the movemeiiis 
of so large a crowd, had been tranquillized, the melodious sound 
of a large choir of singers was heard, who were concealed be- 
hind the stage, and raised a patriotic and religious song, the deep 
melody of which agreeably prepared the minds of all for the im- 
pressions of eloquence. This music was succeeded by a prayer 
from Dr. Thaxter ; and when the venerable pastor, who had had 
the honour of fighting at Bunker's Hill, presented himself before 
the assembly, with his white locks falling in long silver curls on 
his shoulders ; when he raised towards heaven his hands enfeebled 
by age, and with a voice still strong, implored the benedictions oi 
the Almighty on the proceedings of that day, the whole audience 
seemed penetrated with inexpressible emotions. At length the ora- 
tor of the day, Mr. Webster, presented himself in his turn; his 
tall stature, his athletic form, the noble expression of his counte- 
nance, and the fire of his eye, perfectly harmonized with the so- 
lemnity of the scene. Mr. Webster, who had been for a long lime 
rendered popular by the charms of his eloquence, was welcomed 
by the assembly with every expression of pleasure. The murmur 
of satisfaction with which he was saluted, ascended from the base 
of the hill to the summit, and prevented him for a few instants 
from beginning his discourse. 

During his discourse, the orator was sometimes interrupted by 
bursts of applause from the audience, who could not repress the 
expression of their sympathetic feelings, when Mr. Webster ad- 
dressed the revolutionary veterans, and Gen. Lafayette ; and while 
they, uncovering their venerable heads, arose to receive the thanks 
which were offered them in the name of the people. A hymn, 
sung in choir by the whole assembly, succeeded this speech, and 
terminated the second part of the ceremony. 

At the signal given by a field piece, the procession formed anew, 
mounted the hill, and went to seat themselves at a banquet prepared 
on the summit. There, under an immense wooden covering, 4,000 
persons took their places without confusion. The tables were 
spread with so much art, that the voice of the president, and all 
those who offered toasts, or made speeches, were easily heard, not 
only by the company, but also by a great number of spectators sta- 
tioned without. The names of Warren, the orator of the day, and 
the guest of the nation, were proposed by turns during the repast. 
Before leaving the table, the general rose to return thanks to the 
members of the monument association, and expressed himself in 
these terms : 

" I will now ask your attention, only to thank you in the name 
of my revolutionary companions in arms, as well as in my own 
name, gentlemen, for the testimonies of esteem and affection, I may 
say filial affection, with which we have been this day loaded. We 
offer you our best wishes for the preservation of republican liberty 
and equality, self-government, and happy union between the slates 
of the confederation: objects for which we fought and bled, — for it 
is on them that the hopes of mankind now rest. Permit me to give 
you the following toast: 'Bunker's Hill, and the Holy Resistance 
to oppression, which has freed the American hemisphere ; — tne 
anniversary toast at the jubilee of the next half century shall be; — 
Europe Disenthralled.'" This toast was rcLeived with transport; 
and immediately after the company returned to the city. — Levas- 
seur's Journal. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



357 



Mr. Adams delivered the following address to both 
houses of congress : 

" In compliance with a usage, coeval with the 
existence of our federal constitution, and sanctioned 
by the example of my predecessors, in the career 
upon which I am about to enter, I appear, my fellow- 
citizens, in your presence, and in tliat of heaven, to 
bind myself by the solemnity of religious obligation, 
to the faithful performance of the duties allotted to 
me in the station to which I have been called. 

" In unfolding to my countrymen the principles by 
which I shall be governed, in the fulfilment of those 
duties, my first resort will be to that constitution, 
which I shall swear, to the best of my ability, to pre- 
serve, protect, and defend. That revered instrument 
enumerates the powers and prescribes the duties of 
the executive magistrate ; and, in its first words, 
declares the purposes to which these, and the whole 
action of the government, instituted by it, should be 
invariably and sacredly devoted: to form a more 
perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tran- 
quillity, provide for the common defence, promote the 
general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to 
the people of this union, in their successive genera- 
tions. Since the adoption of this social compact, one 
of these generations has passed away. It is the 
work of our forefathers. Administered by some of 
its most eminent men, who contributed to its forma- 
tion, through a most eventful period in the annals of 
the world, and through all the vicissitudes of peace 
and war, incidental to the condition of associated 
man, it has not disappointed the hopes and aspirations 
of those illustrious benefactors of their age and na- 
tion. It has promoted the lasting welfare of that 
country so dear to us all ; it has, to an extent far 
beyond the ordinary lot of humanity, secured the 
freedom and happiness of this people. We now 
receive it as a precious inheritance from those to 
whom we are indebted for its establishment, doubly 
bound by the examples which they have left us, and 
by the blessings which we have enjoyed, as the fruits 
of their labours, to transmit the same, unimpaired, to 
the succeeding generation. 

" In the compass of thirty-six years since this great 
national covenant was instituted, a body of laws, en- 
acted under its authority, and in conformity with its 
provisions, has unfolded its powers, and carried into 
oractical operation its eflective energies. Subordi- 
nate departments have distributed the executive func- 
tions in their various relations to foreign affairs, to 
the revenue and expenditures, and to the military 
force of the union, by land and sea. A co-ordinate 
department of the judiciary has expounded the con- 



stitution and the laws ; settling, in harmonious coin- 
cidence with the legislative will, numerous weighty 
questions of construction, which the imperfection of 
human language had rendered unavoidable. The 
year of jubilee, since the first formation of our iniion, 
has just elapsed ; that of the declaration of our inde- 
pendence, is at hand. The consummation of both 
was effected by this constitution. 

" Since that period, a population of four millions 
has multiplied to twelve ; a territory bounded by the 
Mississippi, has been extended from sea to sea ; new 
states have been admitted to the union, in numbers 
equal 1o those of the first confederation ; treaties of 
peace, amity, and commerce, have been concluded 
with the principal dominions of the earth ; the people 
of other nations, inhabitants of regions acquired, not 
by conquest, but by compact, have been united with 
us in the participation of our righ.ts and duties, of 
our burdens and blessings ; the forest has fallen by 
the axe of our woodsmen ; the soil has been made to 
teem by the tillage of our farmers ; our commerce 
has whitened every ocean ; the dominion of every 
man over physical nature has been extended by the 
invention of our artists ; liberty and law have march- 
ed hand in hand ; all the purposes of human associa- 
tion have been accomplished as effectively as under 
any other government on the globe ; and at a cost 
little exceeding, in a whole generation, the expendi- 
ture of other nations in a single year. 

" Such is the unexaggerated picture of our condi- 
tion, under a constitution founded upon the republican 
principle of equal rights. To admit that this picture 
has its shades, is but to say, that it is still the condi- 
tion of men upon earth. From evil, pliysical, moral 
and political, it is not our claim to be exempt. Wc 
have suffered, sometimes by the visitation of heaven, 
through disease ; often, by the wrongs and injustice 
of other nations, even to the extremities of war ; and 
lastly, by dissensions among ourselves — dissensions, 
perhaps, inseparable from the enjoyment of freedom, 
but which have, more than once, appeared to threat- 
en the dissolution of the union, and, with it, the 
overthrow of all the enjoyments of our present lot, 
and all our earthly hopes of the future. The 
causes of these dissensions have been various ; found- 
ed upon differences of speculation in the theory of 
republican government ; upon conflicting views of 
policy, in our relations with foreign nations ; upon 
jealousies of partial and sectional interests, aggrava- 
ted by prejudices and prepossessions which strangers 
to each other are ever apt to entertain. 

" It is a source of gratification and of encourage- 
ment to me, to observe that the great result of this 



158 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



experiment, upon the theory of human rights, has, at 
the close of that generation by which is was formed, 
lieen crowned with success, equal to the most sanguine 
expectations of its founders. Union, justice, tranquil- 
lity, the common defence, the general welfare, and 
the blessings of liberty, all have been promoted by 
the government under which we have lived. Stand- 
ing at this point of time ; looking back to that ge- 
neration whicii has gone by, and forward to that 
which is advancing, we may, at once, indulge in 
grateful exultation, and in cheering hope. From the 
experience of the past, we derive instructive lessons 
for the future. Of the two great political parties 
which have divided the opinions and feelings of our 
country, the candid and the just will now admit, that 
both have contributed splendid talents, spotless in- 
tegrity, ardent patriotism, and disinterested sacrifices, 
to the formation and administration of this govern- 
ment ; and that both have required a liberal indul- 
gence for a portion of luiman infirmity and error. 
The revolutionary wars of Europe, commencing 
precisely at the moment when the government of the 
United States first went into operation under this 
constitution, excited a collision of sentiments and of 
sympathies which kindled all the passions, and embit- 
tered the conflict of parties, till the nation was involv- 
ed in war, and the union was shaken to its centre. 

" This time of trial embraced a period of five and 
twenty years, during which, the policy of the union 
in its relations with Europe, constituted the princi- 
pal basis of our political divisions, and the most ar- 
duous part of the action of our federal government. 
With the catastrophe in which the wars of the French 
revolution terminated, and our own subsequent peace 
vvith Great Britain, this baneful weed of party strife 
■.vas uprooted. From that time, no difference of 
principle, connected either with the theory of govern- 
ment, or with our intercourse with foreign nations, 
has existed or been called forth, in force sufficient to 
sustain a continued combination of parties, or to give 
more than wholesome animation to the public senti- 
ment or legislative debate. Our political creed is, 
without a dissenting voice that can be heard, that 
the will of the people is the source, and the happi- 
ness of the people the end, of all legitimate govern- 
ment upon earth — that the best security for the 
beneficence and the best guarantee ao;ainst the abuse 
of power, consists in the freedom, the purity, and the 
frequency of popular elections — that the general go- 
vernment of the union, and the separate governments 
of the states, are all sovereignties of limited powers ; 
fellow-servants of the same masters ; uncontrolled 
with in their respective sphei es : uncontrollable but by 



encroachments upon each other — that the firmest 
security of peace is the preparation, during peace, of 
the defences of war — that a rigorous economy and 
accountability of public expenditures, should guard 
against the aggravation, and alleviate, when possible, 
the burden of taxation — that the military should be 
kept in strict subordination to the civil power — that 
the freedom of the press and of religious opinion 
should be inviolate — that the policy of our country 
is peace, and the ark of our salvation, union, are 
articles of faith upon which we are all now agreed. 
If there have been those who doubted whether a con- 
federated representative democracy were a govern- 
ment competent to the wise and orderly management 
of the common concerns of a mighty nation, those 
doubts have been dispelled. If there have been pro- 
jects of partial confederacies to be erected on the 
ruins of the union, they have been scattered to the 
winds : if there have been dangerous attachments to 
one foreign nation and antipathies against another, 
they have been extinguished. Ten years of peace, 
at home and abroad, have assuaged the animosities 
of polilical contention, and blended into harmony the 
most discordant elements of public opinion. There 
still remains one effort of magnanimity, one sacrifice 
of prejudice and passion, to be made by the individu- 
als throughout the nation, who have heretofore fol- 
lowed the standards of political party. It is that of 
discarding every remnant of rancour against each 
other ; of embracing, as countrymen and friends, and 
of yielding to talents and virtue alone, that confidence 
which, in times of contention for principle, was be- 
stowed only upon those who wore the badge of party 
communion. 

" Tlie collisions of party spirit, which originated in 
speculative opinions, or in different views of adminis- 
trative policy, are, in their nature, transitory. Those 
which are founded on geographical divisions, adverse 
interests of soil, climate, and modes of domestic life, 
are more permanent, and therefore perhaps more 
dangerous. It is this which gives inestimable value 
to the character of our government, at once federal 
and national. It holds out to us a perpetual admo- 
nition to preserve alike, and with equal anxiety, the 
i rights of each individual state in its own government, 
and the rights of the whole nation in that of the 
union. Whatsoever is of domestic concernment, un- 
connected with the other members of the union, or 
with foreign lands, belongs exclusively to the adminis- 
tration of the state governments. Whatsoever directly 
involves the rights and interests of the federative fra- 
ternity, or of foreign powers, is of the resort of this 
general government. The duties of both are obvious 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



859 



in the general principle, though sometimes perplexed 
with difficulties in the detail. To respect the rights 
of the state governments, is the inviolable duty of 
that of the union ; the government of every state will 
feel its own obligation to respect and preserve the 
rights of the whole. The prejudices, every where 
too commonly entertained against distant strangers, 
are worn away, and the jealousies of jarring interests 
are allayed by the composition and functions of the 
great national councils, annually assembled from all 
quarters of the union at this place. Here the distin- 
guished men from every section of our country, while 
meeting to deliberate upon the great interests of tliose 
by whom they are deputed, learn. to estimate the ta- 
lents, and do justice to the virtues of each other. The 
harmony of the nation is promoted, and the whole 
union is knit together, by the sentiments of mutual 
respect, the habits of social intercourse, and the ties 
of personal friendship, formed between the representa- 
tives of its several parts, in the performance of their 
service at this metropolis. 

" Passing from this general review of the purpose 
and injunctions of the federal constitution and their 
results, as indicating the first traces of the path of 
duty in the discharge of my public trust, I turn to 
the administration of my immediate predecessor, as 
the second. It has passed away in a period of pro- 
found peace ; how much to the satisfaction of our 
country, and to the honour of our country's name, is 
known to you all. The great features of its policy, 
in general concurrence with the will of the legisla- 
ture, have been — to cherish peace, while preparing 
for defensive war ; to yield exact justice to other 
nations, and maintain the rights of our own ; to che- 
rish the principles of freedom and of equal rights, 
wherever they were proclaimed ; to discharge, with 
all possible promptitude, the national debt ; to reduce, 
within the narrowest limits of efficiency, the military 
force ; to improve the organization and discipline of 
the army ; to provide and sustain a school of military 
science ; to extend equal protection to all the great 
interests of the nation ; to promote the civilization of 
the Indian tribes ; and to proceed in the great system 
of internal improvements, within the limits of the 
constitutional power of the union. Under the pledge 
of these promises, made by that eminent citizen, at 
the time of his first induction into this office, in his 
career of eiglit years, the internal taxes have been 
repealed ; sixty millions of the public debt have been 
discharged ; provision has been made for the comfort 
and relief of the aged and indigent among the survi- 
ving warriors of the revolution ; the regular armed 
force has been reduced, and its constitution revised 
46 



and perfected ; the accotintability for the expenditure 
of public moneys has been made more effective ; the 
Florid as have been peaceably acquired, and our 
boundary has been extended to the Pacific ocean ; 
the independence of the southern nations of this 
hemisphere has been recognised and recommended 
by example and by counsel, to the potentates of 
Europe ; progress has been made in the defence of 
the country', by fortifications, and the increase of the 
navjr towards the eflectual suppression of the African 
traffic in slaves ; in alluring the aboriginal hunters 
of our land to the cultivation of the soil and of the 
mind ; in exploring the interior regions of the union : 
and in preparing, by scientific researches and surveys, 
for the further application of our national resources 
to the internal improvement of our country. 

" In this brief outline of the promise and perform- 
ance of my immediate predecessor, the line of duty, 
for his successor, is clearly delineated. To pursue, 
to their consummation, those purposes of improvement 
in our common condition, instituted or recommended 
by him, will embrace the whole sphere of my obliga- 
tions. To the toi)ic of internal improvement, em- 
phatically urged by him at his inauguration, I recur 
with peculiar satisfaction. It is that from which I 
am convinced that the unborn millions of our pos- 
terity, who are, in future ages, to people this conti- 
nent, will derive their most fervent gratitude to the 
founders of the union ; that, in which the beneficent 
action of its government will be most deeply felt and 
acknowledged. The magnificence and splendour of 
their public works are among the imperishable glories 
of the ancient republics. The roads and aqueducts 
of Rome have been the admiration of all after ages, 
and have survived thousands of years, after all her 
conquests have been swallowed up in despotism, or 
become the spoil of barbarians. Some diversity of 
opinion has prevailed with regard to the powers of 
congress for legislation upon objects of this nature. 
The most respectful deference is due to doubts origi- 
nating in pure patriotism, and sustained by venerated 
authority. But nearly twenty years have passed 
since the construction of the first national road was 
commenced. The authority for its construction was 
then unquestioned. To how many thousands of our 
countrymen has it proved a benefit 7 To what single 
individual has it ever proved an injury 7 Repeated 
liberal and candid discussions in the legislaUne have 
conciliated the sentiments, and proximated the 
opinions of enlightened minds, upon the question of 
constitutional power. I cannot but hope, that by the 
same process of friendly, patient, and persevering 
deliberation, all constitutional objections will ulti- 



860 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



mately be removed. The extent and limitation of 
the powers of the general government, in relation to 
this transcendently important interest, will be settled 
and acknowledged, to the common satisfaction of all, 
and every speculative scruple will be solved by a 
practical public blessing. 

" Fellow-citizens, you are acquainted with the pe- 
culiar circumstances of the recent election, which 
have resulted in affording me the opportunity of ad- 
dressing you, at this time. You have heard the ex- 
position of the principles which will direct me in the 
fulfilment of the high and solemn trust imposed upon 
me in this station. Less possessed of your confidence 
in advance, than any of my predecessors, I am deeply 
conscious of the prospect that I shall stand, more and 
oftener, in need of your indulgence. Intentions, up- 
right and pure ; a heart devoted to the welfare of 
our country, and the unceasing application of all the 
faculties allotted to me, to her service, are all the 
pledges that I can give, for the faitliful performance 
of the arduous duties I am to undertake. To the 
guidance of the legislative councils ; to the assistance 
of the executive and subordinate departments ; to the 
friendly co-operation of the respective state govern- 
ments ; to the candid and liberal support of the peo- 
ple, so far as it may be deserved by honest industry 
and zeal, I shall look for whatever success may at- 
tend my public service : and knowing, that, except 
the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in 
vain ; with fervent supplications for his favour, to his 
overruling Providence I commit, with humble but 
fearless confidence, my own fate, and the future des- 
tinies of my country." 

In August, 1826, Lafayette repaired to Washington, 
to take leave of the president, and his last look of the 
land through which he had passed as a laurelled victor, 
receiving the homage of nations. His was the homage 
of the heart ; the offerings he received was the gratitude 
of an enlightened people. " The last three weeks which 
he spent in the United States, was exceedingly well 
appropriated ; and, no doubt, after much reflection, 
by him — for he is a man not more remarkable for 
the purity of his motives, than an observance of 
every *right rule of conduct, a deviation from which 
might lead to a suspicion of any of them. This 
induced him, after witnessing the magnificent cere- 
mony at Boston, on the anniversary of the battle of 
Bunker's Hill, leisurely to return to the city of 
VVashingttjn, (visiting many of his personal friends 
in the way, and reviewing the battle field at Brandy- 
wine,) that his last moments might be given up to a 
brief residence in what must be metaphorically re- 
garded as the heart of the nation, being the seat of 



its government, where the chief agents of millions 
of their fellow-citizens are gathered together, to ex- 
ecute the laws, and distribute that moral force, for 
the preservation of harmony, which rightfully be- 
longs to institutions based upon the self competency of 
a free people for the self-management of their own af- 
fairs ; and it was here that Lafayette mentally looked 
over the whole republic — the twenty-four sovereignties 
which he had visited — and, with feelings which no 
honest man will envy, but such as every honourable 
one would desire to possess for himself, reflected on 
what he had seen, and indulged the fond hopes of 
what this nation, of which he was a distinguished 
builder, would attain, before the expiration of that pe- 
riod of time usually allotted to men now living ; and 
his tender heart must have seemed to melt within him, 
at the remembrance of the scenes through which he 
had passed in the dark days of the revolution, con- 
trasted with the triumphs of his journey through the 
' land of the free.' Not the triumphs of the conquer- 
or, before whom the enslaved bow to the dust, and by 
their own debasement endeavour to win the favour 
of the oppressor ; but growing out of the best affec- 
tions of the human mind, for kindnesses rendered, 
when a weak people most needed them, that they 
might become strong, and laugh the oppressor to the 
scorn and contempt that tyranny merits. 

" From the city of Washington, the political heart 
of the nation, he made delightful excursions into 
Virginia, in which it happened that three out of all 
the presidents which we have had, yet reside as 
citizens — distinguished over their fellows only by 
the right of franking their letters, except in their 
private virtues — and this is all the distinction that 
the constitution allows ! — no pension, no prece- 
dent, no other privilege than that of being enabled 
to correspond through the post-ofiices with their old 
friends and acquaintances, free of expense ! He 
had before visited one of the lion-hearted of the rev- 
olution, the resolute and devoted president Adams ; 
and the other ex-presidents were, the author of the de- 
claration of independence ; a soldier who spilled his 
blood in supporting it ; and he to whom, perhaps, 
more than any man living, we are indebted for the 
present happy constitution of the United States. And 
in one of those excursions, he was accompanied by 
the present president of the republic, and met by the 
venerable chief justice of the United States, a fellow- 
soldier also. What meetings were these of the 
great and the good ! We can entertain some idea 
of the sensations which they produced, but lan- 
guage would fail to give utterance to it, and we shall 
not attempt an impossibility. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



361 



•' The last days of his visit were properly spent 
by Lafayette in the nation's house, on the invitation 
of its present possessor, the chief magistrate of the 
United States. Mr. Adams was, in his early youth, 
a favourite with the general, having much personal 
communication with him ; and of his disposition 
and ability to represent the hospitality and feeling 
of the millions of free people over whose aflairs he 
presides, there could not be a doubt. Lafayette was 
at home, in the national house, in the city of Wash- 
ington, and in the heart of a family which had 
every inducement that can operate on the human 
mind to make him comfortable ; this was his abode 
till the moment of his departure, to embark in the 
Brandywine, named in compliment to him, and pe- 
culiarly fitted for his accommodation — her ' giddy 
mast', bearing the stripes and the stars, her bosom to 
contain the person of our guest : a man of whom it 
may be. said, 'take him all in all, we ne'er shall 
look"upon his like again,' unless he shall again visit 
our shores : one that was the same, great and good, 
in prosperity and adversity — grateful for kind offices, 
forgiving of injuries, zealous to confer benefits — 
modest when as on the pinnacle of human glory, dig- 
nified and collected in the proud presence of kings. 
But I must not proceed — if, after Mr. Adams' display 
of eloquence and power, he, who commands words 
and they obey him, honestly confessed ' a want of 
language to give utterance to his feelings' — who 
among us may attempt it 7 I shall, therefore, pro- 
ceed to notice some of the things which happened 
at the departure of Lafayette, with this simple re- 
mark, that if there is any American who can read, 
unmoved, Mr. Adams' valedictory address to him, or 
the reply of the general to that address, I would not 
p06sess that man's heart for his fortune, thousfh he 
were a Crossus. 

" The 7th inst. was the day appointed for his de- 
parture. The civil and military authorities, and 
the whole people of Washington, had prepared to 
honour it. The banks were closed, and all busi- 
ness suspended ; and nothing else engaged attention, 
except the ceremonies prescribed for the occasion. 

" At about 12 o'clock, the authorities of Washing- 
ton, Georgetown, and Alexandria, the principal offi- 
cers of the general government, civil, military, and 
naval, some members of congress, and other respected 
sKangerSj were assembled in the president's house 
to take leave of Lafayette. He entered the great 
hall in silence, leanmg on the marshal of the dis- 
trict, and on the arm of one of the president's sons. 
Mr. Adams then, with much dignity, but with evident 
emotion, addressed him in the following terms : — 



" ' General Lalayette : It has been the good for- 
tune of many of my distinguished fellow-citizens, 
during the course of the year now elapsed, upon 
your arrival at their respective places of abode, to 
greet you with the welcome of the nation. The 
less pleasing task now devolves upon rrie, of bidding 
yon, in the name of the nation, adieu. 

" ' It were no longer seasonable, and would be su- 
perfluous, to recapitulate the remarkable incidents of 
your early life — incidents which associated your 
name, fortunes, and reputation, in imperishable con- 
nexion with the independence and history of the 
North American union. 

" ' The part which you performed at that important 
juncture was marked with characters so peculiar, 
that, realizing the fairest fable of antiquity, its paral- 
lel could scarcely be found in the authentic records 
of human history. 

" ' You deliberately and perseveringly preferred 
toil, danger, the endurance of every hardship, and 
the privation of every comfort, in defence of a holy 
cause, to inglorious ease, and the allurements of rank, 
affluence, and unrestrained youth, at the most splen- 
did and fascinating court of Europe. 

" ' That this choice was not less wise than mag- 
nanimous, the sanction of half a century, and the 
gratuiations of unnumbered voices, all unable to ex- 
press the gratitude of the heart with which your 
visit to this hemisphere has been welcomed, afford 
ample demonstration. 

" ' When the contest of freedom, to which you 
had repaired as a voluntary champion, had closed, 
by the complete triumph of her cause in this coun- 
try of your adoption, you returned to fulfil the du- 
ties of the' philanthropist and patriot in the land of 
your nativity. There, in a consistent and undevia- 
ting career of forty years, you have maintained, 
through every vicissitude of alternate success and 
disappointment, the same glorious cause to which the 
first years of your active life had been devoted, the 
improvement of the moral and political condition of 
man. 

" ' Throughout that long succession of time, the 
people of the United States, for whom, and with 
whom, you had fought the battles of liberty, have been 
livino' in the full possession of its fruits ; one of the 
happiest among the family of nations. Spreading in 
population ; enlarging in territory ; acting and, suf- 
fering according to the condition of their nature ; 
and laying the foundations of the greatest, and we 
humbly hope, the most beneficent power that ever 
regulated the concerns of man upon earth. 

" ' In that lapse of forty years, the generation of 



?G2 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



men with whom yoii co-operated in tlie conflict of 
arms, has nearly passed away. Of the grsneral offi- 
cers of th(3 American army in that war, you alone 
survive. Of the sages who guided our coimcils ; of 
the warriors who met the foe in the field or upon 
the wave, with the exception of a few, to whom 
imusual length of days has been allotted by Heaven, 
all now sleep with their fathers. A succeeding, and 
even a third generation, have arisen to take their 
places ; and their children's children, while rising 
ujD to call them blessed, have lieeu taught by them, 
as well as admonished by their own constant enjoy- 
ment of freedom, to include in every benison upon 
their fathers, the name of him who came from 
afar, with them, and in their cause, to conquer or to 
fall. 

" ' The universal prevalence of these sentiments 
was signally manifested by a resolution of congress, 
representing the whole people, ind all the states of 
this union, requesting the president of the United 
States to communicate to you assurances of the grate- 
ful and aflTectionate attachment of this government 
and people, and desiring that a national ship might 
be employed, at your convenience, for your passage 
to the borders of our country. 

" ' The invitation was transmitted to you by my 
venerable predecessor : liimself bound to you by the 
strongest ttes of personal friendship, himself one of 
those whom the highest honours of his country had 
rewarded for blood early shed in her cause, and for 
a long life of devotion to her welfare. By him the 
services of a national ship were placed at your dis- 
posal. Your delicacy preferred a more private con- 
veyance, and a full year has elapsed since you land- 
ed upon our shores. It were scarcely an exaggera- 
tion to say, that it has been, to the people of the 
union, a year of uninterrupted festivity and enjoy- 
ment, inspired by your presence. You have tra- 
versed the twenty-four states of this great confede- 
racy : You liave been received with rapture by the 
survivors of your earliest companions in arms : You 
have been hailed as a long absent parent by their 
children, the men and women of the present age : 
And a rising efeneration, the hoj)e of future time, in 
numbers surpassing the whole population of that 
day when you fought at the head and by the side 
of their forefathers, have vied with the scanty rem- 
nants of that hour of trial, in acclamations of joy at 
beholding the face of him whom they feel to be the 
common benefactor of all. You have heard the 
mingled voices of tlie past, the present, and the fu- 
ture age, joining in one universal chorus of delight 
at your approach : and the shouts of unbidden thou- 



sands, AV'hich greeted your landing on the soil of 
freedom, have followed every step of your way, and 
still resound, like the rushing of many waters, from 
every corner of our land. 

"'You are now about to return to tlie country of 
your birth, of your ancestors, of your posterity. The 
executive government of the union, stimulated by 
the same feeling which had protnpted the congress 
to the designation of a national ship for your accom- 
modation in coming hither, has destined the first 
service of a frigate, recently launched at this metro- 
polis, to the less welcome, but equally distinguished 
trust, of conveying you home. The name of the 
ship has added one more memorial to distant regions 
and to future ages, of a stream already memorable, 
at once in the story of your suflerings and of our 
independence. 

"'The ship is now prepared for your reception, 
and equipped for sea. From the moment of her de- 
parture, the prayers of millions will ascend to Hea- 
ven that her passage may be prosperous, and your 
return to the bosom of your family as propitious 
to your happiness, as your visit to this scene of 
your youthful glory has been to that of the American 
people. 

" ' Go, then, our beloved friend — return to the land 
of brilliant genius, of generous sentiment, of heroic 
valour ; to that beautiful France, the nursing mo- 
ther of the twelfth Louis, and the fourth Henry ; to 
the native soil of Bayard and Coligni, of Turenne 
and C'atinat, of Fenelon and D'Aguesseau. In that 
illustrious catalogue of names which she claims as 
of her children, and with honest pride holds up to 
the admiration of other nations, the name of Lafay- 
ette has already for centuries been enrolled. And 
it shall henceforth burnish into brighter fame ; Jjgr 
if, in after days, a Frenchman shall be called to in- 
dicate the character of his nation by that of one in- 
dividual, during the age in which we live, the blood 
of lofty patriotism shall manile in his cheek, the fire 
of conscious virtue shall sparkle in his eye, and he 
shall pronounce the name of Lafayette. Yet we, 
too, and our children, in life and after death, shall 
claim you for your own. You are ours by that 
more than patriotic self-devotion with which you flew 
to the aid of our fathers at the crisis of their fate. 
Ours by that long series of years in which you have 
cherished us in your regard. Ours by that unsliakefi 
sentiment of gratitude for your services which is a 
precious portion of our inheritance. Ours by that 
tie of love, stronger than death, which has linked 
your name, for the endless ages of time, with the 
name of Washington. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



363 



" 'At the painful moment of parting from you, we 
take comfort in the thought, that wherever you may 
be, to the last pulsation of your heart, our country 
will be ever present to your affections ; and a cheer- 
ijig consolation assures us, that we are not called to 
sorrow most of all, that we shall see your face no 
more. We shall indulge the pleasing anticipation of 
beholding our friend again. In the meantime, speak- 
ing in the name of the whole people of the United 
States, and at a loss only for language to give utter- 
ance to that feeling of attacluiient with which the 
heart of the nation beats, as the heart of one man — I 
bid you a reluctant and affectionate farewell.' 

" To which General Lafayette made the following 
answer : — 

" 'Amidst all my obligations to the general go- 
vernment, and particularly to you, sir, its respected 
chief magistrate, I have most thankfully to acknow- 
ledge the opportunity given me, at tliis solemn and 
painful moment, to present the people of the United 
States with a parting tribute of profound, inexpressi- 
ble gratitude. 

" ' To have been, in the infant and critical days 
of these states, adopted by them as a favourite son, 
to have participated in the toils and perils of oiu' 
unspotted struggle for independence, freedom, and 
equal rights, and in the foundation of the American 
era of a new social order, which has already perva- 
ded this, and must, for the dignity and happiness of 
mankind, successively pervade every part of the other 
hemisphere, to have received at every stage of the 
revolution, and during forty years after that period, 
from the people of the United States, and their rep- 
resentatives at home and abroad, continual marks of 
their confidence and kindness, has been the pride, 
the encouragement, the support of a long and event- 
ful life. 

" ' But how could I find words to acknowledge 
that series of welcomes, those unbounded and univer- 
sal displays of public affection, which have marked 
each step, each hour, of a twelve-months, progress 
through the twenty-four states, and which, while 
they overwhelm my heart with grateful delight, have 
mos^i^atisfactorily evinced the concurrence of the 
people in the kind testimonies, in the immense fa- 
vours bestowed on me by the several branches of 
their representatives, in every part and at the cen- 
tral seat of the confederacy. 

" ' Yet, gratification still higher awaited me ; in 
the wonders of creation and improvement that have 
met my enchanted eye, in the unparalleled and self- 
felt happiness of the people, in their rapid prosperity 
and insured security, public and private, in a prac- 



tice of good order, the appendage of true freedom, 
and a national good sense, the final arbiter of all 
difficulties, I have had proudly to recognise a result 
of the republican principles for which we have 
fought, and .a glorious demonstration to the most 
timid and prejudiced minds, of the superiority, o^er 
degrading aristocracy or despotism, of popular insti- 
tutions founded on the plain rights of man, and 
where the local rights of every section are preserved 
under a constitutional bond of union. The cherish- 
ing of that union between the states, as it has been the 
farewell entreaty of our great paternal Washington, 
and will ever have the dying prayer of every Ameri- 
can patriot, so it has become the sacred pledge of the 
emancipation of the world, an object "in which I am 
happy to observe that the American people, while 
they give the animating example of successful free 
institutions, in return for an evil entailed upon them 
by Europe, and of which a liberal and enlightened 
sense is every where more and more generally felt, 
show themselves everyday more anxiously interested. 

" ' And now, sir, how can I do justice to my deep 
and lively feelings for the assurances, most peculiarly 
valued, of your esteem and friendship, for your so 
very kind references to old times, to my beloved as- 
sociates, to the vicissitudes of my life, for your affect- 
ing picture of the blessings poured by the several 
generations of the American people on the remaining 
days of a delighted veteran, for your affectionate re- 
marks on this sad hour of separation, on the country 
of my birth, full, I can say, of American sympathies. 
on the hope so necessary to me of my seeing again 
the country that has deigned, near half a century 
ago, to call me hers 1 I shall content myself, re- 
fraining from superfluoits repetitions, at once, before 
you, sir, and this respected circle, to proclaim my 
cordial confirmation of every one of the sentiments 
which I have had daily opportunities publicly to 
utter, from the time when your venerable predeces- 
sor, my old brother in arms and friend, transmitted 
to me the honourable invitation of congress, to this 
day, when you, my dear sir, whose friendly connex- 
ion with me dates from your earliest youth, are 
going to consign me to the protection, across the 
Atlantic, of the heroic national flag, on board the 
splendid ship, the name of which has been not the 
least flattering and kind among the numberless fa- 
vours conferred upon me. 

" ' God bless you, sir, and all who surround us. 
God bless the American people, each of their states, 
and the federal government. Accept this patriotic 
farewell of an overflowing heart ; such will be its 
last throb when it ceases to beat.' • 



364 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



" As the last sentence was pronounced, the gene- 
ral advanced, and, while the tears poured over his 



venerable cheek, 



again took the President in 



his 



arms — he retired a few paces, but overcome by his 
feelings again returned, and uttering in broken ac- 
cents, ' God bless you !' fell once more on the neck 
of Mr. Adams. It was a scene, at once solemn and 
moving, as the sighs and stealing tears of many, 
who witnessed it, bore testimony. Having recovered 
his self-possession, the general stretched out his 
hands, and was, in a moment, surrounded by the 
greetings of the whole assembly, who pressed upon 
him, each eager to seize, perhaps for the last time, 
that beloved hand which was opened so freely for 
our aid, when' aid was so precious, and which grasp- 
ed, with firm and undeviating hold, the steel which 
so bravely helped to achieve our deliverance. The 
expression which now beamed from the face of this 
exalted man was of the finest and most touchino- 
kind. The Iiero was lost in the father and the 
friend : dignity jnehed into subdued affection, and 
the friend of Washington seemed to linger with a 
mournful delight among the sons of his adopted 
country. A considerable period was then occupied 
in conversing with various individuals, while re- 
freshments were presented to the company. The 
moment of departure at length arrived, and, having 
once more pressed the hand of Mr. Adams, he en- 
tered the barouche, accompanied by the secretaries 
of state, of the treasury, and of the navy. 

" The parting being over, the carriage of the 
general, preceded by the cavalry, the marine corps, 
and Captain Edwards' rifle corps, and followed by 
the carriages containing the corporate authorities of 
the cities of the district, and numerous military and 
high civil officers of the government, moved forward, 
followed by the remaining military companies. In 
taking up the escort, the whole column moved 
through the court, in front of the president's mansion, 
and paid him the passing salute, as he stood in front 
to receive it. The whole scene — the peals of artil- 
lery, the animating sounds of numerous , military 
bands, the presence of the vast concourse of people, 
and the occasion that assembled them, altogether 
produced emotions, not easily described, but which 
every American will readily conceive. 

" On reaching the bank of the Potomac, near 
where the Mount Vernon steam vessel was in wait- 
ing, all the carriages in the procession, except the 
general's, wheeled off, and the citizens in them as- 
sembled on foot around that of the general. The 
whole military body then passed him in review, as 
he stood in the barouche of the president, attended 



by the secretaries of state, of the treasury, and of the 
navy. After the review, the general pioceeded to 
the steam vessel under a salute of artillery, sur- 
rounded by as many citizens, all eager to catch the 
last look, as could press on the large wharf ; and, at 
four o'clock, this great, and good, and extraordinary 
man, trod, for the last time, the soil of America, fol- 
loAved by the blessings of everjr patriotic heart that 
lives on it. 

" As the vessel moved off, and for a short time 
after, the deepest silence was observed by the whole 
of the vast multitude tliat lined the shore. The 
feelings that pervaded them was that of children 
bidding a final farewell to a venerated parent. The 
whole remained gazing after the retiring vessel, 
until she had passed Greenleafs Point, where ano- 
ther salute repeated the valedictory sounds of re- 
spect, and these again were, not long after, echoed 
by the heavy guns of Fort Washington, and remind- 
ed us of the rapidity with Avhich this benefactor and 
friend of our country was borne from it. 

" The general was accompanied to the Brandy- 
wine by the secretary of the navy, the mayors of 
the three cities of the district, the commander-in- 
chief of the army, the generals of the militia of the 
district. Commodore Bainbridge, and several other 
gentlemen."* 

The transactions between the United States and 
the Indian tribes have occasioned considerable dis- 
cussion among tlie philanthropists of both the new 
and tlie old world ; Vv^e shall, therefore, notice the 
treaties which were formed somewhat particularly. 
In February, a treaty was concluded with the Creek 
nation of Indians. The commissioners on the part 
of the United States represented to the Creeks, that 
it is the policy and wish of the general government, 
that the several Indian tribes within the limits of 
any of the states of the union, should remove to ter- 
ritory to be designated on the west side of the Missis- 
sippi river, as well for the better protection and secu- 
rity of the said tribes, and their improvement in ci- 
vilization, as for the purpose of enabling the United 
States, in this instance, to comply with a compact 
entered into with the state of Georgia, on the ^h of 
April, 1802. The chiefs of the Creek towns assented 
to the reasonableness of the proposition, and express- 
ed a willingness to migrate beyond the Mississippi, 
those of Tokaubatchee excepted. The Creeks ac 
cordingly, by the first article of the treaty, ceded to 
the United States all the lands within the boundaries 
of the state of Georgia now occupied by them, or to 



• Niles' Weekly Register, September 17, 1826. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



365 



which they have title or claim, lying within certain 
described boundaries ; and by the second it was 
ajjreed, that the United States will give in exchange 
for the lands hereby acquired the like quantity, acre 
for acre, westward of the Mississippi, on the Arkan- 
sas river. . Other stipulations favourable to the equi- 
table claims of the emigrating parties were made ; 
particularly that a deputation may be sent to explore 
the territory herein offered them in exchange ; and 
if the same be not acceptable to them, then they may 
select any other territory west of the Mississippi, on 
Red, Canadian, Arkansas, or Missouri rivers, the ter- 
ritory occupied by the C'herokees and Clioctaws ex- 
cepted ; and if the territory to be selected shall be in 
the occupancy of other Indian tribes, then the United 
States will extinguish the title of such occupants for 
the benefit of the said emigrants. 

The Kansas Indians, by treaty, ceded to the Uni- 
ted States all their lands both within and without 
the limits of Missouri, excepting a reservation beyond 
that state on the Kansas river, about thirty miles 
square, including their villages. In consideration of 
this cession, the United States agreed to pay three 
thousand five hundred dollars a year for twei|ty 
years ; to furnish the Kansas immediately with three 
hundred head of cattle, three hundred hogs, five 
hundred fowls, three yoke of oxen, and two carts, 
and with such farming utensils as the Indian super- 
intendent may deem necessary ; to provide and sup- 
port a blacksmith for them ; and to employ persons 
to aid and instruct them in their agricultural pur- 
suits, as the president may deem expedient. Of the 
ceded lands, thirty-six sections on the Big Blue river 
were to be laid out under the direction of the presi- 
dent, and sold for the support of schools among the 
Kansas. Reservations were also made for the benefit 
of certain half-breeds ; and other stipulations mutu- 
ally satisfactory. It was also agreed, that no private 
revenge shall be taken by the Indians for the viola- 
tion of their rights ; but that they shall make their 
complaint to the superintendent or other agent, and 
receive justice in a due course of law ; and it was 

* John Adams was born at Ciiiincy, then part of the ancient town 
of Braintree, on the 19th day of October, (Old Style,) 1735. He 
was a descendant of the Puritans, his ancestors having early eiini- 
grated from England, and settled in Massachusetts. Discovering 
early a strong love of reading and of knowledge, together with 
marks of great strength and activity of mind, proper care was taken 
by his worthy father, to provide for his education. He pursued his 
youthful studies in Braintree, under Mr. Marsh, a teacher whose 
fortune it was that Josiah Cluincy, Jr., as well as the subject of these 
remarks, should receive from him his instruction in the rudiments 
of classical literature. Having been admitted, in 1751, a member 
of Harvard College, Mr. Adams was graduated, in course, in 1755; 
and on the catalogue of that institution, his name, at the time of 
his death, was second among the living Alumni, being preceded 
only by that of the venerable Holyoke. With what degree of repu- 



lastly agreed, that the Kansas nation shall never dis- 
pose of their lands without the consent of the United 
States, and that the United States shall always have 
the free right of navigation in the waters of the 
Kansas. 

A treaty was also concluded with the Great and 
Little Osages, at St. Louis, Missouri. The general 
principles of this treaty are the same as those of the 
treaty with the Kansas. The Indians cede all their 
lands in Arkansas and elsewhere, and then reserve a 
defined territory, west of the Missouri line, fifty miles 
square ; an agent to be permitted to reside on the re- 
servation, and the United States to have the right of 
free navigation in all the waters on the tract. The 
United States pay an annuity of seven thousand dol- 
lars for twenty years ; furnish forthwith six hundred 
head of cattle, six hundred hogs, one thousand fowls, 
ten yoke of oxen, six carts, with farming utensils, 
persons to teach the Indians agriculture, and a black* 
smith, and build a commodious dwelling-house for 
each of the four principal chiefs, at his own village. 
Reservations were made for the establishment of a 
fund for the support of schools for the benefit of the 
Osage children ; and provision was made for the 
benefit of the Harmony missionary establishment. 
The United States also assume certain debts due from, 
certain chiefs of the tribes ; and agree to deliver at 
the Osage villages, as soon as may be, four thousand 
dollars in merchandise, and two thousand six hundred 
in horses and their equipments. 

In May, a general convention of peace, amity, na- 
vigation, and commerce, between the United States 
of America and the republic of Colombia, was signed 
by the president, at Washington. 

The fiftieth anniversary, the jubilee, as it was 
termed, of American independence, was observed 
throuafhout the states with great enthusiasm, and 
was rendered additionally interesting by the remarka- 
ble circumstance that both Adams and Jefierson, emi- 
nent men among the fathers of their country, died on 
that day.* 

Mr. Adams, in a message to congress, reccmmend- 



tation he left the university, is not now precisely known. We 
know only that he was distinguished in a class which numbered 
Locke and Hemenway among its members. Choosing the law for 
his profession, he commenced and prosecuted its studies at Wor- 
cester, under the direction of Samuel Putnam, a gentleman whom 
he has himself described as an acute man, an able and learned 
lawyer, and as in large professional practice at that lime. In 1758, 
he was admitted to the bar, and commenced business in Braintree. 
He is understood to have made his first considerable effort, or to 
have attained his first signal success, at Plymouth, on one' of those 
occasions which furnish the earliest opportunity for distinction to 
many young men of the profession, a jury trial, and a criminal 
cause. His business naturally grew with his reputation, and his 
residence in the vicinity afforded the opportunity, as his growing 
eminence gave the power, of entering on the larger field of j tactice 



306 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



ed a naval academy, and urged the appropriation of 
money for such an establishment ; but congress did 
not move far in the business. He also recommended 

which the capital presented. In 17b6, he removed his residence 
to Boston, slill conimiiing his attendance on the neighbouring cir- 
cuits, and not unfrequnnlly called lo remote parts of the province. 
In 1770, his professional firmness was brought to a test of some 
severity, on the application of the British ullicers and soldiers lo 
undertake their defence, on the trial of the indictments found 
against them on account of the transactions of the memorable 5th 
of March. He seems to have thought, on this occasion, that a 
man can no more abandon the proper duties of his profession, than 
he can abandon other duties. The event proved, that as he judged 
well for his own reputation, so he judged well, also, for the interest 
and permanent fame of his country. The result of that trial proved, 
that. notwithstanding the high degree of e.tcitenient then existing, 
in consequence of the measures cf the British government, a jury 
of Massachusetts would not deprive the most reckless enemies, 
even the officers of that standing army, quartered among them, 
which they so perfectly abhorred, of any part of that protection 
which the law, in its mildest and most indulgent interpretation, af- 
forrled to persons accused of crimes. 

Without pursuing Mr. Adams' professional course further, suf- 
fice it to say, that on the first establishment of the judicial Iribu- 
nals under the authority of the slate, in 1776, he received an offer 
of the high and responsible stalion of chief justice of the supreme 
court. But he was destined for another and a different career. 
Froin early life the bent of his mind was toward politics ; a pro- 
pensity which the stale of the times, if it did not create, doubtless 
very much strengthened. Public subjects must have occupied the 
thoughts and filled up Ihe conversation in the circles in which he 
then moved ; and the interesting questions, at that lime just arising, 
could not but seize on a mind, like his, ardent, sanguine, and pa- 
triotic. The letter, fortunately preserved, written by him at Wor- 
cester, St3 early as the 12th of October, 1755, is a proof of very 
comprehensive views, and uncommon depth of reflection, in a young 
man not yet quite twenty. In this letter he predicted the transfer 
of power, and the establishment of a new sea.t of empire in Ame- 
rica ; he predicted, also, the increase of population in the colonies; 
and anticipated their naval distinction, and foretold thai all Europe, 
combined, could not subdue them. All this is said, not on a public 
occasion, or for efl"ect, but in the style of sober and friendly cor- 
respondence, as the result of his own thoughts. " I sometimes re- 
tire," said he, at the close of the letter, "and laying things to- 
gether, form some reflections pleasing to myself. The produce of 
one of these reveries you have read above." This prognostication, 
BO early in his own life, so early in the history of the country, of 
independence, of vast increase of liunibers, of naval force, of such 
augmented power as might defy all Europe, is remarkable. It is 
more remarkable, that its author should live lo see fulfilled to the 
letter, what could have seemed to others, at the lime, but the extra- 
vagance of youthful fancy. His earliest political feelings were thus 
strongly American ; and from this ardent attachmenl to his native 
soil he never departed. 

While still living at Qnincy, and at the age of twenty-four, Mr. 
Adams was present, ''n this town, on the argument before the su- 
preme court respecting Writs of Assistance, and heard thecelebra- 
led and patriotic speech of James Otis. Unquestionably, that was 
a masterly performance. No flighty declamation about liberty, no 
superficial discussion of popular topic-s, it was a learned, penetra- 
ti.ig, convincing, constitutional argument, expressed in a strain of 
high and resolute patriotism. He grasped the question, then pend- 
ing between England and her colonies, with the strength of a. lion ; 
and if he sometimes sported, it was only becau.se the lion himself is 
sometimes playful. Its success appeals to have been as great as 
its merits, and its impression was widely felt. Mr. Adams himself 
!>eems never to have lost the feeling it produced, and to have en- 
tertained constantly the fullest conviction of its important effects. 
" I do say," he observes, " in the most solemn manner, that Mr. 
Otis' Oration against Writs of Assistance, breathed into this nation 
the breath of life." 

In 1765, Mr. Adams laid before the public what I suppose lo be 



the erection of an observatory, that the United States 
might not be behind the nations of Europe in their 



astronomical 



knowledge. 



This was also 



neglected. 



his first printed performance, except essays for the periodical press, 
a Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law. The object of this 
work was to show that our New England anceslors, in consenting 
to exile themselves from their native land, were actuated, mainly, 
by the desire of delivering themselves from the power of the hie- 
rarchy, and from the monarchical and aristocralical political .sys- 
tems of the other continent; and to make this truth bear, with ef- 
fect, on the politics of the times. Its tone is uncommonly bold and 
animated, for that period. He calls on the people, not only to de- 
fend, but to study and understand their rights and privileges ; urges 
earnestly the necessity of diffusing general knowledge, invokes the 
clergy and the bar, the colleges and academies, and all others who 
have the ability and the means, to expose th-e insidious designs of 
arbitrary power, to resist its approaches, and to be persuaded that 
there is a settled design on foot to enslave all America. " Be it 
remembered," says the author, ■' that liberty must, at all hazards, 
be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. 
But if we had not, our fathers have earned it, and bought it for 
us, at the expense of their ease, their estate, their pleasure, and their 
blood. And liberty can not be preserved without a general know- 
ledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their 
nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in 
vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know ; but, 
besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, inde- 
feasible righl, to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, 
I mean of the character and conduct of their rulers. Rulers are 
no more than attorneys, agents, and trustees of the people ; and if 
the cause, the interest, and trust, is insidiously betrayed, or wan- 
tonly trifled away, the people have a right to revoke the authority 
that they themselves have deputed, and to constitute other and 
better agents, attorneys, and trustees." 

The citizens of this town conferred on Mr. Adams his first polili- 
cal distinction, and clothed him with his first political trust, by 
electing him one of their representatives, in 1770. Before this 
time he had become extensively known throughout the province, 
as well by the part he had acted in relation to public affairs, as by 
the exercise of his professional ability. He was among those who 
took the deepest interest in the controversy with England, and 
whether in or out of the legislature, his time and talents were alike 
devoted to the cause. In the years 1773 and 1774, he was chosen 
a counsellor, by the members of the general court, but rejected by 
Governor Hutchinson, in the former of those years, and by Govern- 
or Gage in Ihe latter. 

The lime was now at hand, however, when the affairs of the 
colonies urgenlly demanded united councils. An open rupture 
with the parent state appeared inevitable, and it was but the dictate 
of prudence, that those who were united by a common interest and 
a common danger, should protect that interest and guatfl against 
that danger, by united efforts. A general congress of delegates 
from all the colonies, having been proposed and agreed to, the 
house of representatives, on the 17lh of .Tune, 1774, elected James 
Bowdoin, "Thomas Cushing, Samuel Adams, John Adams, and 
Robert Treat Paine, delegates from Massachusetts. This appoint- 
ment was made at Salem, where the general court had been con- 
vened by Governor Gage, in the last hour of the existence of a 
house of representatives under the provincial charter. While en- 
gaged in this important business, the governor having been inform- 
ed of what was passing, sent his secretary with a message dissolv- 
ing the general court. The secretary finding the door locked, di- 
rected tlie messenger to go in and inform the speaker that the se- 
cretary was at the door with a message from the governor. The 
messenger returned, and informed the secretary that the orders of 
the house were, that the doors should be kept fast: whereupon Ihe 
secretary soon after read a proclamation, dissolving the general 
court upon the stairs. Thus terminated, for ever, the actual ex- 
ercise of the political power of England in or ever Massachu- 
setts. The four last named delegates accepted their appointments, 
and took their seals in congress, the first day of its meeting, Sep 
tember 5, 1774, in Philadelphia. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



367 



The next election was the all engrossing- snbjcci of 
the politicians, in every quarter of the country, and 
forbade any improvements in science or letters. To- 

The proceedings of the first congress are well known, and have 
been universally admired. It is in vain that we would look for 
superior proofs of wisdom, talent, and patriotism.. Lord Chatham 
said, that, for himself, he must declare, that he had studied and 
admired the free slates of antiquity, the master stales of the world," 
but that for solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of 
conclusion, no body of men could stand in preference to this con- 
gress. It is hardly inferior praise to .say, that no production of that 
^reat man himself can be pronounced superior lo several of the 
papers published as the proceedings of this nio.st able, most firm, 
most patriotic assembly. There is, indeed, nothing superior to 
them in the range of political disquisition. They not only em- 
brace, illustrate, and enforce every thing which political philoso- 
phy, the love of liberty, and the spirit of free inquiry, had antece- 
dently produced, btit they add new and striking views of their own, 
and apply the whole, with irresistible force, in support of the cause 
which had drawn them together. 

Mr, Adams was a constant attendant on the deliberations of this 
body, and bore an active part in its important measures. He was 
of the committee to state the rights of the colonies, and of that also 
which reported the address to the king. 

As it was in the continental congress, fellow-citizens, that those 
whose deaths have given rise to this occasion, were first brought 
together, and called on to unite their industry and their ability, in 
the service of the country, let us now turn to the other of these dis- 
tinguished men, and take a brief notice of his life, up to the period 
when he appeared within the walls of congress. 

Thomas JefFersoii, descended from ancestors who had been settled 
in Virginia for some generations, was born near the spot on which 
he died, in the county of Albemarle, on the 2d of April, (Old Style,) 
1743. His youthful studies were pursued in the neighbourhood of 
his father's residence, until he was removed to the college of Wil- 
liam and Mary, the highest honours of which he in due time re- 
ceived. Having left the college with reputation, he applied him- 
self to the study of the law, under the tuition of George Wythe, 
one of the highest judicial names of which that stale can boast. At 
an early age he was elected a member of the legislature, m which 
he had no sooner appeared, than he distinguished himself, by know- 
ledge, capacity, and promptitude. 

Mr. Jefferson appears to have been imbued with an early love 
of letters and science, and to have cherished a strong disposition 
to pursue these objects. To the physical sciences, especially, and 
to ancient classic literature, he is understood to have had a warm 
attachment, and never entirely to have lost sight of them, in the 
midst of the busiest occupations. But the times were times for ac- 
tion, rather than for conteiuplallon. The country was to be de- 
fended, and to be saved, before it could be enjoyed. Philosophic 
leisure and literary pursuits, and even the objects of professional 
attention, were all necessarily postponed to the urgent calls of the 
public service. The exigency of the country made the same de- 
mand on Mr. JefTersori that it made on others who had the ability 
and the disposition to serve it ; and he obeyed the call ; thinking 
and feeling, in this respect, with the great Roman orator: Quis 
enim est tarn cupidus in perspicienda cognoscendaque rerum na- 
tura, ut, si ei tractanii contemplantique res cognitione dignissimas 
subito sit allatum periculum discrimenque patritp, cui subvenire 
opitularique possit, non ilia omnia relinquat atque abjiciat, eliara 
si dinumerare se Stellas, aut metiri mundi magnitudinem posse ar- 
bitretur 1 

Entering, with all his heart, into the cause of liberty, his ability, 
patriotism, and power with the pen, naturally drew upon him a 
large participation in the most important concerns. Wherever he 
was, there was found a soul devoted lo the cause, power to defend 
and maintain it, and willingness to incur all its hazards. In 1774, 
he published a Summary View of the Righls of British America, 
a valuable production among those intended to show the dangers 
which threatened the liberties of the country, and to encourage the 
people in their defence. In June, 1775, he was elected a member 
of the continp.ntal congre.ss, as successor to Pevton Randolph who 

47 



wards the close of his administration, twenty thou- 
sand dollars were appropriated, to be paid by instal- 
ments, for statuary to fill some niches in the east 



had retired on account of ill health, and took his seat in that body 
on the 21st of the same month. 

And now, fellow-citizens, without pursuing the biography ot 
these illustiious men further, for the present, let us turn our atten- 
tion to the most prominent act of their lives, their participation in 
the declaration of independence. 

Preparatory to the ir'rodiiclion of that important measure, a 
committee, at the head of which was Mr. Adams, had reported a 
resolution, which congress adopted the U)lh of May, recommending, 
in substance, to all the colonics which had not already established 
governments suited to the exigencies ef their affairs, lo adopt such 
government as would, in the opinion of the representatives of the 
people, best conduce to the happiness and safety of their constituents 
in particular, and America in general. 

This significant vole was soon followed by the direct proposilion, 
which Richard Henry Lee had the honour to submit to congress, 
by lesolution, on the 7lh day of June. The published journal does 
not expressly stale it, but there is no doubt, I suppose, that this re- 
solution was in the saQ.e words, when originally submitted by Mr. 
Lee, as when finally passed. Having been discussed on Saturday, 
the 8th, and Monday, the 10th of June, this resolution was on the 
last mentioned day postponed, for further consideration, to the first 
day of July; and, at the same time, it was voted, that acommilteo 
be appointed to prepare a dec laration, to the effect of the resolution. 
This committee was elected by ballot, on the following day, and 
consisted of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, 
Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston. 

It is usual, when committees are elected by ballot, that Ihei' 
members are ananged in order, according to the numbei of voles 
which each has received; Mr. Jefferson, therefore, had received 
the highest, and Mr. Adams the next highest number of voles. 
The difl'erence is said to have been but of a single vote. Mr. Jel- 
ferson and Mr. Adams, standing thus at the head of the commit 
tee, were requested by the other members to act as a sub-committee, 
In prepare the draft ; and Mr. Jefferson drew up the paper. Thu 
origifial draft, as brought by him from his study, and submitted to 
the other members of the committee, with interlineations in the 
hand-writing of Dr. Franklin, and others in that of Mr. Adams, 
was in Mr. Jefferson's possession at the time of his death. The 
merit of this paper is Mr. Jefierson'.s. Some changes were made 
in it, on the suggestion of other members of the committee, and 
others by congress, while it was under discu.ssion. But none o1 
them altered the tone, the frame, the arrangement, or the general 
character of the instrument. As a composition the declaration is 
Mr. Jefferson's. It is the production of his mind, and the high 
honour of it belongs to him, clearly and absolutely. 

It has .sometimes been said, as if it were a derogation from the 
merits of this paper, that it contains nothing new ; that it only stales 
grounds of proceeding, and presses topics of argument, which had 
often been stated and pressed before. But it was not the object ol 
the declaration to produce any thing new. It was not to invent 
reasons for independence, but to slate those which governed the 
congress. For great and sufficient causes, it was proposed to de- 
clare independence ; and the proper business of the paper to be 
drawn, was to set forth those causes, and justify the authors of the 
measure, in any event of fortune, to the country, and to posterity. 
The cause of American independence, moreover, was now to be 
presented to the world, in such manner, if it might so be, as to en- 
gage its sympathy, to command its respect, to attract its admira- 
tion ; and in an assembly of most able and distinguished men, 
Thomas Jefferson had the high honour of being the selected advo- 
cate of this cause. To say that he performed his great work well, 
would be doing him injustice. To say that he did excellently 
well, admirably well, would be inadequate and halting praise. Let 
us ralher say, that he so discharged the duty assigned liim, that all 
Americans may well rejoice, that the work of drawinf the title deed 
of their liberties devolved on his hands. 

With all its merits, there are those who have thought that there 
was one thing in the declaration to be regretted; and that is, tbfi 



368 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



front of the capitol, and a suitable artist engaged to I 
repair to Italy, to commence his labours. He receiv- 
ed his instructions from Mr. Adams, who had de- 
asperity and apparent anger with which it speaks of the person of 
the king; the industrious ability with which it accumulates and 
charges upon him, all the injuries which Ihe colonies had sufleied 
from the mother country. Possibly some degree of injustice, now 
or hereafter, at home or abroad, may be done In the character of 
Mr. Jefferson, if this part of the declaration be not placed in its 
proper light. Anger or resentment, certainly, much less personal 
reproach and invective, could not properly find jilace, in a compo- 
sition of such high dignity, and of such lofty and permanent cha- 
racter. 

A single reflection on the original ground of dispute, between 
England and the colonies, is sufficient to remove any unfavourable 
impression, in this respect. 

The inhabitants of all the colonies, while colonies, admitted 
themselves bound by their allegiance to the king; but they dis- 
claimed altogether, the authority of parliament; holding them- 
selves, in this respect, to resemble the condition of Scotland and 
Ireland, before the respective unions of those kingdoms \vith Eng- 
land, when they acknowledged allegiance to the same king, but 
each had its separate legislature. The tie, therefore, which our 
revolution was to break, did not subsist between us and the British 
parliament, or between us and the British government, in the ag- 
gregate ; but directly between us and the king himself The co- 
lonies had never admitted themselves subject to pailiament. That 
was precisely the point of the original controversy. They had 
uniformly denied that parliament had authority to make laws for 
them. There was, therefore, no subjection to parliament to be 
thrown off. But allegiance to the king did exist, and had been 
uniformly acknowledged; and down to 1775 the most solemn as- 
surances had been given that it was not intended to break that alle- 
giance, or to throw it off. Therefore, as the direct object, and only 
effect of the declaration, according to the principles on which the 
controversy had been maintained, on our part, was to sever the tie 
of allegiance which bound us to the king, it was properly and ne- 
cessarily founded on acts of the crown itself, as its justifying causes. 
Parliament is not so much as mentioned, in the whole instrument. 
When odious and oppressive acts are referred to, it is done by 
charging the king with confederating, with others, " in pretended 
acts of legislation ;" the object being, constantly, to hold the king 
himself directly responsible for those measures which were the 
grounds of separation. Even the precedent of the English revolu- 
tion was not overlooked, and, in this case, as well as in that, occa- 
sion was found to say that the king had abdicated the government. 
Consistency with the principles upon which resistance began, and 
with all the previous state papers issued by congress, required that 
the declaration should be bottomed on the misgovernmcnt of the 
king; and therefore it was properly framed with that aim and to 
that end. The king was known, indeed, to have acted, as in other 
cases, by his ministers, and with his parliament ; but as our ances- 
tors had never admitted themselves subject either to ministers or to 
parliament, there were no reasons to be given for now refusing 
obedience to their authority. This clear and obvious necessity of 
founding the declaration on the misconduct of the king himself, 
gives to that instrument its personal application, and its character 
of direct and pointed accusation. 

The Jeclaralion having been reported to congress, by the com- 
mittee, the resolution itself was taken up and debated on the first 
day of July, and again on the second, on which last day it was 
agreed to and adopted in these words : 

Resolved, That these united colonies are, and of right ought to 
be, free and independent states; that they are absolved from all al- 
legiance to the British crown, and that all political connexion be- 
tween them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, to- 
tally dissolved. 

Having thus passed the main resolution, congress proceeded to 
consider the reported draft of the declaration. It was discussed on 
the second, and third, and fourth days of the month, in committee 
of the whole; and on the last of those days, being reported from 
that committee it received the final approbation and sanction of 



signed the ornaments of the pediment on the front of 

the same building. 

Mr. Adams lived in harmony with his cabinet, al- 



congress. It was ordered, at the .same time, that copies be sent to 
the several slates, and that it be proclaimed at the head of the army. 
The declaration, thus published, did not bear the names of the mem- 
bers, for as yet it had not been signed by them. It was authenti- 
cated, like other papers of the congress, by the signatures of the 
president and secretary. On the 19th of July, as appears by the 
secret journal, congress " Resolved, that the declaration, passed on 
the fourth, be lairly engro.ssed on parchment, with the title and 
style of ' The unanimous declaration of the thirteen United Slates 
of America;' and that Jhe same, when engrossed, be signed by 
every member of congress." And on the second day of August, 
following, "the declaration, being engrossed and compared at the 
table, was si.gned by the members." So that it happens, fellow-citi- 
zens, that we pay these honours to their, memory, on the anniver- 
sary of that day, on which these great men actually signed their 
names to the declaration. The declaration was thus made, that is, 
it pa.ssed, and was adopted as an act of congress, on the fourth oi 
July; it was then signed and certified by the president and secreta- 
ry, like other acts. The fourth of July, therefore, is the anniver- 
sary of the declaration. But the signatures of the members pre- 
sent were made to it, being then engrossed on parchment, on the 
second day of August. Absent members afterwards signed, as 
they came in ; and indeed it bears the names of some who were 
not chosen members of congress until after the fourth of July. The 
interest belonging to the subject will be sufficient, I hope, to justi- 
fy these details. 

The congress of the revolution, fellow-citizens, sat with closed 
doors, and no report of its debates was ever taken. The discus- 
sion, therefore, which accompanied this great niea.sure, has never 
been preserved, except in memory, and by tradition. But it is, I 
believe, doing no injustice to others, to say, that the general opinion 
was, and uniformly has been, that in debate, on the side of inde- 
pendence, John Adams had no equal. The great author of the 
declaration himself has expressed that opinion uniformly and 
strongly. " John Adams," said he, in the hearing of him who has 
now the honour to addre.ss you, "John Adams was our Colossns 
on the floor. Not graceful, not eloquent, not always fluent, in his 
public addresses, he yet came out with a power, both of thought 
and of expression, which moved us from our seats." 

For the part which he was here to peiform, Mr. Adams doubt- 
less was eminently fitted. He po.ssessed a bold spirit, which dis- 
regarded danger, and a sanguine reliance on the goodness of the 
cause, and the virtues of the people, which led him to overlook all 
obstacles. His character, too, had been formed in troubled times. 
He had been rocked in the early storms of the controversy, and had 
acquired a decision and a hardihood, proportioned to the severity 
of the discipline which he had undergone. 

He not only loved the American cause devciitly, but had studied 
and understood it. It was all familiar to hin. He had tried his 
powers, on the questions which it involved, often, and in various 
ways; and had brought to their consideration whatever of argu- 
ment or illustration the history of his own couniiy, the history of 
England, or the stores of ancient or of legal learning, could furnish. 
E%'ery grievance, enumerated in the long catalogue of the declara- 
tion, had been the subject of his discussion, and the object of his 
remonstrance and reprobation. From 1760, the colonies, the rights 
of the colonies, the liberties of the colonies, and the wrongs in- 
flicted on the colonies, had engaged his constant attention ; and it 
has surprised those, who have had the opportunity of observing, 
with what full remembrance, and with what prompt recollection, 
he could refer, in his extreme old age, to every act of parliamen. 
affecting the colonies, distinguishing and stating their respective 
titles, sections, and provisions; and to all the colonial memorials, 
remonstrances, and petitions, with whatever else belonged to the 
intimate and exact history of the times from that year to 1775. If 
was in his own judgment, between these years, that the American 
people came "to a full understanding and thorough knowledge of 
their rights, and to a fixed resolution of maintaining them ; and 
bearing himself an active part in all important transactions, Ibe 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



369 



tlious:h they were made of different materials fiom 
himself. He struggled hard to prove that a president 
could act without party ; but his success did not 



controversy wilh England being llien, in eflect, the business of his 
life, facts, dates, and particulars, made an impression which was 
never effaced. He was prepared, therefore, by education and dis- 
cipline, as well as by natural talent and natural temperament, for 
the part which he was now to act. 

The eloquence of Mr. Adams resembled his general character, 
and formed, indeed, a part of it. It was bold, manly, and energetic; 
and such the crisis required. When public bodies are to be ad- 
dressed on momentous occasions, when gmal interests are at slake, 
aaJ strong passions excited, nothing is valuable, in speech, further 
than it is connected with high intellectual and moral endowments. 
Clearness', force, and earnestness, are the qualities which produce 
conviction. True eloquence, indeed, does not consist in speech. 
It can not be brought from far. Labour and learning may toil for 
it, but they will toil in vain. Words and phrases may be mar- 
shalled in every way, but they can not compass it. It must exist 
in the man, in the subject, and in the occasion. Affected passion, 
intense expression, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire after 
it — they can not reach it. It comes, if it come at all, like the om- 
breaKing of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of vol- 
canic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force. The gracps 
taught in the schools, the costly ornaments, and studied contrivan- 
ces of speech, shock and disgust men, when their own lives, and 
the fate of their wives, their children, and their countiy, hang on 
the decision of the hour. Then words have lost their power, 
rhetoric is vain, and all elaborate oratory contemptible. Even 
genius itself then feels rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of 
higher qualities. Then, patriolism is eloquent ; then, self-devo- 
tion is eloquent. The clear conception, outrunning the deductions 
of logic, the high purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit, 
speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every 
feature, and urging the whole man onward, right onward to his 
object — this, this is eloquence ; or rather, it is something greater 
and higher than all eloquence ; it is action, noble, sublime, godlike 
action. 

In July, 1776, the controversy had passed the stage of argument. 
An appeal had been made to force, and opposing armies were in 
the field. Congress, then, was to decide whetlier the tie which 
had so long bound us to the parent state, was to be severed at once, 
and severed for ever. All the colonies had signified their resolu- 
tion to abide by this decision, and the people looked for it with 
the most intense anxiety. And surely, fellow-citizens, never, never 
were men called to a more important political deliberation. If we 
contemplate it from the point where they then stood, no question 
could be more full of interest; if we look at it now, and judge of 
its importance hy its effects, it appears in still greater magnitude. 

Let us, then, bring before us the assembly, which was about to 
decide a question thus big with the fate of empire. Let us open 
their doors, and look in upon their deliberations. Let us survey 
the anxious and care-worn countenances, let us hear the firm-toned 
voices, of this band of patriots. 

Hancock presides over the solemn silting ; and one of those not 
yet prepared to pronounce for absolute independence, is on the 
floof, and is urging his reasons for di.ssenling from the declaration 

"Let us pause! This step, once taken, can not be retraced. 
This resolution, once passed, will cut off all hope of reconciliation. 
If success attend the arms of England, we shall then be no longer 
colonies, with charters, and wilh privileges; these will all be for- 
feited by this act ; and we shall be in the condition of other con- 
quered people, at the mercy of the conquerors. For ourselves, we 
may be ready to run the hazard ; but are we ready to carry the 
country to that length 1 Is success so probable as to justify it ? 
Where is the military, where the naval power, by which we are to 
resist the whole strength of the arm of England, for she will exert 
that strength to the utmost 1 Can we rely on the constancy and 
perseverance of the people 1 or will they not act, as the people of 
other countries have acted, and wearied with a long war, submit, 
in the end, to a worse oppression? While we stand on our old 
ground, and insist on redress of grievances, we know we are right. 



warrant the conclusion that such a course could ever 
be wisely pursued. Many were mortified, and not a 
few disappointed, to see those who had made no effort 

and are not answerable for consequences. Nothing, then, can be 
imputable to us. But if we now change our object, carry our pre- 
tensions further, and set up for absolute independence, we .shall 
loose the .sympathy of mankind. We shall no longer be defena- 
ing what we possess, but struggling for something which we never 
did po.ssess, and which we have solemnly and uniformly dis- 
claimed all intention of pursuing, from the very outset of the 
troubles. Abandoning thus our old ground, of resistance only to 
arbitrary acts of oppression, the nations will believe tht whole to 
have been mere pretence, and they will look on us, not as injured, 
but as ambitious, subjects. I shudder, before this responsibility. 
It will be on us, if relinquishing the ground we have stood on so 
long, and stood on so safely, we now proclaim independence, and 
carry on the war for that object while these cities burn, these 
pleasant fields whiten and bleach with the bones of their owners, 
and these streams run blood. It will be upon us, it will be upon 
us, if failing to maintain this unseasonable and ill-judged declara- 
tion, a sterner de.spotism, mainiained by military power, shall be 
established over our posterity, when we ourselves, given up by an 
exhausted, a harassed, a misled people, shall have expiated our 
rashness, and atoned fur our presumption, on the scaffold." 

It was for Mr. Adams to reply to arguments like these. Wc 
know his opinions, and we know his character. He would com- 
mence wilh his accustomed directness and earnestness. 

" Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand, 
and my heart, to Ihis vote. Il is true, indeed, that in the begin- 
ning, we aimed not at independence. But there's a Divinity which 
shapes our ends. The injustice of England has driven us to arms ; 
and, blinded to her own interest for our good, she has obstinately 
persisted, till independence is now within our grasp. We have 
fiut (o reach forth to il.and it is ours. Why then should we defer 
the declaration 1 Is any man so weak as now to hope for a re- 
conciliation with England, which shall leave either safely to the 
country and its liberties, or safely lo his own life, and his own 
honour 1 Are not you, sir, who sit in that chair, is not he, our 
venerable colleague near you, are you not both already the proscri- 
bed and predestined objects of punishment and of vengeance 1 Cut 
off from all hope of royal clemency, what are you, what can you 
be, while the power of England remains, but outlaws 1 If we 
postpone independence, do we mean to carry on, or to give up, the 
warl Do we mean to submit to the measures of parliament, Bos- 
ton port-bill, and all 1 Do we mean to submit, and consent that 
we ourselves shall be ground to powder, and our country and its 
rights trodden down in the dust? I know we do not mean to sub- 
mit. We never shall submit. Do we intend to violate that most 
solemn obligation ever entered into hy men, that plighting, before 
God, of our sacred honour to Washington, when putting him forth 
to incur the dangers of war, as well as the political hazards of the 
times, we promised lo adhere to him, in every extremity, wilh our 
fortunes and our lives 1 I know there is not a man here, who would 
not rather see a geneial conflagration sweep over the land, or an 
earthquake sink it, than one jot or tittle of that plighted failh fall 
to the ground. For myself, having, twelve months ago, in Ihis 
place, moved you, that George Washington be appointed command- 
er of the forces, raised or to be raised, for defence of American li- 
berty, may my right hand forget her cunning, and my tongue cleave 
to the roof of my mouth, if I hesitate or waver in the support I give 
him. The war, then, must goon. We must fight it through. And 
if the war must go on, why put off longer Ihe declaration of inde- 
pendence? That measure will strengthen us. It will give us 
character abroad. The nations will then treat wilh us, which they 
never can do while we acknowledge ourselves subjects, in arms 
against our sovereign. Nay, I maintain that England herself, will 
sooner treat for peace wilh us on the footing of independence, than 
consent, by repealing her acts, lo acknowledge that her whole con- 
duct towards us has been a course of injustice and oppresi^ion. 
Her pride will be less wounded, by submitting to that cours.! of 
things which now predestinates our independence, than by yielding 
the points in controversy to her rebellious subjects. The fcrme? 



370 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



to bring in the administration, receive the rewards 
which belonged to his political friends. Mr. Adams 
was unquestionably the most learned of all the chief 

she would regard as the resiill of fortune ; the latter she would feel 
.IS her own deep disgrace. Why then, wliy then, sir, do we not, as 
socn as possible, change this from a civil to a national war'? And 
since we must fight it through, why not put ourselves in a state to 
enjoy all the benefits of victory, if we fjain the victory 1 

" If we fail, it can be no worse for us. But we .shall not fail. 
The cause will raise up armies ; the cause will create navies. The 
people, the people, if we are true to tliem, will carry us, and will 
carry themselves, gloriously, through this struggle. I care not how 
fickle other people have been found. 1 know the people of these 
colonies, and I know that resistance to British aggression is deep 
and settled in their hearts, and can not be eradicated. Every co- 
lony, indeed, has expressed its willingness to fuUon', if we but take 
the lead. Sir, the declaration will inspire the people with increas- 
ed courage. Instead of a long and bloody war for restoration of 
privileges, for redress of grievances, for chartered immunities, held 
under a British king, set before them the glorious object, of entire 
independence, and it will breathe into them anew the breath of 
life. Read this declaration at tlie head of the army; every sword 
will be drawn from its scabbard, and the solemn vow uttered, to 
maintain it, or to perish on the bed of honour. Publish it from the 
pulpit ; religion will approve it, and the love of religious liberty 
will cling round it, resolved to stand with it, or fall with it. Send 
it to the public halls; proclaim it there; let them hear it, who 
heard the first roar of the enei7iy's cannon ; let them see it, who 
saw their brothers and their sons fall on the field of Btinlcer Hill, 
and in the streets of Lexington and Concord, and the very walls 
will cry out in its support. 

" Sir, I know the uncertainty of human affairs, but I see, I see 
clearly, through this day's business. You and I, indeed, may rue 
it. We may not live to the time, when this declaration shall be 
made good. We may die ; die, colonists ; die, slaves; die, it may 
be, ignominiously and on the scaffold. Be it so. Be it so. If it 
be the pleasure of Heaven that my country shall require the poor 
ofiering of my life, the victim shall be ready, at the appoinied hour 
of sacrifice, come when that hour may. But while I do live, let 
me have a country, or at least the hope of a country, and that a 
free country. 

" But whatever maybe our fate, be assured, be assured, that this 
declaration will stand. It may cost treasure, and it may cost 
blood; but it will stand, and it will richly compensate for both. 
Through the thick gloom of the present, I see the brightness of the 
future, as the sun in heaven. We shall make this a glorious, an 
immortal day. When we are in our graves, our children will 
honour it. They will celebrate it with thanksgiving, with festivi- 
ty, with bonfires and illuminations. On its annual return they 
will shed tears, copious, gushing tears, not of subjection and slave- 
ry, not of agony and distress, but of exultation, of gratitude, and 
of joy. Sir, before God, I believe the hour has come. My judg- 
ment approves this measure, and my whole heart is in it. All 
that I have, and all that I am, and all that I hope, in this'life, I 
am now ready here to stake upon it ; and I leave off, as I begun, 
that live or die, survive or perish, I am for the declaration. It is 
my living sentiment, and, by the blessing of God, it shall be my 
dying sentiment; independence now; and independence for ever." 

And so that day shall be honoured, illustrious prophet and pa- 
triot! so that day shall be honoured, and as often as it returns, thy 
renown shall come along with it, and the glory of thy life, like 
the day of thy death, shall not fail from the remembrance of men. 

It would be i^ijust, fellow-citizens, on this occasion, while we 
express our veneration for him who is the immediate subject of 
these remarks, were we to omit a most respectful, alTeclionate, and 
grateful mention of those other great men, his colleagues, who 
stood with him, and with the same spirit, the same devotion, took 
part in the interesting transaction. Hancock, the proscribed Han- 
cock, exiled from his home by a military governor, cut off, by pro- 
clamation, from the mercy of the crown, heaven reserved for him 
the distinguished honour of putting this great question to the vote, 
and of writing his own name first, and most conspicuously, on that 



magistrates the nation has had. He received all 
foreign ambassadors without an interpreter, and 
satisfied all that he was acquainted with their mother 

parchment which spoke defiance to the power of the crown of Eng- 
land. There, too, is the name of that other proscribed patriot, 
Samuel Adorns; a man who hungered and thirsted for the inde- 
pendence of his country; who thought the declaration halted and 
lingered, being himself not only ready, but eager for it, long before 
it was proposed; a man of the deepest sagacity, the clearest fore- 
sight, and the prufoundest judgment in men. And there is Gerry, 
himself among Ihe earliest and the foremost of the patriots, found, 
when the battle of Le.x^gton summoned them to common councils, 
by the side of Warren ; a man who lived to serve his country at 
home and abroad, and to die in the second place in the govern- 
ment. There, too, is the inflexible, the upright, the Spartan cha- 
racter, Robert Treat Paine. He, also, lived to serve his country 
through the struggle, and then withdrew from her councils, only 
that he might give his labours and his life to his native state, in 
another relation. These names, fellow-citizens, are Ihe treasures 
of the commonwealth ; and they are treasures which grow brighter 
by time. 

It is now necessary to resume, and to finish with great brevity, 
the notice of the lives of those, whose virtues and services we have 
met to commemorate. 

Mr. Adams reiiiained in congress from its first meeting, till No- 
vember, 1777, when he was appoinied minister to France. He 
proceeded on that service, in the February following, embarking in 
the Boston frigate, on the shore of his native town, at the foot of 
Mount WoUaslon. The year following, he was appointed commis- 
sioner to treat of peace with England. Returning to the United 
Slates, he was a delegate from Braintree in the convention for fra- 
ming the constitution of this commonwealth, in 1780. At Ihe latter 
end of the same year, he again went abroad, in the diplomatic ser- 
vice of the country, and was employed at various courts, and oc- 
cupied with various negotiations, until 1788. The particulars ol 
these interesting and important services this occasion does not al- 
low time to relate. In 1782, he concluded our first treaty with 
Holland. His negotiations with that republic, his efforts to per- 
suade the slate.s-general to recognize our independence, his inces- 
sant and indefatigable exertions to represent the American cause 
favourably, on the continent, and to counteract the designs of its 
enemies, open and secret; aad his successful undertaking to ob- 
tain loans, on the credit of a nation yet new and unknown, are 
among his most arduous, most useful, most honourable services. 
Il was his fortune to bear a part in the negotiation for peace with 
England; and in something more than six years from the declara- 
tion which he had so strenuously supported, he had Ihe satisfaction 
to see the minister plenipotentiary of the crown subscribe to the in- 
strument which declared, that his "Britannic Majesty acknowledged 
the United Slates to be free, sovereign, and independent." In these 
important transactions, Mr. Adams' conduct received the marked 
approbation of congress, and of the country. 

While abroad, in 1787, he published his Defence of the American 
Constitutions ; a work of merit and ability, though composed with 
haste, on the spur of a particular occasion, in the midst of other 
occupations, and under circumstances not admittin* of care^'ul re- 
vision, The immediate object of the work was to countertiot the 
weight of opinions advanced by several popular European ■>»riters 
of that day, M. Turgol, Ihe Abbe de Mably, and Dr. Price, at a 
time when Ihe people of the United States were employed in form- 
ing and revising their systems of government. 

Returning to the United Slates in 1788, he found the new go- 
vernment about going into operation, and was himself elected the 
first vice-president, a si'uation which he filled with reputation foi 
ei?hl years, at the expiration of which he was raised to the presi- 
dential chair, as immediate successor to the immortal Washington. 
In this high station he was succeeded by Mr. .Tefferion, after a me- 
morable conlroversy, belween their respective friends, in 1801, 
and from that period his manned' of life has been known to all who 
hear me. He has lived, for five and twenty years, with every en- 
joyment that could render old age happy. Not inallentive to the 
occurrences of the times, political cares have yet not materially, or 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



371 



tongue. His learning and his openness of disposi- 
tion did nothing to ensure his second election. The 
tide of party was not to be stemmed by learning and 

for any long time, disturbed his repose. In 1820, he acted as elec- 
tor of president and vice-president, and in the same year we saw 
him, then at the age of eighty-five, a member of the convention of 
this commonwealth, called to revise the constitution. Forty years 
before, he had been one of those who formed that constitution; 
and he had now the pleasure of witnessing that there was little 
which the people desired to change. Possessing all his faculties to 
ibe end of his long life, with an unabated love of reading and con- 
templation, in the centre of interesting circles of friendship and 
affection, he was blessed, in his retirement, with whatever of re- 
po.se and felicity the condition of man allows. He had, also, other 
enjoyments. He saw around him that prosperity and general hap- 
piness, which had been the object of his public cares and labours. 
No tnan ever beheld more clearly, and for a longer time, the great 
and beneficial efl^ects of the services rendered by himself to his 
country. That liberty which he so early defended, that independ- 
ence of which he was so able an advocate and supporter, he saw, 
we trust, firmly and securely established. The population of the 
country thickened aronnd him faster, and e.fiended wider, than his 
own sanguine predictions had anticipated; and the wealth, respec- 
tability, and power of the nation, sprang up to a magnitude, which 
it is quite impossible he could have expected to witness, in his day. 
He lived, also, to behold those principles of civil freedom, which 
had been developerl, established, and practically applied in Aineri- 
ca, attract attention, command respect, and awaken imitation, in 
other regions of the globe : and well might, and well did he, exclaim, 
" Where will the consequences of the American revolution end !" 

If any thing yet remain to fill this cup of happiness, let it be 
added, that he lived to see a great and intelligent people bestow 
the highest honour in their gift, where he had bestowed his own 
kindest parental affections, and lodged his fondest hopes. Thus 
honoured in life, thus happy at death, he saw the jubilee, and he 
died; and with the last prayers which trembled on his lips, was 
the fervent supplication for his country, " independence for ever." 

Mr. Jefferson, having been occupied in the years 1778 and 1779, 
in the important service of revising the laws of Virginia, was elect- 
ed governor of that state, as successor to Patrick Henry, and held 
the situation when the state was invaded by the British arms. In 
1781, he published his Notes on Virginia, a work which attracted 
attention in Europe as well as America, dispelled many misconcep- 
tions respecting this continent, and gave its author a place among 
men distinguished for science. In November, 17 83, he again took 
his seat in the continental congress, but in the May following was 
appointed minister plenipotentiary, to act ahroad, in the negotiation 
of commercial treaties, with Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams. He 
proceeded to France, in execution of this mission, embarking at 
Boston; and that was the only occasion on which he ever visited 
this place. In 1785, he was appointed minister to France, the 
duties of which situation he continued to perform, until October, 
1789, when he obtained leave to retire, just on the eve of that tre- 
mendous revolution which has so much agitated the world, in our 
limes. Mr. Jefferson's discharge of his diplomatic duties was 
marked by great ability, diligence, and patriotism; and while he 
resided at Paris, in one of the most interesting periods, his charac- 
ter for intelligence, his love of knowledge, and of the society of 
learned men, distinguished him in the highest circles of the French 
capital. No court in Europe had, at that time, in Paris, a repre- 
sentative commanding or enjoying higher regard for political 
knowledge or for general attainment, than the minister of this 
then infant republic. Immediately on his return to his native 
country, at the organization of the government under the present 
constitution, his talents and experience recommended him to Presi- 
dent AVashington, for the first office in his gift. He was placed at 
the head of the department of slate. In this situation, also, he 
manifested conspicuous ability. His correspondence with the mi- 
nisters of other powers residing here, and his instructions to our 
r.wn dijjomatic agents abroad, are among our ablest slate papers. 
A thorough knowledge of the laws and usages of nations, perfect 
acquaintance with the immediate subject before him, great felicity. 



enlarged views. General Jackson was elected by a 
large majority. 

In the year 1828, congress made provision, by law 



and still greater facility, in writing, show themselves in whatever 
effort his official situation called on him to make. It is believed by 
competent judges, that the diplomatic intercourse of the government 
of the United Slates, from the first meeting of the continental con- 
gress, in 1774, to the present time, taken togeiher, would not suffer, 
in respect to the talent with which it has been conducted, by com- 
parison with any thing which other and older states can produce; 
and to the attainment of this respectability and distinction, Mr. Jef. 
ferson has contributed his full part. 

On the retiiement of General Washington from the presidency, 
and the election of Mr. Adams to that oflice, in 1797, he was chosen 
vice-president. While presiding, in this capacity, over the delibe- 
rations of the senate, he compiled and published a Manual of Par- 
liainentary Practice, a work of more labour and more merit, than 
is indicated by its size. It is now received as the geneial standard 
by which proceedings are regulated, not only in both houses of con- 
gress, but in most of the other legislative bodies in the country. In 
1801, he was elected president, in opposition to Mr. Adams, and re- 
elected in 1805, by a vote approaching towards unanimity. 

From the time of his final retirement from public life, in 1807, 
Mr. Jefferson lived as became a wise man. Surrounded by 3fl"ec- 
tionate friends, his ardour in the pursuit of knowledge undiminish- 
ed, with uncommon healih, and unbroken spirits, he was able to 
enjoy largely the rational pleasures of life, and to partake in that 
public prosperity, which he had so much contributed to produce. 
His kindness and hospitality, the charm of his conversation, the 
ease of his manners, the extent of his acquirements, and especially 
the full store of revolutionary incidents, which he possessed, and 
which' he knew when and how to dispense, rendered his abode in 
a high degree allractive to his admiring countrymen, while his 
high public an i scienlifio character drew towards'him every inicl. 
ligent and educated traveller from abroad. Both Mr. Adams and 
Mr. Jefl'erson had the pleasure of knowing that the respect, which 
they so largely received, was not paid to their official stations 
They were not men made great by office; but great men, on whom 
the country, for its own benefit, had conferred office. There was 
that in thein, which office did not give, and which the relinquish- 
ment of office did not, and could not take away. In their retire- 
ment, in the midst of their fellow-citizens, themselves private citi- 
zens, they enjoyed as high regard and esteem, as when filling the 
most important places of public trust. 

There remained to Mr. Jefferson yet one other work of patriot- 
ism and beneficence, the establishment of a university in his native 
state. To this object he devoted years of incessant and anxiou.s 
attention, and by the enlightened liberality of the legislature of 
Virginia, and the co-operation of other able and zealous friemls, he 
lived to see it accoinplished. May all success attend this infant 
seminary; and may those who enjoy its advantages, as often as their 
eves shall rest on the neighbouring height, recollect what they owe 
to their disinterested and indefatigable benefactor; and may letters 
honour him who thus laboured in the cause of letters. 

Thus useful, and thus respected, passed the old age of Thomas 
JeflTerson. But time was on its ever-ceaseless wing, and was now 
bringing the last hour of this illustrious man. He saw its approach, 
with undisturbed serenily. He counted the moments, as they pass- 
ed, and beheld that his last sands were falling. That day, too, was 
at hand, which he had helped to make immortal. One wish, one 
hope — if it were not presumptuous — beat in his fainting breast. 
Could it be so— might it please God— he would desire, once more, 
to seethe sun — once more to look abroad on the scene around him, 
on the great day of liberty. Heaven, in its mcTcy, fulhllod that 
prayer. He saw that sun— he enjoyed its sacred light— he thanked 
God for this mercy, and bowed his aged head to the grave. 
" FeUz, non vita tnulum daritate, scd eliam ojiportimilnic morlis." 

The last public labour of Mr. Jefferson naturally suggests the 
expression of the high piaise which is due, both to him and to Mr 
Adams, for their uniform and zealous attachment to learning, and 
to the cause of general knowledge. Of the advantages of learning, 
indeed, and of literary accomplishments, their own characters were 



372 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



for certain officers of the revolutionary army. The 
debt of justice had been long delayed. Thousands 
had descended to the grave in poverty, with corn- 
striking recommendation.s and illustrations. They were scholars, 
ripe and good scholars; widely acijuainled with ancient, as well as 
modern literature, and not altogether nninstrucled in the deeper 
sciences. Their acquirements, doubtless, were different, and so 
were the particular objects of their literary pursuits ; as their tastes 
and characters, in these respects, differed like those of other men.. 
Being, also, men of busy lives, with great objects, requiring action, 
constantly hiefore them, their attainments iu letters did not become 
showy, or obtrusive. Yet, I would hazard the opinion, that if we 
could now ascertain all the causes which gave them eminence and 
distinction, in the midst of the great men with whom they acted, 
we should find, not among the least, their early acquisition in lite- 
rature, the resources which it furnished, the promptitude and fa- 
cility which it communicated, and the wide field it opened, for 
analogy and illustration ; giving them, thus, on every subject, a 
larger view, and a broader range, as well for discussion as for the 
government of their own conduct. 

Literature sometimes, and pretensions to it much oftener, dis- 
gusts, by appearing to hang loosely on the character, like something 
foreign or extraneous, not a part, but an ill-adjusted apjiendage ; 
or bj' seeming to overload and weigh it down, by its unsightly bulk, 
like the productions of bad taste in architecture, where there is 
massy and cumbrous ornament, without strength or soliditj' of co- 
lumn. This has exposed learning, and especially classical learn- 
ing, to reproach. Men have seen thai it might exist, without men- 
tal superiority, without vigour, without good taste, and without- 
utility. But, in such cases, classical learning has only not inspired 
natural talent ; or, at most, it has but made original feebleness of in- 
tellect, and naturarbluntness of perception, something more con- 
spicuous. The question, after all, if it be a question, is, whether 
literature, ancient as well as modern, does not assist a good under- 
standing, improve natural good taste, add polished armour to na- 
tive strength, and render its possessor not only more capable of de- 
riving private happiness from contemplation and reflection, but 
more accomplished, also, for action, in the affairs of life, and espe- 
cially for public action t Those whose memories we now honour, 
were learned men; but their learning was kejit in its proper place, 
and made subservient to the uses and objects of life. They were 
scholars not common, nor superficial ; but their scholarship was so 
in keeping with their character, so blended and inwrought, that 
careless observers, or bad judges, not seeing an ostentatious display 
of it, might infer that it did not exist ; forgetting, or not knowing, 
that classical learning, in men who act in conspicuous public sta- 
tions, perform duties which exercise the faculty of writing, or ad- 
dress popular, deliberative, or judicial bodies, is oflen felt, where 
it is little seen, and sometimes felt more effectually, because it is 
not seen at all. 

But the cause of knowledge, in a more enlarged sense, the cause 
of general knowledge and of popular education, had no warmer 
friends, nor more powerful advocates, than Mr. Adams and Mr. 
Jefferson. On this foundation, they knew, the whole republican 
system rested ; and this great and all-important truth they strove 
to impress, by all the means in their power. In the early publica- 
tion, already referred tu, Mr. Adams expresses the strong and just 
sentiment, that the education of the poor is more important, even to 
the rich themselves, than all their own riches. On this great truth, 
indeed, is founded that unrivalled, that invaluable political and 
moral institution, our own blessing, and the glory of our fathers, 
the New England .system of free schools. 

As the promotion of knowledge had been the object of their re- 
gard through life, so these great men made it the subject of their 
testamentary bounty. Mr. Jefferson is understood to have be- 
queathed his library to the university, and that of Mr. Adams is 
oestowed on the inhahiianis of Cluincy. 

Mr. Adams and Mr. Jeilerson, fellow-citizens, were successively 
presidents of the United States. The comparative merits of their 
respective administrations for a long time agitated and divided 
public opinion. They were rivals, each suppoi ted by numerous 
and powerful portions of the people, for the liighest office. This 



plaints on their lips against the rulers of the land. 
All the wise, patriotic, and eloquent of both houses 
of congress, were on the side of the veteran soldiers 

contest, partly the cause, and partly the consequence, of the long 
existence of two great political parlies in the country, is now part 
of the history of our government. We may naturally regret, that 
any thing should have occurred to create difference and discord, 
betw-een those who Lad acted harmoniously and tlhciently in the 
great concerns of the revolution. But this is not the time, nor this 
the occasion, for entering into the grounds of that difference, or for 
attempting to discu.ss the merits of the questions which it involves. 
As praclical questions, they were canvassed, when the measures 
which they regarded were acted on and adopted; and as belonging 
to history, the time has not come for their consideration. 

It is, perhaps, not wonderful, that when the constitution of the 
United States went first into operation, different opinions should be 
entertained, as to the extent of the powers conferred by it. Here 
was a natural source of diversity of sentiment. It is still less 
wonderful, that that event, about contemporary with our govern- 
ment, under the present constitution, which so entirely shocked all 
Europe, and disturbed our relations with her leading powers, 
should be thought, by different men, to have difierent bearings on 
our own prosperity; and that the early measures adopted .by our 
government, in consequence of this new state of things, should be 
seen in opposite lights. It is for the future historian, when what 
now remains of prejudice and misconception shall have passed 
away, to state these different opinions, and pronounce impartial 
judgment. In the meantime, all good men rejoice, and well niay 
rejoice, that the sharpest differences sprung out of measures, which, 
wliether right or wrong, have ceased with the exigencies that gave 
tliem birth, and have left no permanent effect, either on the consti- 
tution, or on the general prosperity of the country. This remark, 
I am aware, may be supposed to have its exception, in one measure, 
the alteration of the constitution as to the mode of choosing presi- 
dent ; but it is true, in its general application. Thus the course of 
policy pursued towards France, in 1798, on the one hand, and the 
measures of commercial restriction, commenced m 18C7, on the 
other, both subjects of warm and seveie opposition, have passed 
awav, and left nothing behind them. They were temporary, and 
whether wise or unwise, their consequences were limited to their 
respective occasions. It is equally clear, at the same time, and it 
is equally gratifying, that those measures of both administrations, 
which were of durable importance, and which drew after lliem in- 
teresting and long remaining consequences, have received general 
approbation. Such was the organization, or rather the creation, 
of the navy, in the administration of Mr. Adams ; such the acqui- 
sition of Louisiana, in that of Mr. Jefferson. The country, it may 
safely be added, is not likely to he willing either to approve, or to 
reprobate, indiscriminately, and in the aggregate, all the measures 
of either, or of any administration. The dictate of reason and of 
justice is, that, holding each one his own sentiments on the points 
in difference, we imitate the great men themselves, in the forbear- 
ance and moderation which they have cherished, and in the mutual 
respect and kindness which they have been so much inclined to 
feel and to reciprocate. 

No men, fellow-citizens, ever served their country with more 
entire exemption from every imputation of selfish and mercenary 
motive, than those to whose memory we are paying these proofs of 
respect. A suspicion of any dispositicn to enrich themselves, or to 
profit by their public employments, never rested on either. No 
sordid motive approached them. The inheritance which they have 
left to theirchildren, is of their character and their fame. Fellow- 
citizens, I will detain you no longer by this faint and leeblc tribute 
to the memory of the illustrious dead. Even in other hands, ade- 
quate justice could not be performed, within the limits of iliis occa- 
sion. Their highest, their best praise, is your deep conviction of 
their merits, your affectionate gratitude for their labours and ser- 
vices. It is not my voice, it is this cessation of ordinary pursuits, 
this arresting of all attention, these solemn ceremonies, anil this 
crowded house, which speak their eulogy. Their fame, indeed, is 
safe. That is now treasured up, beyond the reach of accident. 
Although no sculptured marble should rise to their memory, nor 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



'STS 



Strong arguments were tised in their cause. The 
chairman of the committee which reported the bill, 
made the following forcible remarks : — 

" Mr. President, (said he,) it has become my duty, 
sir, as Chairman of the Committee who reported this 
bill, to explain the origin and character of it. I regret 
that this duty has not devolved upon some abler re- 
presentative of the interests of the petitioners ; but 
I regret it the less as my colleagues on the committee 
possess every quality of both the head and heart to 
advance those interests, and will no doubt, hereafter, 
be seconded by an indulgent attenlion on the part of 
the senate. 

" Who, then,' sir, are the venerable men that knoclv 
at your door 1 and for \vhat do they ask ? They are 
not suppliants for mere favour or charity, though we 
all laiow that nothing but the proud spirit which 
helped to sustain them through the distresses of our 
revolution, has withheld most of them from reliance 
for daily bread on the alms provided by the present 
pension act. No, sir, they come as petitioners for 
their rights. They come as the remnant of that 
gallant band, who enlisted your- continental army, 
who disciplined its ranks, who planned its enterprises, 
and led the way to victory and independence. Con- 
fiding in the plighted faith of Congress, given in the 

engraved stone bear record of Iheir deeds, yet nill their remem- 
brance be as lasting as the land they honoured. Marble columns 
may, indeed, moulder into dust, time may erase all impress from 
the crumbling stone, but Iheir fame remains; for with American 
LIBERTY it rose, and with Amf.rican liberty only can it perish. It 
was the last swelling peal of yonder choir, " tueir bodies areboried 

IN PEACE, but their NAME LIVETH EVERMORE." I Catch that SolemU 

song, I echo that lofty strain of funeral triumph, " tueir name liveth 

EVERIMORE." 

And now, fellow-citizens, let us not retire from this occasion, 
without a deep and solemn conviction of the duties which have de- 
volved upon us. This lovely land, this glorious liberty, these be- 
nign institutions, the dear purchase of our fathers, are ours; ours 
to enjoy, ours to preserve, ours to transmit. Generations past, and 
generations to come, hold us responsible for this sacred trust. Our 
fathers, from behind, admonish us, with their anxious paternal 
voices, posterity calls out lo us, from the bosom of the future, the 
world turns hither its solicitous eyes — all, all conjure us to act 
wisely, and faithfully, in the relation which we sustain. We can 
never, indeed, pay the debt which is upon us; but by virtue, by 
morality, by religion, by the cultivation of every good principle and 
every good habit, we may hope to enjoy the blessing, through our 
day, and to leave it unimpaired lo our children. Let us feel deeply 
bow much of what we are and of what we pos.sess, we owe to this 
liberty, and these institutions of government. Nature has, indeed, 
given us a soil, which yields bounteously to the hands of industry; 
the mighty and fruitful ocean is before us, and the skies over our 
heads shed health and vigour. But what are lands, and seas, and 
skies, to civilized man, without society, without knowledge, without 
morals, without religious culture ; and how can these be enjoyed, 
in all their extent, and all their excellence, but under the protec- 
tion of wise institutions and a free government 1 Fellow-citizens, 
there is not one of us, there is not one of us here present, who does 
Lot, at this moment, and at every moment, experience, in his own 
condition, and in the condition of those most near and dear lo him, 
the influance and the benefits of this liberty, and these institutions. 
Let U8 then acknowledge the blessing, let as feel it deeply and pow- 



form of a solemn compact, they adhered to your 
cause through evil report and good report, till the 
great drama closed ; and they now ask only that the 
faith so plighted may be redeemed. Amid the wrecks 
from time and disease, during almost half a century, 
short of two hundred and fifty now survive, out of 
two thousand four hundred and eighty, who existed 
at the close of the war. Even this small number is 
falling fast around us, as the leaves of autumn ; and 
this very morning a gentleman before me has com- 
municated the information, that another of the most 
faithful among them has just passed 'that bourne 
whence no traveller returns.' It behooves us, then, 
if we now conclude, in our prosperity and greatness, 
to extend relief, either from charity, gratitude, or jus- 
tice, te do it quickly. 

"My great anxiety is, in the outset, to prevent any 
misapprehension of the true grounds on which the 
appropriation is founded. Throughout the whole 
inquiry, there is no disposition to censure the motives 
or policy of the old Congress. They adopted such 
measures as the exigencies and necessities of the 
times forced upon them ; and now, when those exi- 
gencies have ceased, it is just, as well as generous 
to give such relief as the nature of the case may 
demand. 



erfully, let us cherish a strong affection for ii, and resolve to main- 
tain and perpetuate it. The blood of our fathers, let it rot have 
been shed in vain ; the great hope of posterity, let it not be blasled 
The striking altitude, loo, in which we stand to the world around 
us, a topic to which, I fear, I advert too often, and dwell on loo 
long, can not be allogelher omitted here. Neither individuals not 
nations can perform their part well, until they understand and feel 
its importance, and comprehend and justly appreciate all the duties 
belonging to it. It is not to inflate national vanity, nor to swell a 
light and empty feeling of self-importance; but it is that we may 
judge justly of our situation, and of our ow'n duties, that I earnestly 
urge this consideralion of our position, and onr character, among 
the nations of the earth. It can not be denied, but by those who 
would dispute against the sun, that with America, and in America, 
a new era commences in human affairs. This era is distinguish- 
ed by free representative governments, by entire religious liberty, 
by improved systems of national intercourse, by a newly awakened 
and an unconquerable spirit of free inquiry, and by a diffusion of 
knowledge through the community, such as has been before alto- 
gether unknown and unheard of. Ameiica, America, our country, 
fellow-citizens, our own dear and native land, is inseparably con- 
nected, fast bound up, in fortune and by fate, with these great in- 
terests. If they fall, we fall with them; if they stand, it will be 
because we have upholden them. Let us contemplate, then, this 
connexion, which binds the prosperity of others to our own; amd 
let us manfully discharge all the duties which it imposes. If we 
cherish the virtues and the principles of our fathers. Heaven will 
assist us lo carry on the work of human libeilyand human happi- 
ness. Auspicious omens cheer us. Great examples rre before us. 
Our own firmament now shines brightly upon our path. Washing- 
ton is in the clear upper sky. Those other stars ha\e now joined 
the American constellation; they circle round their centre, and the 
heavens beam with new light. Beneath this illumination, let ns 
walk the course of life, and at its close devoutly commend our be- 
loved country, the common parent of us all, to the Divine Benigni- 
ty. — Webster's Eulogy on Adams and Jefferson, delivered at Bositm^ 
August 2, 1 826. 



374 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



" A very great obstacle to the success of this mea- 
sure heretofore, has been a prevalent opinion, that 
these petitioners are seeking compensation merely for 
losses sustained on the depreciation of continental 
money and certificates received for their monthly 
wages ; whereas, from their first memorial in A. D. 
1810, to the present session, they have invariably 
rested on the non-performance, by Congress, of a dis- 
tinct and independent contract. All the losses on 
their montlily wages, they bore in common, and are 
willing to forego in common with many in the walks 
of civil life, and with the brave soldiers under their 
command. This is the plain and decisive reason 
why none but officers are embraced in the present 
bill. The contract on which they rely, was made 
with the officers alone ; and gallant and unfortunate 
as were the soldiers, the officers have endured, and 
will continue to endure, without repining, still se- 
verer sufferings from the worthless money and cer- 
tificates received for their wages ; because those 
losses were perhaps too large, and too general in all 
departments of life, ever to warrant the expectation, or 
practicability, of complete renumeration. I have said 
severer sufferings on this account by the officers ; 
because the money received for wages before A. D. 
1780, worth only one dollar in the hundred, was, to 
the officers, the only means to purchase camp equi- 
page and clothing, that were furnished to the soldiers 
out of the public arsenals ; and because the soldier 
often received besides liberal bounties both at home 
and from Congress. 

" Let it then be distinctly understood, that not- 
withstanding this disparity against the officers, no 
such losses or depreciations form any part of the 
foundation for this bill. A moment's attention to the 
history of that period, will show the true ground of 
the appropriation. After this unequal pressure had 
continued nearly three years — after the officers had 
sustained their spirits during that trying period under 
such disadvantages, by the force of those principles 
that led them at first to join in the pledge to the 
cause, of ' their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred 
honour ;' after their private resources had become 
nearly exhausted in supplying those wants their 
country was unable rather than unwilling to satisfy, 
there arose a state of things which led to certain pro- 
ceedings by congress in relation to half pay. 

" The prospect had nearly vanished, that any 
honourable accommodation could be effected with the 
parent country. The contest seemed likely to be- 
come more severe, and to be protracted for many 
years ; and it was obvious that many of-the officers, 
thus impoverished and disheartened, must actually 



resign in order to provide themselves with decent 
clothing, and to maintain their families, and secure 
any subsistence for advanced life, or that they must 
receive some assurance of future indemnity, if they 
continued in service, and abandoned every thing ( l.*e 
to sink or swim with the military destinies of their 
country. 

" It was then that the resolve of May 15th, 1778, 
granting half-pay, for only seven years, to all who 
continued in service till the close of the war, was 
passed. 

" This short period of half-pay was dictated, ra- 
ther by the wants of congress to provide a longer 
one, than from an impression that it was, in truth, 
sufficient, or in accordance with, any similar system 
in the armies of Europe. Hence, a committee. May 
24th, 1779, reported a resolution, allowing half-pay for 
life to the same class of officers, and justly grounded 
it on the great risks they were called to encounter, 
on their great suflferings and sacrifices of youth, ease 
health, and fortune, in the cause of their country 
But the want of resources in congress, induced them 
to postpone this subject, and on the 17th of August, 
1779, to urge upon the respective states the expedi- 
ency of adopting such a resolution, and of pledging 
for its fulfilment their state resources. The power 
of the states over those resources, was much more 
effective than that of the confederation over the states. 
But such were the general gloom and despondency 
of the times, that not a single state, except Pennsyl- 
vania, complied with the recommendation. The cur- 
rency continued to depreciate more and more, daily ; 
the officers, in many instances, were utterly unable, 
by their whole pay, to procure decent apparel : trea- 
son had penetrated the camp in the person of Arnold: 
Charleston had been surrendered : Lincoln captured : 
Gates defeated at Camden : the Southern states over- 
run by Cornwallis : our soldiery had become dis- 
couraged ; and the great military leader of the revo- 
lution had Vjecome convinced, and had urged, with 
his usual energy, upon congress, that the adoption of 
this resolution was almost the only possible method 
of retaining the army together. Under such appal- 
ling circumstances, congress passed, on the 24th of 
October, A. D. 1780, the resolution, which I will now 
take the liberty to read : 

" ' Resolved, That the officers who shall continue in 
the service to the end of the war, shall also be en- 
titled to half-pay during life ; to commence from the 
time of their reduction.' (1 U. S. Laws. 688.) 

" This, with one or two subsequent resolutions, 
explaining and modifying its provisions as to particu- 
lar persons, constitutes the great foundation of the 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



37S 



bill under consideration. The promise was most 
solemnly and deliberately made : the consideration 
for It was €ample, and most honourably performed by 
the officers : and yet, on the part of congress, its 
stipulations have, in my opinion, never, to tills day, 
been equitably fulfilled. As to the binding effect of 
the compact on consrress, nobody can pretend ' to 
doubt. I shall, therefore, not waste a single moment 
in the discussion of that point. But I admit that the 
officers were first bound to perform tlie condition 
faithfully, of serving to the close of the war, however 
long or disastrous. Did they do it ? History and 
tradition must convince all, that through defeat as 
well as victory, they clung to our fortunes to the ut- 
termost moment of the struggle. They were actu- 
ated by a spirit and intelligence, the surest guarantees 
of such fidelity. Most of them had investigated, and 
well understood, the principles in dispute, and to de- 
fend them, had flown to the field of battle on the first 
alarm of war, with all the ardour of a Scottish gath- 
ering, at the summons of the fiery cross. And it is 
not poetry, that one of my own relatives, an officer, 
long since no more, when the alarm was given at 
Lexington, left for the tented field, the corpse of his 
father unburied ; 

' One look he cast upon the bier, 
Dashed from his eye ihe gathering tear,' 

and hastened to devote his own life to the salvation 
of his country. In the same duty — in performing 
their part of the compact, to serve faithfully to the 
close of the war, these petitioners endured the frosts 
of winter, often half sheltered, badly fed, badly cloth- 
ed, and badly paid. God forbid that I should exag- 
gerate. The naked truth is stronger than any co- 
louring of fancy. We have the authority of their 
commander, that they were, at times, in such a con- 
dition as to be unable and ashamed to receive their 
friends ; but never, I believe, loath to face their ene- 
mies. Their paths were sometimes marked by their 
blood — their courage and constancy tried by frequent 
alarms, by ambuscade, and the pitched battle ; but 
they never faltered : and when, towards the close of 
the war, neglect on the part of congress, as to their 
monthly wages, might have justified, under most cir- 
cumstances, disquiet and distrust ; and when at New- 
burg they were tempted with the insidious taunt, that 
if, relinquishing their arms and retiring home with 
the promises made to them unfulfilled, they would 
' go, starve, and be forgotten ;' yet they disbanded in 
peace, and expressed their ' unshaken confidence in 
the justice of congress.' 

" Washington, himself, declared in substance, that 
by means of this resolve the officers were inspired to 
48 



make renewed exertions ; to feel a security for them- 
selves and families, which enabled them to devote 
every faculty to the common cause ; and that thus 
was an army kept together, which otherwise must 
have dissolved, and we probably have been compel- 
led to pass again under the yoke of colonial servitude. 

" For all this fidelity to the performance of their 
part of the compact, the officers have been duly 
thanked by many congresses, and applauded by the 
world. They have occupied a conspicuous niche in 
toasts, odes, and orations, and some of them have 
animated the canvass and breathed in marble. 

" But has the promise to them of half-pay ever 
been either literally or substantially fulfilled'.' That, 
sir, is the important question. I answer not literally^ 
by any "pretence, from any quarter. No half-pay, as 
such, has ever, for any length of time, been either 
paid or provided for one of the petitioners. Almost 
as little, sir, can there be a pretence that it has been 
substantially fulfilled. No kind of fulfilment has 
been attempted, except in the commutation act, passed 
March 22d, 1783. 

" That act grew out of objections, in some of the 
states, to the system of half pay as a system, because 
not strictly republican in theory, and because every 
thing of a pension character had become odious by its 
abuse in some governments, in the maintenance of 
hirelings who had performed secret and disreputablo 
service. 

" Some of the officers being anxious to remove any 
formal objection, petitioned congress for a commuta- 
tion or change in the mode of indemnifying and re- 
warding them. No opposition had been made to the 
amount or value of the half-pay, and therefore, as ap- 
pears in the commutation act itself, the officers ex- 
pected, if a change took place, a full ' equivalent' in 
value to the half-pay for life. 

" But instead of such an equivalent, congress gave, 
by that act, what was far short of an equivalent, 
whether we regard the particular ages at that time of 
these petitioners, or their average age t^ith the other 
officers, or the period they have actually since lived. 
Congress gave only five years' full pay to the youngest 
in the line, and just as much to the eldest ; treating 
the officer of twenty-five, as not likely to live any 
longer than him of seventy ; and subjecting the former 
to take for his half-pay, which he was entitled to for 
his whole life, of probably thirty-five years, the same 
small sum bestowed on him not likely to live ten oi 
fourteen years. 

" If we look to the average age of all the officers at 
that time, the commutation was still inadequate. That 
age was probably not over thirty ; none have pretend- 



376 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



ed to consider It over thirty-five ; and on all observa- 
tions, in similar climates, and all calculations of 
annuity tables, such persons' lives would be likely to 
extend beyond thirty years, and thus their half-pay 
for life be, on an average, worth the gross sum, «j 
presenti, of at least seven years' full pay. Any gen- 
tleman can test the general accuracy of these results, 
by a reference to Price's Annuity Tables, and to 
Milne on Annuities. In England, Sweden, and 
France, it will be seen that a person of thirty years 
of age is ascertained to be likely to live thirty-four 
more ; and of thirty-five years of age, to live about 
twenty-eight more. An annuity for thirty-four years 
is worth a fraction more than fourteen times its an- 
nual amount, if paid in a gross sum in advance ; and 
one, for twenty-eight years, only a fraction loss than 
fourteen times its annual amount. So that seven 
years' full pay is as near a fair commutation for the 
half-pay for life, taking their average ages, as can 
well be calculated, or as is necessary for the present 
inquiry. 

" Again : If we advert to the real, facts, as since 
developed, these petitioners, had the commutation act 
not passed, or not been at all binding, would now 
receive twenty-two, instead of five years' full pay, as 
they have survived, since the close of the war, over 
forty-four years. 

" Congress, as if conscious that the pressure of the 
times had driven them to propose a substitute for the 
half-pay for life, not, in any view, sufficient or equi- 
valent, as regarded the younger officers, who alone 
now survive and ask for redress, provided in the com- 
mutation act, not that each officer might accept or 
reject it at pleasure, but that it should take effect, if 
accepted within certain periods, not exceeding six 
months, by majorities in the several lines of the army. 
The most influential officers in any line, are of course 
the elder and superior ones. To these, as a general 
rule, five years full-pay was a fair equivalent ; and 
by their exertions the commutation was accepted by 
majorities in most of the lines, and no provision ever 
afterwards made for such officers, as were either ab- 
sent or present, and dissenting. 

" No evidence can now be found, however, of any 
acceptance, even by majorities, in any of the lines, 
till after the expiration of the six months prescribed. 
But a report of the secretary of war, dated October 
31, 1783, (8 Journals of Congress, 478,) enumerates 
certain lines and individuals, that had then signified 
their acceptance. It would be difficult, as might be 
expected, to find among the individuals named, one 
who still survives. Those, then, the youngest and 
now surviving, must have felt deeply the inequality 



proposed ; and if most of them had not been absent 
on furlough, by a resolve of congress, after peace was 
expected, probably even majorities in the lines would 
never have been obtained. The certificates were 
made out for all, without application, and left with 
the agents ; no other provision was made for those 
entitled to half-pay, and it remained with the younger 
officers to receive those certificates or nothing. 

" But it is most manifest, that congress had no le- 
gal right to take away from a single officer his vested 
half-pay for life, without giving him a full equivalent ; 
or, to say the least, what the officer should freely and 
distinctly assent to, as a full equivalent. It would he 
contrary to the elementary principles of legislation 
and jurisprudence : and a majority of the lines could 
no more bind the minority on this subject of private 
rights of property, than they could bind congress, or 
the states, on questions of politics. This point need 
not be argued to men, who, like those around me, 
have watched the discussions and decisions in this 
country the last quarter of a century. But no such 
individual assent was asked here : it was indeed de- 
clared to be useless for any minority of individuals 
to dissent; the commutation not having been, in any 
view, a full equivalent, individual assent cannot fairly 
be presumed. The subsequent taking of the certifi- 
cates M'as merely taking all that was provided, and 
all they could get, without any pretence that they 
took it as a full and fair equivalent. And hence 
it follows, that, on the lowest computation, two years 
more full pay are necessary to make any thing 
like a substantial fulfilment of the compact on the 
part of congress. In truth, twenty years more would 
be less than the petitioners could rightfully claim 
now, if the commutation act had never passed ; or if 
the position was clearly established that the commu- 
tation act, as to them, was, under the circumstances, 
entirely null and void. To say that such a transac- 
tion, resorted to under the pressure of the times, and 
finding no apology except in fhe security and neces- 
sities of that pressure, should not be relieved against 
when the pressure is over, and our means have be- 
come ample, is to make a mockery of justice, and to 
profane every principle of good faith. 

" But consider a little farther the history of these 
proceedings, on the supposition that the five years 
full-pay was an ample equivalent to all. Was it either 
paid or secured to them in such manner as to be- 
come any thing like a substantial fulfilment of the 
promise ? Though the act allowed congress to give 
the officers money or securities, and though these last 
might he in the form prescribed for other creditors, 
yet the act contemplated giving them money oi 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



377 



money's worth, else it doubly violated the former 
engagement to give them half-pay for life. The-very 
nature of half-pay, or of any commutation for it, im- 
plies that it should be actually paid, or so secured as 
to raise the money whenever it becomes due. They 
were here intended as means for immediate mainte- 
nance or business to those who, by peace, would be 
thrown out of their accustomed employment and sup- 
port. This is too plain for further illustration ; and, 
in conformity with these views, congress forthwith 
effected a loan in Europe, and paid in money all the 
foreign officers entitled to the commutation. But how 
were the petitioners treated ? They did not obtain a 
dollar in money, and even their certificates were not 
delivered till six or nine months after their right to 
half-pay accrued ; and when received, so far from 
being secured by pledges or requisitions rendering 
them valuable as money, the officers could not obtain 
for them in the market over one fifth of their nominal 
amount. The receipts given for these certificates 
truly omitted to state that they were in full payment, 
of either the commutation or the half-pay. By such 
means these petitioners, to supply the then existing 
wants of themselves and families, which was the le- 
gitimate object of both the half-pay and its commuta- 
tion, in fact realized only one, instead of five years' 
full-pay ; or only two years' half-pay instead of half- 
pay for life. 

" If this was a substantial fulfilment of the promise 
to them, I think it would be difficult to define what 
would have been a defective, delusive, and unsub- 
stantial fulfilment. But it has been suggested, that 
the petitioners might all have retained their certifi- 
cates till afterwards funded, and in that event have 
escaped loss. Can gentlemen, however, forget that 
the very design of half pay was to furnish food and 
raiment, and not a fund to be deposited in bank for 
posterity? And that, though the use of a portion of 
it, if all had been paid at once, might have been post- 
poned to a future period, yet their necessities utterly 
forbade most of them from not resorting, forthwith, 
to a single year's pay, which was the entire value of 
the whole certificate. It is another part of the dis- 
tressing history of this case, that if, on the contrary, 
every officer had retained his certificate till funded, 
his loss on it would have been, very near one tliird 
of its amount. But on this point I shall not dwell, 
as its particulars are more recent and familiar. It 
will suffice to call to your minds, that the provision 
made for the payment of these certificates in A. D. 
1790, was not by money, nor virtually to their full 
amount, but by opening a loan, payable in those cer- 
tificates, and a scrip of stock given for them on these 



terms : one third of the principal was to draw no in- 
terest whatever, for ten years ; and all the interest 
then due, was to draw thereafter only three per cent. 
Without going into any calculations of the value of 
different kinds of stock, imder diflerent circumstances, 
it is obvious that such a payment or security v/as not 
worth so much by nearly a third, as the money would 
have been worth, or as scrip would have been worth 
for the whole then due on six per cent, interest. 

" It is true that this ioan was, in form, voluntajy ; 
but it is equally true, that, as no other provision was 
made for payment, no alternative remained but to 
accept the terms. Hence, if the officer sold his cer- 
tificate from necessity, he obtained only one fifth of 
the amount therein promised : or, if he retained it, 
he obtained only about two thirds of that amount. 

" What renders this circumstance still more stri- 
king, we ourselves have in this way saved, and re- 
duced our national debt below what it would have 
been, many millions of dollars — from eighteen to fif- 
teen, I believe.; and yet, now, in our prosperity, he- 
sitate to restore what was taken in part from these 
very men, and when not from them, taken from others 
on account of their speculations on these very men, 
and their associates in arms. It was at the time of 
the funding thought just, and attempted by some of 
our ablest statesmen, to provide some retribution to 
the original holders of certificates for the losses that 
had been sustained on them — to provide in some way 
a partial restoration. But the inherent difficulty of 
the subject, and the low state of our resources, pre- 
vented us from completing any such arrangement, 
though we were not prevented from saving to the 
government, out of these very certificates, and similar 
ones, ten times the amount now proposed for these 
petitioners. 

" On this state of facts, then, I hold these conclu- 
sions : that what is honest, and moral, and honourable, 
between debtor and creditor in private life, is so iu 
public life. That a creditor of the public should be 
treated with at least equal, if not greater kindness, 
than the creditor of an individual. That when the 
embarrassments of a debtor give rise to a mode of 
payment altogether inadequate to what is justly due. 
and this kind of payment is forced upon the credi- 
tor, by the necessities of either party, the debtor 
ouffht, when relieved from his embarrassments or 
necessities, to make ample restitution. That it is the 
dictate of every moral and honourable feeling to sup- 
ply the deficiency ; and especially, should the debtor 
do this where the inadequacy was more than four 
fifths of the whole debt ; where the debtor, by a part 
of the arrangement, saved millions to contribute to 



378 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



his present prosperity, and where the debt itself was, 
as in the present case, the price of blood lavished for 
the creditor, the wages of those sufferings and toils 
which secured our present liberties, and fill the bright- 
est page of glory in our country's history. The great 
military leader of the revolution has given his sanc- 
tion to this measure, in the strongest terms, when 
calling to mind the lion hearts, and eagle eyes, that 
had surrounded and sustained him in all his arduous 
trials, and reflecting that they, not soldiers by pro- 
fession, nor adventurers, but citizens, with tender ties 
of kindred and friendship, and with cheering pros- 
pects in civil life, had abandoned all to follow him, 
and to sink or swim with the sacred cause in which 
he had enlisted, he invoked towards them the justice 
of his country, and expressed the fullest confidence, 
that ' a country rescued by their arms, will never 
leave unpaid the debt of gratitude.' 

" It is not to be forgotten, that a measure like this 
would remove a stain from our history. Its moral 
influence on our population, in future wars, for wars 
we must expect, again and again : its consonance 
with those religious, as well as moral principles of 
perfect justice, which, in a republic, are the anchor 
and salvation of all that is valuable ; its freedom, I 
trust, from political prejudice and party feeling, all 
strengthen the other reasons for its speedy adoption. 

" Nor have the imputations against it as a local 
measure, been at all well founded. What is right 
or just in regard to contracts, is right without regard 
to the residence of individuals, whether in the east, 
the west, or the south. But independent of that con- 
sideration, these venerable worthies, though once 
much more numerous at the north than elsewhere, 
have since followed the enterprises of their children, 
and pushed their own broken fortunes to every sec- 
tion of the union. It is impossible to obtain perfect 
accuracy as to their numbers and residence. But by 
correspondence and verbal inquiries it is ascertained, 
that four or five survive in New Hampshire ; from 
thirty to thirty-five in Massachusetts and Maine ; five 
or six in Rhode Island ; five in Vermont ; sixteen in 
Connecticut ; twenty in New York ; twelve in New 
Jersey ; eighteen in Pennsylvania ; three in Dela- 
ware ; twelve in Maryland ; thirty-three to thirty- 
eight in Virginia and Kentucky ; ten to twelve in 
Ohio ; twelve or fifteen in the Carolinas ; and five 
or six in Georgia. As by the annuity tables, some- 
thing like two hundred and fifty ought now to be 
alive, the computations have been made on a medium 
of two hundred and thirtj^, between the niunber as- 
certained and the conjectural number. 

" The question, then, is of a general public nature. 



and presents the single point, whether, in the late 
language of an eloquent statesman of New York, these 
veterans shall any longer remain ' living monuments 
of the neglect of their country.' 

"All the foreign ofilcers, whose claims rested on 
the same resolve, were, as I have before stated, prompt- 
ly paid in specie : and their illustrious leader, Lafay- 
ette, by whose side these petitioners faced equal toils 
and dangers, has been since loaded with both money 
and applause. Even the tories, who deserted the 
American cause, and adhered to one so much less 
holy and pure, have been fully and faithfully reward- 
ed by England : and it now remains with the senate 
to decide, not whether the sum proposed shall be be- 
stowed in mere charity — however charity may bless 
both him that gives and him that takes ; nor in mere 
gratitude — however sensible the petitioners may be to 
the influence of either ; but whether, let these con- 
siderations operate as they may, the ofiicers should 
be remunerated for their losses, on those broad prin- 
ciples of eternal justice which are the cement of so- 
ciety, and which, without a wound to their delicacy 
and honest pride, will, in that event, prove the solace 
and staff of their declining years. 

" I shall detain the senate no longer, except to 
offer a few remarks on the computations, on which 
the sum of one million one hundred thousand dollars 
is proposed as the proper one for filling the blank. 
Various estimates, on various hypotheses, are annexed 
to the report in this case, and others will doubtless 
occur to difierent gentlemen. But if any just one 
amounts to aboiit the sum proposed, no captious ob- 
jection will, I trust, be offered on account of any tri- 
fling diflerence. It is impossible, in such cases, to 
attain perfect accuracy ; but the estimates are correct 
enough, probably, for the present purpose. 

" Tlie committee have proposed a sum in gross 
rather than a half-pay or annuity, because more ap- 
propriate to the circumstances of the case, and be- 
cause more acceptable, for the reasons that originally 
gave rise to the commutation. 

" On the ground that these officers M^ere, in 1783, 
justly entitled to two years more full-pay, as a fair 
equivalent for half-pay during life ; and there being 
two hundred and thirty of them of the rank supposed 
in the report, their monthly pay would be about 
thirty dollars each.' This, for two years, would be 
seven hundred and twenty dollars each ; or one hun- 
dred and sixty-five thousand six hundred dollars due 
to these petitioners at the close of the war, over and 
above what they then received certificates for. The 
interest on that, for forty-four years, would be four 
hundred and thirty-seven thousand one hundred and 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



379 



eighty-four dollars, which, added to the principal, 
make six hundred and two thousand seven hundred 
and eighty-four dollars. 

" If to that be added what they lost on their certi- 
ficates by depreciation, which at four fifths was three 
luuidied and thirty-one thousand two hundred dollars, 
and the sum without any interest, on the depreciation, 
amounts to nine hundred and thirty-three thousand 
nine hundred and eighty-four dollars ; or, with in- 
terest, to more than a million and a half; or, if the 
depreciation be considered seven eights, as it really 
was, the sum would be still larger. On the other 
hand, if nothing he allowed for depreciation on the 
certificates, but one third be considered as lost in 
funding, that one third, in A. D. 1791, would be 
about two hundred and four thousand two hundred 
and forty dollars, and interest since would swell it to 
six hundred and forty-five thousand four hundred 
and thirty-four dollars, which added to the two years' 
pay not received, and interest on that pay, makes 
the whole one million two hundred and forty-eight 
thousand two hundred and eighteen dollars. 

" Another view of the case, which seems to me the 
most technical, and which steers clear of any difii- 
culty about the loss, either by depreciation or fund- 
ing, will lead to about the same result as to the 
amount. It is this. On the ground that seven 
years' full-pay was the smallest sum which, in A. D. 
1783, could be deemed a fair equivalent for the half- 
pay for life, then the petitioners got certificates for 
only five sevenths of their half-pay. Or, in other 
words, five sevenths of their half-pay was extinguish- 
ed and paid. The other two sevenths, then, has an- 
nually accrued since, and will continue to accrue 
while the petitioners survive. This two sevenths 
being fifty-one dollars and forty-two cents per year, 
to each officer, or eleven thousand eight hundred and 
twenty-six dollars to these ofiicers, would amount at 
this time to five hundred and twenty thousand three 
hundred and forty-four dollars ; and the interest ac- 
cruing on it during only thirty-five years, would make 
it exceed the one million one hundred thousand dol- 
lars proposed. The amount is fairly reached by this 
view of the case, without a single cent for either de- 
preciation or loss in funding, and thus does not indi- 
rectly touch a single fact or principle upon which a 
similar allowance could be made to any body besides 
these officers. Gallant, and meritorious, and sufler- 
ing, as were the soldiers, and none could be more so ; 
worthy and aflfectionate as may have been the survi- 
ving widows, and distinguished as may have been 
many of the officers' heirs, for filial and generous de- 
votion to smooth their declining years ; they all stand 



on their own cases and merits. None of them have 
been referred to the committee who reported this hill, 
and they can all be provided for otherwise, this ses- 
sion, or hereafter, if thought proper. Let the present 
appropriation be tried first on its own grounds, and 
then by subsequent amendments of this bill, or by 
new bills, let an appropriation for other classes of 
persons be also tried on its own grounds. All I ask 
and entreat is, that if, either in strict law or in jus- 
tice, whether grounded upon the original defective 
commutation, the depreciation of the certificates, or 
the loss in funding, any member is convinced thai 
the sum proposed to these officers is a fair one, that 
he will first consider the case of the officers, and sup- 
port this motion. If any think a different sum more 
proper, I hope they will propose that sum in due 
time ; and thus let the sense of the senate be fully 
expressed upon one case at a time, and upon the only 
case now duly before us. In this manner, only, can 
any thing ever bo accomplished. 

'• The amount of the sum now proposed, cannot 
be objected to on the grounds that doubtless caused 
the losses and sufferings which we are now seeking 
to redress. The country during the revolution, and 
at its close, would hardly have been unwilling to be- 
stow twice the amount, had its resources permitted. 
But, now, such have been our rapid advances in 
wealth and greatness, by means of the rights and 
liberties the valour of these men contributed so 
largely to secure ; that the very public land they de- 
fended, if not won, yields every year to our treasury 
more than the whole appropriation. One twentieth 
of our present annual revenue exceeds it. A fraction 
of the cost of the public buildings — the expense ol 
two or three ships of the line — one tenth of what has 
been saved to our national debt in the funding system 
— a tax of ten cents per head on our population, only 
a single twelvemonth, — either of them would remove 
all this reproach. 

" But, whatever might be the cost, I would say, in 
all practicable cases, be just and fear not. Let no 
illiberal or evasive feeling blast the hopes of these 
venerable patriots. Much longer delay will do this 
as eifectually as a hard hearted refusal ; since the 
remains of them are almost daily going down to the 
city of silence. Either drive them, then, at once 
from your doors, with taunts, and in despair, — or 
sanction the claim. So far as regards my single self, 
before I would another year endure the stigma, of 
either injustice or ingratitude to men like these, I 
would vote to stop every species of splendid missions ; 
I would cease to talk of Allegliany canals: I would 
let the Capitol crumble to atoms for want of appro- 



880 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



priations, and introduce retrenchment from the palace 
to the humblest door-keeper. 

" It has formerly been said, that if these officers 
are relieved, so must be those of the late war. But, 
deserving as were these last, the cause in which they 
fought required much inferior sacrifices — they were 
not contending under the stigma of traitors, liable to 
the halter — they were liberally and promptly paid ; 
and whatever small depreciation may have existed in 
the treasury notes taken for their monthly pay, it was 
infinitely less than the losses sustained by these peti- 
tioners on their monthly pay, and for which they 
neither ask nor expect relief 

" One other consideration, and I will at this time 
trouble the senate no longer. The long lapse of time 
since the claim originated has been objected formerly 
to its success. But what honest individual shelters 
himself under a statute of limitation, if conscious that 
his promise has not been substantially fulfilled 1 
Under such circumstances, it is no defence, either in 
the court of conscience or in a court of honour ; and 
congress have often shown their liberality in waiving 
it, where expressly provided to bar an application. 

" Here no express bar has ever been provided. 
Before their first application, the officers waited till 
A. D? 1810, when old age and infirmity rendered 
them more needy, and when many years of prosperity 
had rendered their country more able. However 
numerous, and technical, and evasive, may have been 
the objections since interposed, let it not be forgotten, 
that in performing their portion of the compact, how- 
ever neglected as to food or wages, they never were 
heard to plead excuses or evasions, howe\'er appalling 
the danger, whether roused by a midnight alarm or 
invited to join a forlorn hope. ' 

" Like others, too, it may be imputed to them in 
derogation, that they were ' military chieftains.' But 
if, as such for a time, they did, like others, nobly 
help ' to fill the measure of their country's glory ;' 
so, like others of that class, they have often distin- 
guished themselves in forums, cabinets, and halls of 
legislation. 

" Whatever ' honour and gratitude' they have yet 
received, is deeply engraven on their hearts ; but they 
now also need — and they ask, only because they need, 
the additional rewards of substantial justice. 

" It remains, sir, for us, whose rights they defended 
and saved, to say whether they shall longer ask that 
justice in vain." 

On the 4th of March, 1820, General Andrew 
Jackson took the oath of office. His course as a 
military commander had been wonderfully suc- 
cessful, and in all republics, the military chief- 



tain has been held in the highest consideration. He 
was not bred a statesman, nor had he been con- 
sidered as a leader in senates ; but he was energetic, 
prompt, and fearless. He was initiated in war on the 
borders with the Indian tribes, and his name was a 
terror throughout the nations then hostile or friendly 
to the United States. His successful defence of 
New Orleans had excited the admiration and awa- 
kened the gratitude of the American people. His 
inaugural speech was short, and full of promises in 
the way of reform. " Fellow-citizens, (said he,) 
about to undertake the arduous duties that I have 
been appointed to perform, by the choice of a free 
people, I avail myself of this customary and solemn 
occasion, to express the gratitude which their confi- 
dence inspires, and to acknowledge the accountability 
which my situation enjoins. While the magnitude 
of their interests convinces me that no thanks can 
be adequate to the honour they have conferred, it 
admonishes me that the best return I can make, is 
the zealous dedication of my humble abilities to their 
service and their good. 

" As the instrument of the federal constitution, it 
will devolve on me, for a stated period, to execute 
the laws of the United States ; to superintend their 
foreign and their confederate relations ; to manage 
their revenue ; to command their forces ; and, by 
comminiications to the legislature, to watch over and 
to promote their interests generally. And the princi- 
ples of action by which I shall endeavour to accom- 
plish this circle of duties, it is now proper for me 
briefly to explain. 

In administering the laws of congress, 1 shall 
keep steadily in view the limitations as well as the 
extent of the executive power, trusting thereby to 
discharge the functions of my office without tran- 
scending its authority. With foreign nations it will 
be my study to preserve peace, and to cultivate 
friendship on fair and honourable terms ; and in the 
adjustment of any difference that may exist or arise, 
to exhibit the forbearance becoming a powerful na- 
tion, rather than the sensibility belonging to a gal- 
lant people. 

" In such measures as I may be called on to pur- 
sue, in regard to the rights of the separate states, I 
hope to be animated by a proper respect for those 
sovereign members of our union ; taking care not 
to confound the powers they have reserved to 
themselves, with those they have granted to the 
confederacy. 

" The management of the public revenue — that 
searching operation in all governments — is among 
the most delicate and important trusts in ours ; and 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



381 



if will, of course, demand no inconsiderable share of 
my official solicitude. Under every aspect in which 
it can be considered, it would appear that advantage 
must result from the observance of a strict and faith- 
ful economy. This I shall aim at the more anx- 
iously, both because it will facilitate the extinguish- 
ment of the national debt — the unnecessary duration 
of which is incompatible with real independence — 
and because it will counteract that tendency to pub- 
lic and private profligacy which a profuse expendi- 
ture of money by the government, is but too apt to 
engender. Powerful auxiliaries to the attainment 
of this desirable end, are to be found in the regula- 
tions provided by the wisdom of congress, for the 
specific appropriation of public money, and the 
prompt accountability of public officers. 

With regard to a proper selection of the subjects 
of impost, with a view to revenue, it would seem to 
me, that the spirit of equity, caution, and compromise, 
in which the constitution was formed, requires that 
the great interests of agriculture, coanmerce, and 
manufactures, should be equally favoured ; and that, 
perhaps, the only exception to this rule should con- 
sist in the peculiar encouragement of any products 
of either of them that may be found essential to our 
national independence. 

" Internal improvement, and the diffusion of know- 
ledge, so far as they can be promoted by the con- 
stitutional acts of the federal government, are of 
high importance. 

" Considering standing armies as dangerous to 
free governments, in time of peace, I shall not seek 
to enlarge our present establishment, nor disregard 
that salutary lesson of political experience, which 
teaches that the military should be held subordinate 
to the civil power. The gradual increase of our 
navy, whose flag has displayed, in distant climes, 
our skill in navigation and our fame in arms ; the 
preservation of our forts, arsenals, and dock yards ; 
and the introduction of progressive improvements in 
the disciphne and science of both branches of our 
military- service, are so plainly prescribed by pru- 
dence, that I should be excused for omitting their 
mention sooner than for enlarging on their impor- 
tance. But the bulwark of our defence is the na- 
tional militia, which, in the present state of our in- 
telligence and population, must render us invincible. 
As long as our government is administered for the 
good of the people, and is regulated by their will ; 
as long as it secures to us the rights of person and 
of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it 
will be worth defending : and so long as it is worth 
defending, a patriotic militia will cover it with an 



impenetrable agis. Partial injuries and occasional 
mortifications we may be subjected to, but a million 
of armed freemen, possessed of the moans of war, 
can never be conquered by a foreign foe. To any 
just system, therefore, calculated to strengthen this 
natural safe-guard of the country, I shall cheerfully 
lend all the aid in my power. 

" It will be my sincere and constant desire to ob- 
serve towards the Indian tribes within our limits, a 
just and liberal policy ; and to give that humane 
and considerate attention to their rights and their 
wants which are consistent with the habits of our 
government, and the feelings of our people. 

" The recent demonstration of public sentiment 
inscribes, on the list of executive duties, in characters 
too legible to be overlooked, the task of reform ; 
which will require, particularly, the correction of 
those abuses, that have brought the patronage of 
the federal government into conflict with the freedom 
of elections, and the counteraction of those causes 
which have disturbed the rightful course of appoint- 
ment, and have placed, or continued, power in un- 
faithful or incompetent hands. 

" In the performance of a task thus generally de- 
lineated, I shall endeavour to select men whose dili- 
gence and talents will ensure, in their respective 
stations, able and faithful co-operation — depending, 
for the advancement of the public service, more on 
the integrity and zeal of the public oflicers, than on 
their numbers. 

" A diffidence, perhaps too just, in my own quali- 
fications, will teach me to look with' reverence to the 
examples of public virtue left by my illustrious pre- 
decessors, and with veneration to the lights thai 
flow from the mind that founded, and the mind 
that reformed, our system. The same diffidence in- 
duces me to hope for instruction and, aid from the 
co-ordinate branches of the government, and for the 
indulgence and support of my fellow-citizens gener- 
ally. And a firm reliance on the goodness of that 
Power whose providence mercifully protected our 
national infancy, and has since upheld our liberties 
in various vicissitudes, encourages me to offer up 
my ardent supplications that He will continue to 
make our beloved country the object of his divine 
care and gracious benediction." 

General Jackson at once filled up his cabinet with 
men devoted to his cause. Martin Van Buren, of 
the state of New York, was appointed secretary of 
state. He was a self-made man, and had secured 
the votes of his native state for governor, which of- 
fice he held when he received his appointment. 
Samuel D. Ingham, of Pennsylvania, was appointed 



382 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 




secretary of the treasury. He had been a member 
of tlie house of representatives in the national legis- 
lature, and was thought a straight-forward, plain 
man. John H. Eaton was made secretary of war. 
He had been a senator from Tennessee, and was the 
personal friend of General Jackson. John Branch 
was appointed to fill the office of secretary of the 
navy. The qualifications he had for this office were 
not known to the nation at large, but they presumed 
the executive was fully aware of them, before he had 
elevated him to that office. John M'Pherson Berrien 
was made attorney-general. This appointment gave 
general satisfaction. He was at the time of his ap- 
pointment a senator from Georgia, and celebrated for 
his acquirements, eloquence, and discrimination. He 
had shown his talents as well in the high judicial 
councils of the nation, as in the senate of the United 
States. John M'Lean, who had held the office of 



• The year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-two, will be 
memorable in the annals of North America, from the pievalence 
of a terrible epidemic. The disease which prevailed at this period 
was called the Asiatic Cholera, or Cholera Asphyxia. It com- 
menced its ravages in the year 1817, in Asia, and after having 
spread death and desolation over that portion of the globe fur near- 
ly fourteen years, it invaded Europe, traversed a portion of that 
t:outineni, and, without any signs of contagious transition, it even- 
tually appeared on our own continent. 

This dreadful scourge of humanity has, from its origin to the 
present period, mocked all scientific research, all medical philoso- 
phy, and all remedial treatment. It has stalked through the land 
like a destroying angel, regardless of all impediments, and literally 
gone forth, "conquering and to conquer." 

The history of its origin, progress, and treatment, in Asia, has 
been the theme of many learned physicians. It would be tedious 
and unprofitable for our present purpose, to enter the wide field of 
investigation, relative to the various and inconsistent accounts 
which have appeared on the subject. 

AVe are indebted to " a discourse" of Professor J. M. Smith, of 
New York, for the best digest of its history and progress in India, 
und to Dr. Edward Warren, of Boston, for its history and progress 
in America, in the first year of its visitation. 

Prom the Indian physicians we learn, that the disease first sudden- 
ly appeared in the beginning of August, 1S17, in ZiUa-Jassore, a 
town about one hundred miles northeast of Calcutta. The disease 
soon spread to the adjacent villages, and thence extended in vari- 
ous directions through the country of Bengal. It continued in that 
city for several months, raging with violence from January till the 
end of May, 181S. The deaths during this period were rarely un- 
der 200 a week. The epidemic had now extended from Silhet to 
Cuttack, and from the mouth of the Ganges to the confluence of 
this river with the Jumna. 

Retiring, for the most part, from Bengal, the disease concentra- 
ted its force in the interior provinces, and chiefly in the districts 
bordering on the Ganges and Jumna. 

In Benares, the famous seat of Brahminical learning, 15,000 
were destroyed in two months; and at Alahabad, 40 or 50 perished 
daily. Pursuing its march, it soon reached Goorackpoor, in which 
district it numbered 30,000 victims in a month. It then proceeded 
successively to Lucknow, Cawnpore, Delhi, Agra, and other dis- 
tricts along the course of the Ganges. 

Prom the northern parts of Hindostan Proper, the disease took a 
direction through the Decan, committing the most frightful ravages 
in Husseinabad, Aurungabad, Poornah, and other districts. On 
the Gth of August, it appeared in Bombay, having consumed about 
oue year in traversing the Indian Delta, from Calcutta. In this 



post-master general, was transferred to the bench oi 
the supreme court of tlie United States, and William 
T. Barry, of Kentucky, was put into the office which 
Mr. M'Lean had filled with so much reputation, that 
not a man of note in the country wished him re- 
moved. A general sweep was made of men in office 
not favourable to the administration. This was jus- 
tified upon political grounds, as a course of true po- 
licy, and in full accordance with the genius of the go- 
vernment. 

The relations of the United States with foreign 
countries, were in a prosperous situation. Some 
little misunderstanding existed with the British go- 
vernment, in regard to the West India trade, which 
was arranged by the plenipotentiary to the court of 
London, Mr. Louis M'Lane ; but this was of no 
great importance, although thought so at the time. 

In 1832, the cholera* raged in the United States, 



journey, it advanced about fifteen or eighteen miles a day, and tar- 
ried from two to six weeks in a place. 

The peculiarities of the disease had now been fully developed. 
Its mode of falling upon a place, and its career in differenl dis- 
tricts, were singularly capricious. " Sometimes," says the report 
of the Calcutta medical board, " the disease would make a com- 
plete circle round a village, and, leaving it untouched, pass on, as 
if it were wholly to depart from the district. Then, after a lapse 
of weeks, or even months, it would suddenly return, and, scarcely 
reappearing in the parts which had already undergone its ravages, 
would nearly depopulate the spot that had so recently congratulated 
itself on its escape. Sometimes, after running a long course on 
one side of the Ganges, it would, as if arrested by some unknown 
agent, at once stop, and taking a rapid sweep across the river, lay 
all waste on the opposite bank." 

As yet the cholera had been, for the most part, confined to conti- 
nental India. In the following year, 1819, it took a wider range, 
encircling the islands of the Indian Ocean. In Mauritius, it broke 
out on the 15th of September, and in Bourbon early in December. 
About the same time it invaded Siam and the adjacent regions. 
Porty thousand perished in Bankoe. Cochin-China and Tonquin 
sufie'red in 1820. 

At the close of the year 1820, it commenced its ravages in Chi- 
na, became terrible in Canton, and thence arrived in Pekin, in 
1821. In this last city, the mortality was so great, that it required 
the assistance of government for the sepulture of the dead. In 
China, Mongolia, and other quarters of Central and Southern 
Asia, and the Philippine islands, it continued to recur for several 
succe.ssive years. In 1822, it reappeared in Java, destroying 100,000 
persons. In its northern progress, it reached the confines of Siberia 
in 1826. 

The most westerly point to which the cholera had extended in 
1818, was Bombay. In July, 1821, it appeared in Muscat, and 
other parts of Arabia. The number that sunk under the disease 
in this new theatre of its action, was not less than 60,000. Death 
frequently followed in a few minutes after the attack. 

Among the many places in the countries bordering on the Per- 
sian Gulf, which severely sufl^ered, were Shiraz and Bassora ; in 
the former, 16,000 perished, and in the latter, 18,000, of whom, we 
are told, upwards of 14,000 died in two weeks. 

Pursuing the course of the large rivers, it advanced up the Ti- 
gris to Bagdad and Mosul, and up the Euphrates to Syria, reach- 
ing Aleppo in 1622. In the Persian empire, few places of note 
escaped tlie disease. 

In June, 1823, it attacked Antioch ; at the same time it ravaged 
Diabei kur. In August, it invaded Bakus, on the Caspian Sea, and 
arrived, in September, in the Russian city of Astrachan. At this 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



383 



aud gave great alarm to the whole population ; but 
the number of deaths was not great. 

point of approach to Europe, the cholera made a pause of several 
years. It preserved its existence, however, in the countries it liad 
overrun ; and especially lingered in Persia, where it recovered its 
original force in 1829, and in the follon'insyear continued to spread 
llirough various provinces around the Caspian Sea. 

While the cholera was thus raging in the Persian provinces, it 
again appeared at Aslrachan, at the mouth of the Volga. Seven 
years had elapsed since its first visitation ; the second was in the 
beginning of July ; and in the course of its prevalence, 17,000 per- 
ished in eight days. It has been estimated, that at this period, 
1330,6,000,000 of people had fallen victims lo the cholera in Asia. 

It now urged its way along the banks of the Volga, crossed the 
Asiatic frontier, and spread itself over the greater part of Russia, 
in Europe; and after following the Don, the Dneiper, and the 
southern tributaries of the Volga, it arrived at Moscow on the 15lh 
of September, 1830, about two months and a half after its second 
appearance in Aslrachan. On the 26ih of June, it entered the im- 
perial city of St. Petersburgh, where, at one period, between 5U0 
and 600 new cases occurred daily, and by the 15th of August, 4,000 
persons fell victims, out of about 8,000 cases. During the career 
of this summer, the cholera had passed over most of the countries 
of Northern and Central Europe. From Archangel, on the White 
Sea, and St. Petersburgh, Cronstadt, Riga, and Danlzic, on the 
Baltic, it had reached south to Odessa, on the Black Sea. 

Prom its appearance in Jassore, in 1817, down to the year 1830, 
when it first showed itself in the Russian province of Ovenburgh, 
it must be observed, that its ravages were not continued in one un- 
broken course; but, in those places where its occurrence was not 
simultaneous, years often intervened between its decline in one 
district, and its reappearance in another. 

Since the year 1830, this singular epidemic has traversed Eu- 
rope in one line, inclining to a northwesterly course ; and in .spite 
of quarantine regulations, cordons of troops, and the most assidu- 
ous vigilance, it has devastated all those nations lying in its route, 
has found its way to England and to France, and, at length, reach- 
ed even the shores of the American continent. 

The month of June, 1832, witnessed the first appearance of 
cholera in North America. This was at Cluebec, in Canada : and 
it appeared almost simultaneously at Montreal. The first plwce in 
which the disease manifested itself in Gluebec, was a boarding- 
house in Champlain street, a low, filthy, unvenlilated portion of the 
town. The first patient was an emigrant, landed from the steam 
boat Voyageur, which plied between Montreal and duebee. It 
appears, that on the third of June, the brig Carricks arrived at 
Grosse Island, the quarantine ground, thirty-nine miles below due- 
bee, having on hoard one hundred and thirly-three passengers. 
Thirty-nine died during the passage, of a disease, the symptoms of 
which, it was said, corresponded with those of malignant cholera. 
This arrival produced considerable excitement both at Gluebec and 
Montreal. Medical commissioners were directed to visit Grosse 
Island, on the 7th of June, w-ho examined the passengers, all of 
whom had been detained at quarantine. They reported, as the 
result of their examination, that the passengers were all in perfect 
health ; that the disease had occurred soon after the vessel sailed ; 
and that the last death had been on the 9th of May, twenty-five 
days before her arrival at Grosse Island ; since which time, the 
surviving passengers had enjoyed good health. The Carricks had 
been thoroughly cleansed, and set sail on the 7th of June, all on 
board being well. 

At this moment, whilst the board of health were issuing their 
, proclamation to prove the impossibility of the importation of the 
disease by the Carricks, the cholera had already broken out in 
Cluebec. 

The steam boat Voyageur left ducbec on the evening of the 7lh 
if June, received passengers, it is said, from difffrent emigrant 
vessels on the river; and the weather becoming stormy, was obliged 
to return to duebec, where she landed about two hundred passen- 
gers, most of whom found lodgings in the neighbourhood of Cham- 
plain street. Slie then proceeded to Montreal ; but one emigrant 
passenger died on board, before her arrival at that city. On the 

49 



The boiindarjr line, a subject of dispute, has not 
lately been agitated. 



9th, in the aflernoon, a second case occurred. On the same even- 
ing, four others were seized with the malady, and sent to the hos- 
pital, where these died. The disease .spreail in almost every direc- 
tion, and there were seventy deaths between the evening of the 8th, 
and eleven o'clock in the morning of the 11 Ih. The cases continu- 
ed to increase till about the 18th, when they began to diminish. 
At one period, the number was estimated at from 250 to 300 in 
twenty-four hours. 

The population of duebec, in the summer of 1831, was 27,562 
The number of deaths from cholera, from the 9lh of June till the 
2d of September, is estimated at 2,218. The greatest number 
during one day, was 143, on the 15th of June. 

At Montreal, on the 10th of June, an emigrant from the steam 
boat Voyageur was seized with the disease after an evening of 
dissipation, and died the next day. The same night, several na- 
tives, who held no intercourse with the port, or with each other, 
were taken ill. 

As late as the 12th of June, the existence of the disease was de- 
nied ; and was not recognised by the board of health until the l3th, 
when was made their first report. They slated the number of casea 
for the last twentj'-lour hours, at 94, and the deaths at 23. On the 
15th, they reported 1,204 casej. and 230 deaths, as being, as nearly 
as could be ascertained, the whole number from the commencement 
of the disease. The next report estimates the cases for the twenty- 
four hours at 431, and the deaths at 82; and for the next succeed- 
ing tweniy-four hours, 475 new cases, and 102 deaths. 

There occurred at Montreal, from the 9th of June till the 1st of 
September, 4,835 cases ; and the deaths, during the same period, 
were 1,843. The greatest number of cases reported for twenty- 
four hours, was 474, on the 17 th of June ; and the greatest numbet 
of burials, for the same period, was 149, on the 19th of June. 

The cholera now extended its ravages to the large towns situated 
on the St. Lawrence, and the streams which flow into it. It soon 
appeared at Kamarouska, about 80 miles from duebec. Previous 
to the 15lh of June, fourteen deaths had taken place at La Prarie, 
which is nine miles above Montreal; and on the 17th, it showed 
itself at St. Johns. It soon reached Buffalo. Lachine, Caughna- 
waga, Coteau de Lac, Chateaugnay, Cornwall, St. Regis, Prescott, 
Ogdensburgh, Brookville, Kingston, York, Chambly, Plattsburgh, 
and Trois Rivieres, were all visited in their turn. The disease 
followed the course of the large rivers. 

Whatever may be the causes of cholera, and the laws by which 
its course is governed, it is certainly remarkable, that its march 
should be so irregular'as it has been found to be ; not spreading 
regularly over an extent of country, hut occurring in towns and 
cities at distances I'rom each other, without affecting intervening 
districts till a subsequent period. Thus, the first case reported in 
New York occurred on the 1st of July, some days before it appear- 
ed at Albany, 150 miles nearer to Montreal. 

In the city of New York, the existence of the disease was first 
officially recognised by the board of health on the 4th of July; 
though it had, in fact, occurred sooner, namely, on the 28th or 29th 
of June. The greatest number of cases in this city took place on 
the 21st of July, when there were 311 cases, and 100 deaths. On 
the dav following, there were 239 cases, and 115 deaths. On the 
25th, 153 deaths are reported. The whole number of deaths from 
the 4th of Julv till the 1st of October, was 3,407. 

In the city of Albany, the cholera made its first appearance on 
or about the 3d of July. It increased and extended itself very 
gradually, the number of cases varying from day to day, without a 
regular increase. The whole number of deaths from the 3d of July 
till the 22d of September, was 229. 

At Philadelphia, which was the next place of attack, it was first 
recognised by the board of health on the 16th of July. No new 
cases, however, occurred till the 24th. On the 28th, six cases and 
five deaths took place. From this time the disease advanced very 
rapidly, and while its fury was abating in New York, it began to 
show itself in its most formidable shape in Philadelphia. Upon the 
6th of August, the greatest number of cases occurred; there were 
reported 176 cases, with 71 deaths. The whole number of deaths 



3S4 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



The people of South Carolina had, before this time, 
broached some doctrines in regard to state rights, not 

by cholera, in that cily, was 948. Taking the 28lh of July as the 
date at which it commenced its regular course, it required only nine 
days for it to arrive at its height; nearly the same period as in 
Quebei-, and Montreal, and about half the period it required in 
New York. 

At Hallimore, the disease commenced on the 22d of August, 
from which time, till the 24th of September, the number of deaths 
was about GOO. 

In the city tf Washington, it first showed itself about the 281h of 
August, from which lime, till the 24th of September, there were 
reported 177 deaths. 

It prevailed also at Norfolk, in Virginia, and traversed various 
portions of the southern states, where it made great havoc amongst 
the black, or slave population, who fell ready and easy victims to 
its influence. Cincinnati and New Orleans suffered severely. 

From the north, the disease extended itself along the borders of 
the great lakes. It soon reached Detroit, where it produced con- 
siderable mortality among the troops. 

The six eastern states, together with the British provinces of 
Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, almost entirely escaped its influ- 
ence. Only a few. solitary cases occurred in the port towns of Con- 
necticut, Rhode Island, and Ma.ssachusetis, but not sufficient to give 
it the character of an epidemic ; as the cases might, more or less, 
be traced to individuals seeking refuge from the infected cities. In 
a word, all these places might be pronounced as having been ex- 
empt from the epidemic cholera. 

During this season, the disease broke out in Havana, and car- 
ried ofl^an immense population, principally slaves. 

We have now given an epitome of the history and progress of 
malignant cholera, from its first appearance in Asia till the period 
of its ravages in Canada and the United Slates, at the close of the 
year 1832. To this history 'we are induced to add some medico- 
topographical reflections, suggested by our own observations on this 
singular malady. 

The prominent characteristic of this malady will not justify the 
name by which it is distinguished, of Cholera. The definition of 
that term implies a morbid bilious secretion, exciting irritation, 
and griping pains in the intestines, with their concomitant symp- 
toms, vomiting, and purging of coloured, foetid ejections. In the 
disease under consideration, there is at least a deficiency, if not in 
all cases a tntal vw.nl, of bile. Its symptoms are summarily these : 
First, trifling diarrhoea, varying in duration from several da3's down 
to a kvi hours only; then nausea, vomiting, and increase of diar- 
rhcea. Second, a slight blueness of the hands and face, sometimes 
accompanied by distressing sensation of the chest, followed by 
vomiting and diarrhoea — dejections being watery, flaky, and light 
coloured, having almost invariably the appearance of rice water, 
and unmixed with fcetid excrements. Third, cramps in the limbs, 
blueness extending over the whole Hunk, countenance cadaverous, 
skin and perspiration cold ; as also are the breath and tongue ; the 
voice broken to a whisper, and a burning thirst. These constitu- 
ted the severer cases, which terminated in death from three to 
twelve hours. Numerous were the cases where there was neither 
vomiting, purging, nor spasms, and yet they hurried rapidly to a 
fatal termination. 

It is remarked by all writers, foreign and domestic, on this 
Jisease, that it always appeared in cities and towns lying on, or in, 
he immediate vicinity of lakes or rivers; that in its progress 
from district to district, its cour.se was marked over alluvial soil ; 
and, we believe, in no instance on high ground, where the forma- 
tion was either primary or secondary. Hence, whatever may be 
its cause, or the nature of the miasm by which it is engendered, it 
is only to be I'ound in alluvial formations. In the Uniled States, 
and in th-e British American provinces, this has been exemplified 
beyond a doubt. The disease has, we believe, invariably occurred 
on alluvial soils, and followed the course of rivers or large streams ; 
not, as has been imagined, by transportation through infected emi- 
grants, or by those, who had been exposed in previously infected 
places ; but because such locations only became susceptible to its 
infecting influence. 



acknowledged by the great body of the union. The 
question was most ably argued in congress, particu- 

Wiihout endeavouring to be minutely particular in our prooft 
that the dise.ise belongs wholly to alluvial situations, we need only 
to remark, first, its limitations in Canada, and in the middle, 
southern, and western slates, to lakes, rivers, and streams; and, 
secondly, to the almost total exemption of our six eastern states, as 
well as Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, because nearly all that 
portion of America is of primary and secondary formation. We 
therefore have reason to believe, that the miasm of this disease, as 
well as that of yellow fever and plague, can not exist or propagate 
in districts of primary or secondary formations. 

As to the miasm, or deadly poison, which invades the system, 
and is the primary cause of sickness and of death in this, as well 
as in other infeclions diseases, it has ever been, and probably ever 
will be, inscrutable by the ingenuity of man. We know that it ex- 
ists, ouly from its effects on our systems; but the material consti- 
tuting its aerial substance, must for ever remain a mystery. 

We may theorize, hypothesize, and analogize, but we can never 
arrive with certainty at the goal of discover)'. We would, how- 
ever, by no means, discourage the inquirer, who may, by analogy, 
approach the truth, though unable to establish the fact. It is possi- 
ble even that he may thus strike on the very cause itself; 3'et its 
proof must ever remain doubtful. Whatever it be, and however 
palpable to our senses, yet it would be in vain to contend against 
it. All that man can do, is to avoid its baleful influence, by a re- 
moval from within its atmo.sphere. He can not prevent or coun- 
teract the coming storm, or the dreadful sirocco ; he can only seek 
refuge from the irresistible power of the one, or the malign influ- 
ence of the other. 

The most plausible, if not the most reasonable hypothesis, and 
the best supported by analogical arguments, is that of the learneti 
professor. Doctor Mojon, of Italy, whose philosophic mind prompt- 
ed him, at the hazard of his life, te visit Paris, and attend the hos- 
pitals during the epidemic, for the sole purpose of investigating 
the nature and character of the disease. This hypothesis does not 
embrace, distinctly, either the aerial, aquatic, or lelluvian theory; 
but comprehends what may have an affinity with either, or may be 
the result of a combination of all. It is the doctrine of animakuta. 
If we were to adopt for ourselves any one hypothesis as preferable 
to, o»more rational than another, it would be the animalcular. 
This idea is not so novel, nor so widely speculative, as many seem 
to imagine. There lies now before us a catalogue of twcnly-four 
names of both ancient and modern authors of hislorical reputation, 
quoted as advocates of the doctrine that animalculse are productive 
of both contagious and infectious diseases. Amongst these are 
Varro, Lucretius, Columella, Vitruvius, Kircher, Fabre, Linna?us, 
Hautmann, Plenilz, Dessault, Acerbi, Hahnemann, La Motte, Neal, 
&c. Its discussion, however, would be out of jilace here, and we 
must refer the inquisitive reader to Dr. Mojon 's treatise on cholera, 
for the rationale of his doctrine. 

However remote from our research may be the first cause of the 
malady, we may approach at least to a consideration of its effects, 
as manifested by its premonitory and subsequent symptoms. 

Speculations on the effects of unknown causes, are at all times 
but an exercise of ingenuity in our profession. However, when 
we can not agree upon the effects themselves, and make even these 
bend to adopted or preconceived systems or opinions, we are con- 
stantly exposed to dangerous inferences, and to fatal results. 

To investigate the nature of this disease, and to learn the first 
effects the miasm has produced on the constitution, we .should select, 
for;)os(mo77c77i examination, such subjects as were temperate in their 
habits, and apparently in good health when first attacked by the 
malady. The most correct and numerous of those examinations 
have been niade in the hospitals at Paris, by physicians devoted to 
the sciences, and in whose accuracy there need be no doubt. 

In such cases, the brain will be found sound, or little altered ; the 
lungs sound ; the heart, and first portion of the blcod vessels, filled 
with black, liquid blood; sinmach containing a quantity of gray co- 
loured fluid ; bladder empty and contracted; liver sound, and free 
from blood ; gall bladder containing the usual quantity of bile, of a 
, dark colot'r ; oMomin/tl msrj-rn sound ; no sign.s of inflammation, nor 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



385 



larly by Colonel Hayne, a senator from South Caro- 
lina, on the one side, and by Mr. Webster, of Massa- 
chusetts, on the other." 

derangement of the internal organs, either of the abdominal viscera, 
of the stomach, or of the brain. The veins are, however, over- 
loaded with a dark coloured blood, in some parts approaching ink 
in its appearance. In some cases, the heart, as well as the smaller 
arteries, are found surcharged with blood, presenting the same co- 
kur as that found in the veins. 

From all that we have been able to learn, there appears to be a 
general, if not a unanimous conviction, that there is in this disease 
a torpid state of ihe biliary organs, which render them insufficient 
to furnish the common quantity or quality of bile for the purpose 
of assimilating the digested mass of food into its elementary por- 
tions. This fact has led us to form a hypothesis on the cause of 
the deterioration of the blood, so remarkably characteristic of this 
disease. 

Our present opinion, we, frankly confess, does not, in every re- 
spect, accord with that which we adopted in the early period of 
the epidemic, respecting the existence of an acrid secretion from 
the biliary ducts, producing the phenomena consequent to an attack. 
But, for our hypothesis. 

Chyme, we know to be^he ingested mass of food which passes 
from the stomach into the duodenum, or first intestine, and from 
which the chyle is prepared in the small intestines by the admi.xture 
of the bile. 

Chyle is the milk-like liquor observable some hours after eating, 
in the lacteal vessels, and in the thoracic duct. It is separated, by 
digestion, from the chyme, and is that fluid substance from which 
the blood is formed. The lacteal vessels are most numerous in the 
duodenum, whence, after chylification, the residual mass, with the 
bile, is propelled into the large intestines, and become alvine. 

The c/iijle enters into the blood in so pure and unmixed a slate, 
that it is occasionally seen swimming on it if a vein be opened some 
hours after eating. In the thoracic duct it is mixed with albumi- 
nous and gelatinous lymph. Its use is to supply the matter from 
which the blood and other fluids of Ihe body are prepared, and from 
which fluids the solid parts are formed. 

From the nature and uses of cliyme and of chyle, we are led to 
believe that ikat cause, which w'ill, or does, weaken, or suspend the 
wonted force and secretory power of that great vascular reservoir 
of blood, the liver, also leads to a diminution in quantity, if not to 
a change in quality, of that important secretion called bile. 

It must appear evident, from what we have staled above, that the 
presence o{ chyle is essential to the process of sanguification, or the 
formation of the blood, and consequently to the sustenance of its 
vitality and puritv, and to the support of the animal functions. 
Deprive the blood of chyle but for a short time, and a change, or a 
want of healthy action, must necessarily ensue; but, cut off its 
source for a few hours, and an utter deterioration of the blood fol- 
lows, and death becomes inevitable. 

Among the causes that will produce this stale of Ihe biliary or- 
gans, and their consequent effects, there are some of which we are 
ignorant, but a few are well known. Among the former is that 
peculiar constitutional aptitude in the prevailing condition of the 
human system which has rendered it liable to this epidemic, as it 
does to all other epidemics. Among Ihe latter or knovni causes, are 
fear, apprehension, anxiety. Their elTects on the nervous and vas- 
cular systems, are too familiar to the cummon observer to require 
any physiological comments. The brain, the bowels, the heart, and 
the secretory vessels, bear daily witness to their influence, and sub- 
mit to it in many instances, with startling celerily. 

Paleness, or a recess of blood from the surface ; a general sense 
of debility, almost to prostration ; tremor ; a languid circulation 
and feeble action of the heart : are all, the instantaneous results of 
fear. "We need not carry the effects of enervating causes .any far- 
theiuo prove the strong analogy which such a state of the .system 
bears to the effects of that other and unknown cause, whatever it 
may be, which induces the premonitory .syinploms of cholera. "We 
shall, at all events, endeavour to prove that the e3"ects are the same 
in the piogressive stages of the disease. 

CtiY.ML', it appears, cannot part with its chyle without the inter- 



The attention of the people was attracted by this 
discussion, and an immense majority of them were 
decidedly against the doctrines avowed by Carolina. 



venlioD of a suitable quantity of bile to aid its separation. Bile 
being deficient in consequence of the torpidity of the biliary organs, 
it results, that little or no chyle is furnished to the blood. Chyme, 
unmixed with bile, is nattirally of a grayish or light colour, and 
would pass off by stool or ejection without any other change than its 
admixture with the common secretions of the intestinal canal, or 
with the watery fluids taken into the stomach. On this principle, 
then, we account for the colourless or rice-water discharges from the 
stomach and bowels. 

If, therefore, it is a fact, (and we believe it is now universally 
admitted,) that there is a deficiency of bile in this disease, and a 
consequent failure of chylification, we cannot be at a loss to account 
for the delerioraticn of the blood. By abstracting chyle, you de- 
prive it of its pabulum. It becomes diseased, dissolved, decom- 
posed, disoxygenated, corrupted. The feeble action of the arterial 
system denotes its lost power over the heart, and analysis has pro- 
ved its degeneracy. 

It seems to be generally admilted among practitioners of medi- 
cine, that in this disease, when the discharges have assumed a dark 
or coloured appearance, their patient may be considered safe. We 
believe it; for I hey evince, thai some natural or artificial power 
has roused the liver and gall bladder from their sluggish and dor- 
mant state. 

The sudden and rapid progress of this malady forbids us to hope 
much from the " vis medicalrix naturae," or power of nature. The 
frequent suddenness of its attack, the rapid disorganization and dis- 
solution of the blood, the eonsequent deathlike prostration, and the 
livid hue of Ihe surface and extremities, call for the most prompt 
and energetic means at our command. The only remedial agent 
that appears to us as inducive to such a result, is vomits. These 
not only produce a salutary revulsion throughout the whole vascular 
system, but, from their mechanical effect on Ihe liver by means of 
tlie oppressive constrictions of the abdominal muscles, cause it to 
disgorge its contents, and relieve ils congestion. Hence, as we 
have repeatedly observed, immediately after the operation of an 
emetic in the forming, or in the full state of collapse, as it is termed, 
a change of colour and of material is induced in the discharges 
from the bowels, a cessation of spontaneous vomiting, purging, and 
cramps, and the cure is accomplished by the exhibition of one or 
more doses of calomel. 

* As this question was so fully discussed and explained in the 
speeches of these gentlemen, we are induced to insert them, it be- 
ing impo.ssible to give an abridgment that would present a clear 
view of the subject. 

"When I took occasion, (said Mr. Hayne,) two days ago, to throw 
out some ideas with respect to the policy of Ihe government, in re- 
lation to the public lands, nothing certainly could have been fuither 
from my thoughts, than that I should be compelled again to throw 
myself upon the indulgence of the senate. Litile did I expect to be 
called upon to meet such an argument as was yeslerday urged by 
Ihe gentleman from Ma.ssachusetts, (Mr. "Webster.) Sir, I ques- 
tioned no man's opinions; I impeached no man's motives ; I charged 
no party, or state, or section of country, with hostility to any other, 
but ventured, I thought, in a becoming spirit, to put forth my own 
sentiments in relation to a great national question of public policy. 
Such was my course. The gentleman from Missouri, (Mr. Benton,) 
it is true, had charged upon the eastern slates an early and continu- 
ed hostility towards the west, and referred to a number of histori- 
cal facts and documents in support of that charge. Now, sir, how 
have these d'ifferenl arguments lieen met1 The honourable gentle- 
man from Massachusetts, after deliberating a w-hole night upon his 
course, comes into this chamber to vindicate New England; and 
instead of making up his issue wilh the gentleman from Missouri, 
on the charges which he had preferred, chooses to consider me as 
the author of those charges, and losing sight entirely of that gen- 
tleman, selects me as his adversary, and pours out all the vials oi 
his mighty wrath upon my devoted head. Nor is he willing to stop 
here. He goes on to assail the institutions andpobcy of ihe sputb, 
and calls in question the principles and conduct of the state which 



386 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Although the state of South Carolina assumed an at- 
titude «f defiance, President Jackson at once took a 
most decided course. He was supported by the great 



I have Ihe honour to represent. When I find a gentleman of ma- 
ture age and experience — of acknowledged talents and profound 
.sagacity — pursuing a course like this, declining the contest oflered 
from the west, and making war upon Ihe unoffending south, I must 
helieve, I am bound to believe, he has some object in view that he 
has not ventured to disclose. Mr. President, why is this 1 Has 
the gentleman discovered, in former controversies with the gentle- 
man from Missouri, that he is overmatched by that senator 1 And 
does he hope for an easy victory over a more feeble adversary 1 
Has the gentleman's dislempered fancy been disturbed by gloomy 
Ibrebodings of " new alliances to be Ibrmed," at which he hinted 1 
Has the ghost of the murdered coalition come back, like the ghost 
of Banquo, to " sear the eye-balls of the gentleman," and will it not 
' down at his bidding 1" Are dark visions of broken hopes, and 
honours lost for ever, still floating before his heated iraagmation 1 
Sir, if it be his object to thrust me between the gentleman from 
Missouri and himself, in order to rescue the east from the contest 
it has provokeci with the west, he shall not be gratified. Sir, I 
will not be dragged into the defence of my friend from Missouri!' 
The south shall not be forced into a conflict not it.s own. The 
gentleman from Missouri is able to fight his own battles. The gal- 
lant west needs no aid from the south, to repel any attack which 
may be made on them from any quarter. Let the gentleman from 
Massachusetts controvert the facts and arguments of the gentleman 
from Missouri, if he can ; and if he win the victory, let him wear 
its honours: I shall not deprive him of his laurels. 

The gentleman from Massachusetts, in reply to my remarks on 
the injurious operation of our land system on the prosperity of the 
west, pronounced an extravagant culogium on the paternal care 
which the government had extended towards the west, to which he 
attributed all that was great and excellent in the present condition 
of the new states. The language of the gentleman, on this topic, 
fell upon my ears like the almost forgotten tones of the tory leaders 
of the British parliament, at the commencement of the Ainerican 
revolution. They, too, discovered, that the colonics, had grown 
great under the fostering care of the mother country; and I must 
confess, while listening to the gentleman, I thought ihe appropriate 
reply to his argument, was to be found in the remark of a celebra- 
ted orator, made on that occasion : " They had grown great in 
spile of your protection." 

The gentleman, in commenting on the policy of the government, 
jn relation to the new states, has introduced to our nolice a certain 
Nathan Dane, of Massachusetts, to whom he attributes the cele- 
brated ordinance of '87, by which he tells Uf^, " slavery was for ever 
excluded from the new slates north of the Ohio." After eulogizing 
Ihe wisdom of this provision, in terms of the most extravagant 
praise, he breaks forth in admiralinn of the greatness of Nathan 
Dane ; and great, indeed, he must be, if it be true, as slated by the 
.senator from Massachusetis, that " he was greater than Solon and 
Lycurgus, Minos, Numa Pompilius, and all the lejislaiors and phi- 
losophers of the world," ancient and modern. Sir, to such high 
authority, it is certainly my duly, in a becoming spirit of humility, 
to submit. And yel, the gentleman will pardon me, when I say, 
that it is a little unfortunate for the fame of this great legislator, 
that the gentleman from Missouri should have proved, that he 
was not Ihe author of the ordinance of '87, on which the senator 
I'rom Massachusetts has reared so glorious a monument to his 
name. Sir, I doubt not the senator will feel some compassion 
for our ignorance, when I tell him, that so lillle are we ac- 
quainted with the modern great men of New England, that until 
he informed iis yesterday I hat we possessed a Solon and a Lycur- 
iTus, in Ihe person of Nathan Dane, he was only known to Ihe south 
8S a mem.ber of a celebrated assembly, called and known by Ihe 
name of "the Hartford Convention." In the proceedings of that 
assembly, which I hold in my hand, Cat page 19,) will be found, in 
9 few lines, the history of Nathan Dane; and a lillle further on, 
there is conclusive evidence of that ardent devotion to the interests 
of the new states, which it seems has given him a just claim to the 



body of the people. He issued a proclamation, 
which we shall insert, fraught with all the sound 
doctrines of the old school. This manly, bold, and 



title of " father of the west." By the second resolution of Ihe 
" Hartford Convention," it is declared, " that it is expedient to at- 
tempt to make provision for reslraining congress in the exercise oj 
an uiilimiteil power to make new stales^ and admitting them into the 
union." So much for Nathan Dane, of Beverly, Massachusetts. 

In commenting upon my views in relation to the public lands, the 
gentleman insists, that it being one of the conditions of the grants 
that these lands should be applied to " the common benefit of all 
the states, they must always Temain a fund for revenue ;" and adds, 
" Ihey must be treated as so nmch treasure." Sir, the gentleman couki 
hardly find language strong enough, lo convey his disajiprrhation of 
Ihe policy which I had ventured lo recommend to the favourable 
consideration of the country. And what, sir, was that policy, and 
what is the ditference between that gentleman and myself, on this 
subject 1 I Ihrew out the idea, that the public lands ought not to 
be reserved for ever as " a great fund for revenue ;" that ihey ought 
not to be " treated as a great treasure ;" but that the course of our 
policy should rather be directed towards the creation of new states, 
and building up great and flourishing communities. 

Now, sir, will it be believed by thoSe who now hear me, and 
who listened to Ihe gentleman's denunciation of my doctrines yes- 
terday, that a book then lay open before him — nay, that he held it 
in his hand, and read from jl certain passages of his own speech, 
delivered lo Ihe house of representatives in 1825, in which speech 
he himself contended for the very doctrines I had advocateti, and 
almost in ihe same terms. Here is Ihe speech of Ihe Hon. Daniel 
Webster, contained in the first volume of Gales and Seaton's Regis- 
ter of Debates, (p. 251,) delivered in the house of repiesenlalives 
on Ihe 18lh of January, 1825, in a debate on Ihe Cumberland road — 
the very debate from which the senator read yesterday. I shall 
read from this celebrated speech two passages, from which it will 
appear, that, both as to the past and the future policy of the govern- 
ment, in relation lo the public lands, the gentleman from Massa- 
chusetts maintained, in 1825, subslantiaily the same opinions which 
I have advanced; but, which he now strongly reprobates. I said, 
sir, that Ihe system of credit sales, by which the west had been kept 
constantly in debt lo the United States, and by which their wealth 
was drained off, to be expended elsewhere, had operated injurious- 
ly on their prosperity. On this point, Ihe gentleman from Massa- 
chusetts, in January, 1825, expressed himself thus: " There could 
be no doubt, if gentlemen looked at the money received into the 
treasury from the sale of the public lands to the west, and then 
looked to the whole amount expended by government, (even in- 
cluding the whole amount of whal was laid out for the army,) the 
latter must be allowed to be very inconsiderable, and there must be 
a constant drain of money from the west to pay for the public lands. 
It might, indeed, be said, that this was no more than the refluence 
of capital which had previously gone over Ihe mountains. Be it so. 
Still its practical effect was to produce inconvenience, if not dis- 
tress, by absorbing the money of Ihe people." 

I contended, that the public lands ought not to be treated merely 
as " a fund for revenue;" that they ought not to be hoarded " as a 
great treasure." On this point, the senator expressed himself thus: 
" Government, I believe, lias received eighteen or twenty millions 
of dollars from Ihe public lands, and it is with the greatest .satisfac- 
tion I advert to the change which has been introduced in the mode 
of paying for them ; yet lean never think the national domain is to 
be regarded as any great source of revenue. The great object of the 
government in respect to these lands, was not so much the money 
derived from their sale, as it was the getting them settled. What I 
mean to say is, / do not think they ought to hug that domain iS a 
GRictT TREASURE, v'hich is to enrich the exchequer." 

Now, Mr. President, it will be seen that the very doctrines which 
the gentleman so indignantly abandons, were urged by him in 
1825; and if I had actually borrowed my sentiments from those 
which he then avowed, I could not have followed more clo.sely in 
his footsteps. Sir, it is only since the gentleman quoted this book, 
yesterday, that my attention has been turned to the sentimenls he 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



387 



decided course, made him tenfold more popular than 1 
before. | 

" Whereas, a convention assembled in the state of 

expressed in 1825; and, if I had remembered Ihem, I might possi- 
bly have been deterred from uttering senlimenls here, which it 
might well be supposed I had borrowed from ihat gentleman. 

In 1825, the gentleman told the world, that the public lands 
*' ought not to be treated as a treasure." He now tells us, that 
" they must be treated as so much treasure." What the delibe- 
rate opinion of the gentleman on this .subject may be, belongs not 
to me to determine; but, I do not think he can, with the shadow 
of justice or propriety, impugn my sentiments, while his own re- 
corded opinions are identical with my own. Wlien the gentleman 
refers to the conditions of the grants under which the United States 
have acquired these lands, and insi.sLs Ihatj as they are declared to 
be " for the common benefit of all the states," they can only be 
treated as so much treasure, I think he has applied a rule of con- 
ttruction too narrow for the case. If, in the deeds of cession, it 
has been declared that the grants were intended for " the common 
benefit of all the stales," it is clear, from other provisions, that they 
were not intended merely as so muck property; for, it is expressly 
declared, that the object of the giants is the erection of new states ; 
and the United States, in accepting the trust, bind themselves to 
facilitate the foundation of these slates, to be admitted into the 
union with all the rights and privileges of the original states. 
This-, sir, was the great end to which all parties looked, and it is 
by the fulfilment of ihis high trust, that " the common benefit of all 
the states" is to be best promoted. Sir, let me tell the gentleman, 
that in the part of the country in which I live, we do not measure 
political benefits by the vioncy slandurd. We consider as more 
valuable than gold, liberty, principle, and justice. But, sir, if we 
are bound to act on the narrow principles contended for by the 
gentleman, I am wholly at a loss to conceive how he can reconcile 
his principles with his own practice. The lands are, it seems, to 
be treated " as so much treasure," and inust be applied to the 
" common benefit of all the states." Now, if this be so, whence 
does he derive the right to appropriate them for partial and local 
objects 1 How can the gentleman consent to vote aw'ay immense 
bodies of lhe.se lands, for canals in Indiana and Illinois, lo the 
Louisville and Portland canal, to Kenyon college, in Ohio, lo 
schools for the deaf and dumb, and other objects of a similar de- 
scription 1 If grants of this character can fairly be considered as 
made " for the common benefit of all the states," it can only be, be- 
cause all the stales are interested in the welfare of each — a princi- 
ple which, carried to the full extent, destroys all distinction between 
local and national objects; and is certainly broad enougk to em- 
brace the principles for which I have ventured to contend. Sir, 
the true difference between us, I take to be this : the gentleman 
wishes to treat the public lands as a great treasure, just as so much 
money in the treasury, to be applied to all objects, constitutional 
and unconstitutional, to which the public money is now constantly 
applied. I consider it as a sacred trust, which we ought to fulfil, 
on the principles for which I have contended. 

The senator from Massachusetts has thought proper to present, 
in strong contrast, the friendly feelings of the east towards the west, 
with sentiments of an opposite character displayed by the south in 
relation lo appropriations for internal iviprovcvienl. Now, sir, let it 
be recollected, that the south have made no professions ; I have 
certainly made none in their behalf, of regard for the west. It has 
been reserved to the gentleman from Massachusetts, while he 
vaunts his own personal devotion to western interests, to claim for 
the entire section of country to which he belongs, an ardent friend- 
ship for the west, as manifested by their support of the system of 
internal improvement, while he casts in our teeth the reproach, 
that the south has manifested hostility to western interests, in op- 
posing approiirialions for such objects. That gentleman, at the 
same lime, acknowledged that the south enteitains conslituHo-nal 
icruplcs on this subject. Are we then, sir, to' understand, that the 
gentleman considers it a just subject of reproach, that we respect 
our oaths, by which we are bound " to preserve, protect, and defend 
the constitution of the United States V Would the gentleinan have 
US manifest our love to the west, by trampling under foot our con- 



South Carolina, have passed an ordinance, by which 
they declare, ' That the several acts and parts of act.s 
of the congress of the United Stales, purporting to 

stiiutional scruples I Does he not perceive, that if the south is In 
be reproached with unkindness to the west, in voting against appro- 
priations, which the gentleman admits they could not vote foi 
W'ilhout doing violence to their constitutional opinions, that he ex- 
poses himself to the question, whether, if he was in our situation, 
he could vote for these appropriations, regardless of his scruples? 
No, sir, I will not do the gentleman so great injustice. He has 
fallen into this error from not having duly weighed the force and 
effect of the reproach which he was endeavouring lo cast upon the 
south. In relation to the other point, the friendship manifested by 
New England towards the west, in their su]iport of the system of 
internal improvement, the gentleman will pardon me for saying, 
that I think he is equally unfortunate in liaving introduced that 
topic. As that gentleman has forced it upon us, howevei, I can 
not sufler it to pass unnoliced. When the gentleman tell us, that 
the appropriations for internal improvement in the west, would, in 
almost every instance, have failed, but for New England votes, he 
has forgotten to tell us the when, the hov:, and the wherefore, this 
new-born zeal for the west sprung up in the bosom of New Eng- 
land. If we look back only a few years, we will find, in both 
houses of congress, a uniform and steady opposition, on the part 
of the members from the eastern stales, generally, to all appropria- 
tions of this character. At the time I became a member of this 
house, and for some time afterwards, a decided majority of the 
New England senators were opposed to the very measures which 
the senator from Massachusetts tells us they now cordially support. 
Sir, the journals are before me, and an examination of them will 
satisfy every gentleman of that fact. 

It must be well known to every one whose experience dates back 
as far as 1825, that np to a certain period. New England was gene- 
rally opposed to appropriations for internal improvements in the 
west. The gentleman from Massachusetts may be himself an ex- 
ception ; but if he went for the system before 1825, it is certain 
that his colleagues did not go with him. In the session of 1824 
and '25, however, (a memorable era in the history of this country,) 
a wonderful change took place in New England, in relation to 
western interests. Sir, an extraordinary union of sympathies and 
of interests was then effected, which brought the east and the west 
into close alliance. The book from which I have before read, con- 
tains the first public annunciation of that happy reconciliation of 
conflicting interests, personal and political, which brought the east 
and west together, and locked in a fraternal embrace the two great 
orators of the east and the west. Sir, it was on the 18th of Janua- 
ry, 1825, while the result of the presidential election, in the house 
of representatives, was still doubtful, while the whole country was 
looking with intense anxiety to that legislative hall, where the 
mighty drama was soon to be acted, that we saw the leaders of 
two great parties in the house and in the nation, " taking sweet 
counsel together," and in a celebrated debate on the Curnherland 
road, fighting side by side for western interests. It was on that me- 
morable occasion that the senator from Massachusetts held out the 
white flag to the ivest, and uttered those liberal sentiments, which he 
yesterday so indignantly repudiated. Then it was, that that happy 
uni(in, between the members of the celebrated coalition, was con- 
summated, whose immediate issue was a president from one quarter 
of the union, with the succession (as it was supposed) secured to 
another. The " American system," before a rude, disjointed, and 
misshapen mass, now assumed form and consistency : then it was, 
that it became "the settled p(dicy of the government," that this 
system should be so administered as to create a reciprocity of in- 
terests, and a reciprocal distribution of government favours, east 
and west, (the tariff and internal improvement,) while the south — 
yes, sir, the impracticable south — was to be " out of your protec- 
tion." The gentleman may boast as much as he pleases of the 
friendship of New England for the west, as displayed in their sup- 
port of internal improvement; but, when he next introduces that 
topic, I trust that he will tell us u'hen thai friendship commenced, 
how it was brought about, and why it was established. Before I 
leave this topic, 1 must be permitted lo say, that the true chari-cter 



388 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



be laws for the imposing of duties and imposts on the 
importation of foreign commodities, and now liaving 
actual operation and effect within the United States, 

of (he policy now pursued by the genileman from Massachusetts 
and his friends, in relation to appropriations of land and money, 
for the benefit of the west, is, in rny estimation, very similar to that 
pursued by Jacob of old towards his brother Esau — "it robs ihem 
of their birthright fur a mess of pottage." 

The gentleman from Massachusetts, in alluding to a remark of 
mine, that, before any disposition could be made of the public lands, 
the national debt, (for which they stand pledged) must be first paid, 
took occasion to intimate, " that the extraordinary fervour which 
seems to exist ia a certain quarter, [meaning the south, sir,] far the 
payment of the debt, arises from a disposition to weaken the ties 
which bind the people to the union." While the gentleman deals us 
this blow, he professes an ardent desire to see the debt speedily ex- 
tinguished. He must excuse me, however, for feeling some dis- 
trust on that subject, until I find this disposition manifested by 
something stronger than professions. I shall look for acts, decided 
and unequivocal acts ; for the performance of which an opportunity 
will very soon (if I am not greatly mistaken) be afforded. Sir, if 
I were at liberty to judge of tlie course which that gentleman would 
pursue, from the principles which he has laid down in relation to 
this matter, I shotdd be bound to conclude, that he will be found 
acting with those M-ith whom it is a darling object to prevent the 
payment of the public debt. ?Ie tells us he is desirous of paying 
the debt, " because we are under an obligation to discharge it." 
Now, sir, suppose it should happen that the public creditors, with 
whom we have contracteil the obligation, should release us from it, 
so fai as to declare their willingness to wait for payment for fifty 
years to come, provided only, the interest shall be punctually dis- 
charged. The gentleman from Massachusetts will then be released 
from the obligation which now makes hira desirous of paying the 
debt; and, let me tell the gentleman, the holders of the stock will 
not only release us from this obligation, but they will implore, nay, 
they will even pay us not to.pay them. But, adds the gentleman, 
"so far as the debt may have an effect in binding the creditors to 
the country, and thereby serving as a link to hold the states to- 
gether, he would be glad that it should exist for ever." Surely, 
then, sir, on the gentleman's own principles, he must be opposed 
to the payment of the debt. 

Sir, let me tell that gentleman, that the south repudiates the idea 
that a pecuniary dependance on the federal government is one of the 
legitimate means of holding the states together. A monied interest 
in the government is essentially a base interest; and just so far as 
it operates to bind the feelings of those who are subjected to it, to 
the government; just so far as it operates in creating sympathies 
and interests that would not otherwise exist, is it opppsed to all the 
principles of free government, and at war with virtue and patriot- 
ism. Sir, the link which binds the public creditors, as .WicA, totheir 
country, binds them equally to all governments, whether arbitrary 
or free. In a free government, this principle of abject dependance, 
if extended through all the ramihcations of society, must be fatal 
to liberty. Already have we made alarming strides in that direc- 
tion. The entire class of manufacturers, the holders of stocks, with 
their hundreds of millions of capital, are held to the government 
by the strong link of pecuniary interests ; millions of people — entire 
sections of country, interested, or believing themselves to be so, in 
the public lands, and the public treasure, are bound to the govern- 
ment by the expectation of pecuniary favours. If this system is 
carried much further, no man can fail to see, that every generous 
motive of attachment to the country will be destroyed, and in its 
place will spring up those low, grovelling, base, and selfish feelings, 
which bind men to the footstool of a despot, by bonds as strong and 
as enduring as those which attach them to free insiilutions. Sir, I 
would lay the foundation of this government in the affections of the 
people ; I would teach them to cling to it, by dispensing equal ju.s- 
tice, and, above all, by securing the " blessings of liberty" to " them- 
selves, and to their posterity." 

The honourable gentleman from Massachusetts has gone out of 
his way, to pass a high eulogium on the state of Ohio. In the most 
impassioned tones of eloquence, he described her majestic march 



and more especially' two acts for the same i)urposes, 

passed on the 29th of May, 1828, and on the 14th of 
July, 1832, are ' unauthorized by the Constitution of 

to greatness. He told us, that having alrep ty left all the other 
states far behind, she was now passing by Virginia and Pennsylva- 
nia, and about to take her station by the side of New York. To all 
this, sir, I was disposed most cordially to respond. "When, however, 
the gentleman proceeded to contrast the state of Ohio with Ken- 
tucky, to the disadvantage of the latter, I listened to him wilh re- 
gret; and when he proceeded further to attribute the great, and, 
as he supposed, acknowledged superiority of the former in popula- 
tion, wealth, and geneial prosperuy, to the policy of Nathan Done 
of Massachusetts, which had secured to the people of Ohio (by the 
ordinance of '87) a population of freemen, I will confess, that my 
feelings suffered a revulsion, which I am now unable to describe, 
in any language sufficiently respectful towards the gentleman from 
Massachusetts. In contrasting the state of Ohio wilh Kentucky, 
fur the purpose of pointing out the superiority of the former, and of 
attributing that superiority to the existence of slavery in the one 
state, and its absence in the other, I thought I could discern the 
very spirit of the Missouri question intruded into this debate, for ob- 
jects best known to the gentleman himself Did that gentleman, 
sir, when he formed the deieruiinatiou to cross the southern border, 
in order to invade the stale of South Carolina, deem it prudent or 
necessary to enlist under his banners the prejudices of the uortd, 
which, like Swiss troops, may be engaged in any cause, and are 
prepared to serve under any leader? Did he desire to avail him- 
self of those remorseless allies, the passio^lS of mankind, of which it 
may be more truly said, than of the savage tribes of the wilderness, 
" that their known rule of warfare is an indiscriminate slaughter 
of all ages, sexes, and conditions T' Or was it supposed, sir. 
that in a premeditated and nnjirovoked attack upon the south, it 
was advisable to begiu by a gentle admonition of our supposed weak- 
ness, in o''der to prevent us lium making that firm and manly re- 
sistance due to our own character, and our dearest interests? 
Was the sisnificant hint of the weakjiess of slaee-holdmg xta/es, 
when contrasted with the sruperior strength of free stales, like the 
glare of the weapon half drawn from its scabbard, intended to en- 
force the lessons of prudence and of patriotism, which the gentle- 
man had resolved, out of his abundant generosity, gratuitously to 
bestow upon us? Mr. President, the impression which has gone 
abroad, of the weakness of the south, as connected with the slave ques- 
tion, exposes us to such constant attacks, has done us .so much in- 
jury, and is calculated to produce such infinite mischiefs, that I em- 
brace the occasion presented by the remarks of the gentleman of 
Ma.ssachusetts, to declare, that we are ready to meet the question 
promptly, and fearlessly. It is one from which we are not disposed 
to shrink, in whatever form, or under whatever circumstances it 
may be pressed upon us. We are ready to make up the issue with 
the gentleman, as to the influence of s'lavcry on individual and na- 
tional character — on the prosperity and greatness, either of the 
United Stales, or of particular states. Sir, when arraigned before 
the bar of public opinion, on this charge of slavery, we can stand 
up with conscious rectitude, plead not guilly, and put ourselves 
upon God and our country. Sir, we will not consent to look at 
slavery in the abstract. We will not stop to inquire whether the 
black man, as some philosophers have contended, is of an inferior 
race, nor whether his colour and condition are the effects of a curse 
inflicted for the offences of his ancestors 1 We deal in no abstrac- 
tions. We will not look hack to inquire, whether our fathers were 
guiltless in ititroducing slaves into this country? n an inquiry 
should ever be instituted in the.se matters, however, it will be found 
that the profits of the slave trade were not confined to the south. 
Southern ships and southern sailors were not the instruments of 
bringing slaves to the shores of America, nor did our merchants 
reap the prt)fils of that " accursed traffic." But, sir, we will pass 
over all this. If slavery, as it now exists in this country, be an 
evil, we of the present day found it ready made to our hands. Find- 
ing our lot cast among a people, whom God had manifestly com- 
mitted to our care, we did not sit down to speculate on abstract 
questions of theoretical liberty. We met it as a practical question 
of obligation and duty. We^resolved to make the best of the silua- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



389 



the United States, and violate the true meaning and 
intent thereof, and are null and void, and no law,' 
nor binding on the citizens of that state or its officers : 

tion in which Providence had placed us, and to fulfil the high trust 
which had devolved upon us as the owners of slaves, in the only 
way in which such a trust could be fulfilled, without spreading iniscry 
and ruin throughout the land. We found that we had to deal with 
a people whose physical, moral, and intellectual habits and charac- 
ter, totally disqualified them from the enjoyment of the blwsings of 
freedom. We could not send them back lo the shores from whence 
their fathers had been taken; their numbers forbade liie thought, 
even if we did not know that I heir condition here is infinitely pre- 
ferable to what it possibly could be among tlie barren sands and 
savage tribes of Africa; and it was wholly irreconcilable with all 
our notions of humanity to tear asunder the lender ties which they 
had formed among us, to gratify the feelings of a false philanthropy. 
What a commentary on the wisdom, justice, and humanity of the 
southern slave owner is presented by the example of certain benevo- 
lent associations and charitable individuals elscioliere. Shedding 
wnak tears over suflferings which had existence only in their own 
sickly imaginations, these "friends of humanity" set themselves 
systematically to work to seduce the slaves of the south from their 
masters. B3' means of mi.ssionaries and political tracts, the scheme 
v/as in a great measure successful. Thousands of these deluded 
victims of fanaticism were seduced into the enjoyment of freedom 
in our northern cities. And what has been the consequence'? ■ Go 
to these cities now, and ask the question. Visit the dark and nar- 
row lanes, and obscure recesses which have been assigned by com- 
mon consent as the abodes of those outcasts of the world — the free 
people of colour. Sir, there does not exist, on the face of the whole 
earth, a population so poor, so wretched, so vile, so loathsome, so 
utterly destitute of all the comforts, conveniences, and decencies of 
life, ao the unfortunate blacks of Philadelphia, and New York, and 
Boston. Liberty has been to them the greatest of calamities, the 
heavie.st of curses. Sir, I have had some opportunities of making 
comparisons between the condition of the free negroes of the north, 
and the slaves of the south, and the comparison has left not only an 
indelible impression of the superior advantages of the latter, but 
has gone far to reconcile me to slavery itself. Never have I felt 
so forcibly that touching description, " the foxes have holes, and 
the birds of the air have nests, but the son of man hath not where 
lo lay his head," as when I have seen this unhappy race, naked 
and houseless, almost starving in the streets, and abandoned by all 
the world. Sir, I have seen in the neighbourhood of one of the 
most moral, religious, and refined cities of the north, a family of 
free blacks, driven lo the eaves of the rock, and there obtaining a 
precarious subsistence I'rom charily and plunder. 

When the gentleman from Massachusetts adopts and reiterates 
the old charge of weakness as resulting from slavery, I must be 
permitted to call for the proof of those blighting effects which he 
ascribes to its influence. I suspect, that when the subject is closely 
examined, it will be found that there is not much force even in the 
plausible objection of the want of physical power in slave-holding 
states. The power of a country is compounded of its population 
and its wealth, and, in modern times, where, froin ihe very form 
and structure of society, by far the greater portion of the people 
must, even during the continuance of the most desolating wars, be 
employed in the cultivation of the soil and other peaceful pursuits, 
it may be well doubted, whether slave-holding stales, by reason of 
the superior value of their productions, are not able to maintain a 
number of troops in the field, fully equal to what could be support- 
ed bv states with a larger while population, but not possessed of 
equal resources. 

It is a popular error to suppose that in any possible state of 
things, the people of a country could ever be called out en vuisse, or 
that a half, or a third, or even a fifth part of the physical force of 
any country, could ever be brought into the field. The difficulty 
is not to procure men, but to provide the means of maintaining them ; 
and in this view ^f the subject, it may be asked, whether ihe south- 
ern states are not a source of strength and pmeer, and not of weak- 
iicss to the country 1 whether they have not contributed, and are not 
now contributing, largely to the wealth and prosperity of every state 



and by the said Ordinance, it is further declared to 
be unlawful for any of the constituted authorities of 
the statej or of the United States, to enforce the pay- 
in this union? From a statement which I hold in my hand, it appears 
that in ten years— from 1813 to 1827, inclusive— the whole amount 
of the domestic exports of the Uniled States was S'521,81 1,045. Ol 
which three articles, {the prodnct of slave labour,) viz. cotlon, rice, 
and tobacco, amounted to S339, 203,232— equal to about two thirds 
of the whole. It is not true, as has been supposed, that the advanta- 
ges of this labour are confined almost exclusively lo the soulhern 
states. Sir, I am thoroughly convinced, that at this lime, the states 
north nf the Potomac, actually derive greater profits from the labour 
of our slaves, than we do ourselves. It appears from our public docu- 
ments, that in seven years, from 1821 to 1827, inclusive, ihe six 
southern states (;.T;7Ortt'(J3190, 337, 281, and ('m/'or/eei on lyS55,646, 301. 
Now the difference between these two sums, (near ©140, 000, 000,) 
passed through the hands of the northe'-n vicrchants, and enabled them 
to cany on their commercial operations with all the world. Such 
pan of these goods as found its way back to our hands, came charged 
with Ihe duties, as well as the profits of the merchant, the ship 
owner, and a host of others, who found employment in carrying on 
these immense exchanges; and for such part as was consumed at 
the north, we received in exchans^e northern mamifaclures, charged 
with an increased price, to cover all the taxes which the northern 
consumer had been compelled to pay on the imported article. It 
will be seen, therefore, at a glance, how much slave labour has 
contributed to the wealth and prosperity of the United Stales, and 
how largely our northern brethren have participated in the profiis 
of that labour. Sir, on this subject I will quote an authority, which 
will, 1 doubt not, be considered by the senator from lUas.sacliuselts 
as entitled to high respect. It is from the great father of the 
" American system," honest Matthcv; Carey — no great friend, it is 
true, at this time, to southern right? and southern interests, but not 
the worst authority on that account, on the point in question. 

Speaking of the relative importance to the union of the socxnERN 
and EASTEUN states, Matthew Carey, in the sixth edition of his Olive 
Branch, (page 27 8,) after exhibiting a number of statistical tables 
to show the decided superiority of the former, Ihus proceeds: 

" But I am tired of ihis investigation- 1 sicken for the honour of 
the human species. What idea must tlie world form of the arro- 
gance of the pretensions on the one side, [the east,] and of the lolly 
and weakness of the rest of the union, to have so long suffered 
them to pass without exposure and deteclion. The naked fact is, 
that the demagogues in the eastern states, noi satisfied with deri- 
ving all the benefits from the southern section of the union, that they 
n-ouldfrom so many wealthy colonies — with making princely fortunes 
by the carriage and exportation of ils bulky and valuable produc- 
tions, and supplying it with their own manufactures, and the produc- 
tions of Europe and Ihe East and West Indies, lo an enormous 
amount, and at an immense profit, have uniformly treated il with 
outrage, insult, and injury. And regardless of iheir vital inltrests, 
the eastern states were lately courting their ovn destruction, ly al- 
lowing a few restless, turbulent men, lo lead them blindfolded to a 
separation which was pregnant with their certain ruin. Whenever 
that event takes place, they sink into insignificance. If a separa- 
tion were desirable to any part of the union, it would he to the 
middle and soulhern stales, particularly to the lalltr, who have 
been so long hara.ssed with the complaints, the restlessness, the tur- 
bulence, and the ingratitude of the eastern slates, that Iheir paiience 
has been tried almost beyond endurance. ' Jcshuran v;axed fa! and 
kicked;' and he will be severely punished for his kicking, in the 
event of a dissolution of the union." 

Sir, I wish it to be distinctly understood, that I do not adopt these 
sentiments as my own. I quote t^em to show that very different 
sentiments have prevailed in former times, as lo the weakness ot 
the slave-holding stales, from those which now seem to have become 
fashionable in certain quarters. I know il has been supposed by 
cerlain ill-informed persons, that the south exists only by the coun- 
tenance and protection of the north. Sir, this is the idlest of all 
idle and ridiculous fancies, that ever entered inio the mind of man. 
In every stale of this union, except one, the free white population 
actually preponderates ; while in the British West India islands. 



390 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



meiit of the duties imposed by the said acts within 
the same state, and that it is the duty of the legisla- 
ture to pass such laws as may be necessary to give 
full effect to the said ordinance. 



(where the average white population is less than ten per cent, of the 
whole,) the slaves are kept in entire subjection; it is preposterous 
to suppose that the southern slates could ever find the smallest dif- 
ficulty in this lespect. On this subject, as in all others, we ask 
nothing of our northern brethren but to " let us alone." Leave us 
to the undisturbed management of our domestic concerns, and the 
direction of our own iudustry, and we will ask no more. Sir, all 
our difficulties on this subject have arisen from interference from 
abroad, which has disturbed, and may again disturb, our domestic 
tranquillity, just so far as to bring down punishment upon the lieads 
of the unfortunate victims of a fanatical and mistaken humanity. 

There is a spirit, which, like the father of evil, is constantly 
" walking to and fio about the earth, seeking whom it may de- 
vour:" it is the spirit of false philanthropy. The persons whom 
it possesses, do not indeed throw themselves into the flames, but they 
are employed in lighting up the torches of discord throughout the 
community. Their first principle of action is to leave their own 
affairs, and neglect their own duties, to regulate the afiairs and the 
duties of others. Theirs is the task to feed the hungry, and clothe 
the naked, of other lands, while they thrust the naked, famished, 
and shivering beggar, from their own doors ; to instruct the heathen, 
while their own children want the bread of life. When this spirit 
infuses itself into the bosom of a statesman, (if one so possessed can 
be called a statesman,) it converts him at once into a visionary en- 
thusiast. Then it is, that he indulges in golden dreams of national 
greatness and prosperity. He discovers that "liberty is power;" 
and not content with vast schemes of improvement at home, which 
it would bankrupt the treasury of the world to e.xpcute, lie flies to 
foreign lands, to fulfil obligations to "the human race," by incul- 
cating the principles of " political and religious liberty," and pro- 
moting the "general welfare" of the whole human race. It is a 
spirit which has long been busy with the slaves of the south, and is 
even now displaying itself in vain efforts, to drive the government 
from its wise policy in relation to the Indians. It is this spirit 
which has filled the land with thousands of wild and visionary pro- 
jects, which can have no effect but to waste the energies and dissi- 
pate the resources of the country. It is the spirit of which the as- 
piring politician dexterously avails himself, when, by inscribing on 
his banner the magical words, liberty and philanthropy, he draws 
to his support that entire class of persons who are ready to bow 
down at the very names of their idols. 

But, sir, whatever difference of opinion may exist as to the effect 
of slavery on national wealth and prosperity, if we may trust to ex- 
perience, there can be no doubt, that it has never yet produced any 
injurious effect on individual or national character. Look through 
the whole history of the country, from the commencement of ijie 
revolution down to the present hour; where are there to be found 
• brighter examples of intellectual and moral greatness, than have 
been exhibited by tlie sons of the south'? Prom the fathi^r of his 
COUNTBV, down to the distinglmshed chieftain, who has been eleva- 
ted by a grateful people to ihe highest office in their gift, the inter- 
val is filled up by a long line of orators, of statesmen, and of heroes, 
justly entitled to rank among the ornaments of their country, and 
the benefactors of mankind. Look at " the old dominion," great 
and magnanimous Virginia, " whose jewels are her sons," Is there 
any state in this union which has contributed so much to the honour 
and welfare of the country ? Sir, I will yield the whole question — 
I will acknowledge the fatal efl^ects of slavery upon character, if 
any one can say, that for noble disinterestedness, ardent love of 
country, exalted virtue, and a pure and holy devotion to liberty, 
the people of the southern stales have ever been surpassed by any 
in the world. I know, sir, that this devotion to liberty has some- 
times been supposed to be at war with our institutions; but it is, in 
Eome degree, the result of those very institutions. Burke, the most 
philosophical of slalesnien, as he was Ihe most accomplished of 
orators, well understood the operation of this principle, in elevating 
the sentiments and exalting the principles of the people in slave- 



" And whereas, by the said ordinance it is further 
ordained, that in no case of law or equity, decided 
in the • courts of the said state, wherein shall be 
drawn in question the validity of the said ordinance, 

holding stales. I will conclude ray remarks on this branch of the 
subject, by reading a few passages from his speech, " on moving 
his resolutions for conciliation with the colonies, the 22d of March, 
1775." 

"There is a circumstance attending the sonthern colonies, which 
makes the spirit of liberty still more high and haughty than in those 
10 the northward. It is, that in Virginia and the Carolinas they 
have a vastmuliilude of slaves. AVhere this is thecase,in any part 
of the world, those who are free are by far the most proud and 
jealous of their freedom. Freedom is to them not only an enjoy- 
ment, but a kind of rank and privilege. Not seeing there, as in 
countries where it is a common blessing, and as broad and general 
as the air, thai it may be united wilh much abject toil, with great 
misery, with all the exterior of servitude, liberty looks among thera 
like something more noble and liberal. I do not mean, sir, to com- 
mend the superior morality of this sentiment, which has, at least, 
as much of pride as virtue in it; but I can not alter the nature of 
man. The fact is so, and these people of the southern colonies are 
much more strongly, and with a higher and more stubborn spirit, 
allached to liberty, than those to the northward. Such were all the 
ancient commonwealths; such were our Gothic ancestors; such, 
in our days, were the Poles ; and siich will be all masters of slaves, 
who are not slaves thcmselres. In such a people, Ihe haughtiness of 
domination combines with the spirit of freedom, fortifies it, and 
renders it invincible." 

In the course of my former remarks, Mr. President, I took occa- 
sion to deprecate, as one of the greatest of evils, the consolidation of 
this government. The gentleman lakes alarm at the .sound. " Co-n- 
solidation," like the " tariff," grates upon his ear. He fells us, " we 
have heard much, of late, about consolidation — that it is the rally- 
ing word for all w'ho are endeavouring to weahenthe union, by add- 
ing to the power of the slates." But consolidation, spys the gen- 
tleman, was the very object for which the union was formed; and 
in support of that opinion, he lead a passage from the address of 
the president of the convention to congress, (which he assumes to 
be authority on his side of the question.) But, sir, the gentleman 
is mistaken. The object of the framers of Ihe constitution, as dis- 
closed in that address, was not the consolidation of the government, 
but, " the consolidation of the union." It was not to draw power 
from the states, in order to transfer it to a great national govern- 
ment, but, in the language of the constitution itself, " to form a more 
perfect union;" and by what means'! by "establishing justice," 
"promoting domestic tranquillity," and " securing the blessings of 
liberty to ourselves and our posterity." This is the true reading of 
the constitution. But according to the gentleman's reading, the 
object of the constitution was to consolidate the government, and the 
means would seem to be, the promotion of injustice, causing do- 
mestic discord, and depriving the states and the people " of the 
blessings of liberty" for ever. The gentleman boasts of belonging 
to the parly of Natio.mal Republicans ! National reptiblicans ! — a 
new name, sir, for a very old thing. The national republicans of 
the present day were ihe federalists of '98, who became federal re- 
pMicans during the war of 1812, and were manufactured into na- 
tional republicans somewhere about the year 1 825. As a party, (by 
whatever name distinguished,) they have always been animated by 
the same principles, and have kept steadily in view a common ob- 
ject — the consolidation of the government. 

Sir, the party to which I am proud of having belonged from the 
very commencement of my political life to the present day, were 
the democrats o[ 'OS; anarchists, anti-federalists, revolutionists, I think 
they were sometimes called. They assumed the name of democratic 
republicans in 1812, and have retained tneir name and their princi- 
ples lip to the present hour. True to their political faith, they have 
always, as a party, been in favour of limitations of power : they have 
insisted that all pow-ers not delegated to Ihe federal government are 
reserved, and have been constantly struggling, as ibey are now 
strnggling, to preserve the rights of the slates, and to prevent them 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



391 



or of the acts of the legislature that may be passed 
to give it effect, or of the said laws of the United 
States, no appeal shall be allowed to the Supreme 
Court of the United States, nor shall any copy of the 

from being drawn into the vorlex, and swallowed up by one great 
conrolidated government. Sir, any one acquainted Willi the histo- 
ry of parties in this country, will recognise in the points, now in 
dispute between the senator from Massachusetts and myself, the 
very grounds which have, from the beginning, divided the two 
great parties in this country, and which (call these parties by what 
name you will, and amalgainale ihem as you may) will divide them 
for ever. The true distinction between those parties is laid down 
in a celebrated manifesto issued by the convention of the federalists 
of Massachusetts, assembled in Boston, in Fehiuary, 1824, on the 
occasion of organizing a party opposition to the re-election of Go- 
vernor Eustis. The gentleman will recognise this as "the Ca- 
nonical Boole of political scripture," and it instructs us, that " when 
the American colonies redeemed themselves from British bondage, 
and became so many iruicpendent notions, they proposed to form a 
NATIONAL UNION," [not 3. federal union, sir, but a maiioiml union.] 
" Those who were in favour of a union of th,: stales in this form, be- 
came known by the name of federalist s ; those who wanted no union 
of the slates, or disliked the proposed form of union, became known 
by the name oi anti-fcderalisls. By means which need not be enu- 
merated, the anti-federalists became, after Ihe expiration of twelve 
years, our national rulers; and, for a period of sixteen years, until 
ihe close of Mr. Madison's administration of 1817, continued to 
e.xercise the exclusive direction of our public affairs." Here, sir, 
is the true history of the origin, rise, and progress of the parly of 
national republicans, who date back to the very origin of Ihe govern- 
ment, and who, then as now, chose to consider the eonslilulion as 
having created not a federal, but a national union, who regarded 
" consolidation" as no evil, and who, doubtless, consider it " a con- 
summation devoutly to be wished," to build up a great " central 
government," — "one and indMsible." Sir, there have existed in 
every age and every country, two distinct orders of men, the lovers 
of freedom, and the Aevo\e(.\ advocates of power. The same great 
leading principles, modified only by peculiarities of manners, habits, 
and institutions, divided parties in the ancient republics, animated 
the whigs and lories of Great Britain, distinguished in our own 
times, the liberals and ultras of France, and may be traced even in 
the bloody struggles of unhappy Spain. Sir, when the gallant 
Riego, who devoted himself, and all that he possessed, to the liberties 
of his country, was dragged to the scaffold, followed by the tears 
and lamentations of every lover of freedom throughout the world, 
he perished amidst the deafening cries of "long live the absolute 
king." The people whom I represent, Mr. President, are the de- 
scendants of those who brought with them, to this country, as the 
most precious of their possessions, " an ardent love of liberty," and 
while that shall be preserved, they will always be found manfully 
struggling against iAe consolidation of the government, ks the worst 

OF EVILS. 

The senator from Massachusetts, in alluding to the tariff, be- 
comes quite facetious. He tells us, that " he hears of nothing but 
tariff, tariff, tariff, and if a word could be found to rhyme irith it, he 
presumes it would be celebrated in verse, and set to music." Sir, 
perhaps the gentleman, in mackenj of our complaints, may be himself 
disposed to sing the praises of the tariff in doggrel verse, to the 
tune of "Old Hundred." I am not at all surprised, however, at 
the aversion of the gentleman to the very name of tariff. I doubt 
not that it must always bring up some very unpleasant recolleclions 
to his mind. If I am not greatly mistaken, the senator from Mas- 
sachusetts was a leading actor at a great meeting got up in Boston, 
in 1820, against the tariff. It has generally been supposed, that he 
drew up the resolutions adopted by that meeting, denouncing the 
tariff system, as unequal, oppressive, and unjust, and, if I am not 
much mistaken, denying its constitutionality. Certain it is, that the 
gentleman made a speech on that occasion, in support of those re- 
solutions, denouncing Ihe system in no very measured terms, and, 
if my memory serves me, calling its constitutionality in question. I 
regret that I have not been able to lav my hands on those proceed- 

50 



record be permitted or allowed for that purpose, and 
that any person attempting to take such appeal shall 
be punished as for a contempt of court : 

" And, finally, the said ordinance declares, that 



ings, but I have seen them, and I can not be mistaken in their 
character. At that time, sir, the senator from Massachusetts en- 
tertained the very sentiments, in relation to the tariff, which the 
south now entertains. We next find the senator from Massachu- 
setts expressing his opinion on the tariff as a member of the house 
of representatives from the city of Boston, in 1821. On Ihat occa- 
sion, sir, the genlleman assumed a position which commanded the 
respect and admiration of his country. He stood forth, the powei- 
fnl and fearless champion of free trade. He met in that conflict 
the advocates of restriction and monopoly, and they " Hed from be- 
fore his face." AVilh a profound sagacitv, a fulness of knowledge, 
and a richness of illuslralion, that has never been surpassed, he 
maintained and established the principles of commercial freedom 
on a foundation never to be shaken. Great indeed was the victo- 
ry achieved by the genlleman on that occasion, most striking the 
contrast between Ihe clear, forcible, and convincing arguments by 
which he carried away the understandings of his hearers, and the 
narrow views and wretched sophistry of another distinguished ora- 
tor, who may be truly said to have " held up his farthing candle 
to the sun." Sir, the senator from Massachusetts, on that, Ihe 
proudest day of his life, like a mighty giant, bore away upon his 
shoulders the pillars of the temple of error and delusion, escaping 
himself unhurt, and leaving his adversaries overwhelmed in its 
ruins. Then it was that he erected to free trade a beautiful and 
enduring monument, and "inscribed the marble with his name." 
Mr. President, it is with pain and regret that I now go forward to the 
next great era in the political life of that gentleman, when he was 
found on this floor, supporting, advocating, and finally voting for 
the tariff of 1828— that "bill of abominations." By that act, sir, 
the senator from Massachusetts has destroyed the labours of his 
whole life, and given a wound to the cause of free trade, never to 
be healed. Sir, wh.en I recollect the position which that genlleman 
once occupied, and that which he now holds in public estimation, 
in relation to this subject, it is not at all surprising that the tariff 
should be hateful to his ears. Sir, if I had erected to my own fame 
so proud a monument as that which the genlleman built np in 1 824, 
and I could have been tempted to destroy it wiih my own hands, I 
should hate the voice thai should ring " the accursed tariff" in my 
ears. I doubt not the gentleman feels very much in relation to the 
tariff as a certain knight did to " instinct," and with him would be 
disposed to exclaim, 

" Ah, no more of that Hal, an thou lov'st me." 

But, Mr. President, to be serious, what are we, of the south, to 
Ihink of what we have heard this day 7 The senator from Massa- 
chusetts tells us, that the tariff is not an eastern measure, and treals 
it as if the east had no interest in it. The senator from Missouri 
insists it is not a western measure, and that it has done no good to 
the west. The south comes in, and in the most earnest manner 
represents to you, that this measure, which we are told "is of no 
value to Ihe east or the west," is " utterly destructive of our inte- 
rests." We represent to you, that it has spread ruin. and devasta- 
tion through the land, and prostrated our hopes in Ihe dust. We 
solemnly declare, that we believe the .system to be wholly nnconsti- 
lulional, and a violation of the compact between the slates and the 
union, and our brethren turn a deaf ear to our complaints, and re- 
fuse to relieve us from a system " which not enriches them, but 
makes us poor indeed." Good God ! Mr. President, has it come 
lo this? Do gentlemen hold the feelings and wishes of their 
brethren at so cheap a rate, that they refuse to gratify them at so 
small a price 1 Do gentlemen value so lightly the peace and har- 
rnony of the country, that they will not yield a measure of this de- 
scription to the affectionate entreaties and earnest remonstrances of 
their friends 7 Do gentlemen estimate Ihe value of the union at so 
low a price, that they will not even make one effort to bind the 
states together with the cords of affection? And has it come to 
this 1 Is this the spirit in which this government is to be adminis- 



■302 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



the people of South Carolina will maintain the said 
ordinance at every hazard ; and that they will con- 
sider the passage of any act by congress abolishing 

tered t If so, let me tell gentlemen, the seeds of dissolution are al- 
ready sown, and our children will reap the bitter fruit. 

The honourable gentleman from Massachusetts, (Mr. Webster,) 
while he exonerates me personally from the charge, intimates that 
there is a party in the country who are looking to disunion. Sir, if 
the gentleman had stopped there, the accusation would " have pass- 
ed by me as the idle wind, which I regard not." But, when he 
goes on to give to his accusation a local habitation and a name, by 
quoting the expression of a distinguished citizen of South Caroli- 
na, (Dr. Cooper,) "that it was time for the south tn calculate the 
value of the union," and, in the language of the bitterest sarcasm, 
adds, "surely, then, the union can not last longer than July, 1831," 
It is impossible to mistake either the allusion or the object of the 
gentleman. Now, Mr. President, I call upon every one who hears 
me to bear witness, that this controversy is not of my seeking. 
The senate will do me the justice to remember, that at the time 
this unprovoked and uncalled for attack was made upon the south, 
not one word had been uttered by me in disparagement of New- 
England, nor had I ma.de the most distant allusion, either to the 
senator from Massachusetts, or the stale he represents. But, sir, 
that gentleman has thought proper, for purposes best known to him- 
self, to strike the south through me, the most unworthy of her ser- 
vants. He has cro.ssed the border, he has invaded the stale of 
South Carolina, is making war upon her citizens, and endeavour- 
ing to overthrow her principles and her inslilutions. Sir, when 
Ihe gentleman provokes me to such a conflict, I meet him at the 
threshold. I will struggle while I have life, for our altars and our 
fire-sides, and if God gives me strength, I will drive back the inva- 
der discomfited. Nor shall I stop there. If the gentleman pro- 
vokes the war, he shall have war. Sir, I will not stop at the bor- 
der, I will carry the war into the enemies' territory, and not consent 
10 lay down my arms, until I shall have obtained " indemnity for 
the past, and security for the future." It is with unfeigned reluc- 
tance, Mr. President, that I enter upon the performance of this part 
of my duty. I shrink almost instinctively from a course, however 
necessary, which may have a tendency to excite sectional feelings, 
and sectional jealousies. But, sir, the task has been forced upon 
me, and I proceed right onward to the performance of my dulv; 
be the consequences what they may, the responsibility is with those 
who have imposed upon me this necessity. The senator from 
Massachusetts has thought proper to cast the first stone, and if he 
shall find, according to a homely adage, " that he lives in a glass 
house," on his head be the consequences. The gentleman has made 
a great flourish about his fidelity to M^assachusetts. I shall make 
no professions of zeal for the interests and honour of South Caro- 
lina — of that my constituents shall judge. If there be one slate in 
this union, Mr. President, (and I say it not in a boastful spirit,) 
that may challenge comparison with any other, for a uniform, 
zealous, ardent, and uncalculating devotion to the union, that slate 
is South Carolina. Sir, from the very commencement of the revo- 
lution, up to this hour, there is no sacrifice, however great, she has 
not cheerfully made; no service she has ever hesitated to perform. 
She has adhered to you in your prosperiiy, but in your adversity, 
she has clung to you with more than filial affection. No matter 
what was the (;ondition of her domestic affairs, though deprived of 
her resources, divided by parties, or surrounded by difficulties, the 
call of the country has been to her as the voice of God. Domestic 
di.scord ceased at the sound ; every man became at once reconciled 
to his brethren, and the sons of Carolina were all seen crowding 
together on the tempie, bringing their gifts to the allar of their 
common country. What, sir, was the conduct of the south during 
the revolution ^ Sir, I honour New England for her conduct in 
that glorious struggle. But great as is the praise which belorgs to 
her, I think at least equal honour is due to the south. They espoused 
the quarrel of their brethren, with a generous zeal, which did not 
suffer them to stop to calculate their interest in the dispute. Fa- 
vourites of the mother country, possessed of neither ships nor sea- 
men to create commercial rivalship, they might have found in their 
situation a guarantee, that their trade would be for ever fostered 



or closing the ports of the said state, or otherwise 
obstructing the free ingress or egress of vessels to 
and from the said ports, or any other act of the federal 

and protected by Great Britain. But, trampling en all considera- 
tions either of interest or of safely, they rushed into the conflict, 
and, fighting for principle, periled all in the sacred cause of free- 
dom. Never was there exhibited in the history of the world, higher 
examples of noble daring, dreadful sutfering, and heroic endurance, 
Ihan by ihe whigs of Carolina, during the revolution. The whole 
state, from the mountains to the sea, was overrun by an over- 
whelming force of the enemy. The fruits of industry perished on 
the spot where they weie produced, or were consumed by the foe. 
The "plains of Carolina" drank up the most precious blood of her 
citizens! Black and smoking ruins marked the places which had 
been the habitations of her children ! Driven from their homes, 
into the gloomy and almost iinpenetrable swamps, even there the 
spirit of liberty survived, and South Carolina (sustained by the ex- 
ample of her Sumpters and her Marions) proved, by her conduct, 
thai though her soil might be overrun, the spirit of her people wa.s 
invincible. 

But, sir, our country was soon called upon to engage in another 
revolutionary struggle, and that too was a struggle for principle. I 
mean the political revolution which dates back to '98, and which, if 
it had not been successfully achieved, would have left us none of 
the fruits of the revolution of '76. The revolution of '98 restored 
the conslrtulion, rescued the liberly of the citizen from the grasp of 
those who were aiming at its life, and, in the emphatic language of 
Mr. Jefferson, " saved the conslitution at its last gasp." And by 
whom was it achieved 1 By the south, sir, aided only by the de- 
mocracy of the north and west. 

I come now to the war of 1812, a war which I well remember 
was called, in derision, (while its even! was doubtful,) ihe .southern 
war, and sometimes the Carolina war ; but which is now univer- 
sally acknowledged to have done more for Ihe honour and pros- 
perity of Ihe couniry, than all other events in our history put to- 
gether. What, sir, were the object* of that war 1 "Free trade 
and sailors rights!" It was for the protection of northern ship- 
ping, and New England seamen, that the country flew to arms. 
What interest had the south in that contest'? If they had sat down 
coldly to calculate the value of their interests involved in il, they 
would have found that ihey had every thing lo lose, and nothing to 
gain. But, sir, with that generous devotion to country so charac- 
teristic of the south, Ihey only asked, if the rights of any portion of 
their fellow-cilizens had been invaded ; and when told that northern 
ships and New England seamen had been arrested on the common 
highway of nations, they felt that the honour of their couniry was 
assailed ; and acting on that exalted sentiment, " which feels a slain 
like a wound," they resolved lo seek, in open war, for a redre.ss of 
those injuries, which it did not become freemen to endure. Sir, Ihe 
whole south, animated as by a common impulse, cordjally united 
in declaring and promoting that war. Soulh Carolina sent to your 
councils, as Ihe advocates and supporters of that war, the noblest 
of her .sons. How they fulfilled that trust, let a grateful country 
tell. Not a measure was adopted, not a battle fought, not a victo- 
ry won, which contributed, in any degree, to the success of that 
war, lo which southern councils and southern valour did not largely 
contribute. Sir, since Soulh Carolina is assailed, I must be sufler- 
ed to speak it to her praise, that at the very moment when, in one 
quarter, we heard it solemnly proclaimed, " that it did not become 
a religious and moral people to rejoice at the victories of our army 
or our navy," her legislature unanimously 

" Rcaolicd, That we will cordially support the government in the 
vigorous prosecution of the war, until a peace can be obtained on 
honourable terms; and we will cheerfully submit to every priva- 
tion that may be required of us, by our government, for the accom- 
plishment of this object." 

Soulh Carolina redeemed that pledge. She threw open her 
treasury to the government. She put at the absolute disposal of 
the officers of the United Slates all that she possessed — her men, 
her money, and her arms. She appropriated half a million of dol- 
lars, on her own account, in defence of her maritime frontier; or- 
dered a brigade of state troops lo be raised ; and, when left lo pro- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



393 



government to coerce the state, shut up her ports, 
destroy or harass her commerce, or to enforce the 
said acts otherwise than through the civil tribunals 

lect herself by her own means, never suffered the enemy to touch 
her soil, without being instantly driven off or captured. 

Such, sir, was the conduct oi the south — such the conduct of my 
own state, in that dark hour " which tried men's souls." 

When I look back and contemplate the spectacle exhibited at that 
time, in another quarter of the union ; when I think of the conduct 
of certain portions of New England, and remember the part w'hich 
was acted on that memorable occasion by the political associates of 
the gentleman from Massachusetts; nay, when I follow that gen- 
tleman into the councils of the nation, and listen to his voice during 
the darkest period of the war, I am indeed astonished Ihat he should 
venture to touch upon the topics which he has introduced into this 
debate. South Carolina reproached by Massachusetts! And from 
whom does the accusation come 1 Not from the democracy of New 
England ; for they have been in limes past, as they are now, the 
friends and allies of the south. No, sir, the accusation comes from 
that party whose acts, during the most trying and eventful period 
of our national history, were of such a character, that their own 
legislature, but a few years ago, actually blotted them out from their 
records, as a stain upon the honour of the country. But how can 
they ever be blotted out from the recollection of any one who had 
a heart to feel, a mind to comprehend, and a memory to retain, the 
events of that day ! Sir, I shall not attempt to write the history of 
the party in New England, to which I have alluded — the war party 
in peace, and the peace party in war. That task I shall leave to 
some future biographer of Nathan Dane, and I doubt not it will be 
found quite easy to prove, Ihat the peace parly of Massachusetts 
were the only defenders of their country, during the war, and ac- 
tually achieved all our victories, by land and sea. In the mean 
time, sir, and until that history shall be written, I propose, with the 
feeble and glimmering lights which I possess, to review the conduct 
of this party, in connexion with the war, and the events which im- 
mediately preceded it. 

It will be recollected, sir, that our great cause of quarrel with 
Great Britain, were her depredations on northern commerce, and 
the impressment of New England seamen. From every quarter 
we were called upon for protection. Importunate as the west is 
now represented to be, on another subject, the importunity of the 
east, on that occasion, was far greater. I hold in my hands the 
evidence of the fact. Here are petitions, memorials, and remon- 
strances, from all parts of New England, selling forth the injustice, 
the oppressions, the depredations, the insulls, the outrages, com- 
milled by Great Britain against the unoffending commerce and sea- 
men of New England, and calling upon congress for redress. Sir, 
I can not stop to read these memorials. In that from Boston, after 
staling the alarming aud extensive condemnation of our vessels by 
Great Britain, whicli threatened " to sweep our commerce from the 
face of the ocean," and " to involve our merchants in bankruptcy," 
they called upon the government " to assert our rights, and to adopt 
such measures as will support the dignity and honour of the United 
States." 

From Salem, we heard a language still more decisive ; they call 
explicitly for " an appeal to arms," and pledge their lives and pro- 
perty in support of any measures which congress might adopt. 
From Newburyporl, an appeal was made " to the firmness and jus- 
lice of the government to obtain compensation and protection." It 
was here, I think, that when the war was declared, it was resolved 
" to resist our own government, even unto blood I" (Olive Branch, 
p. 101.) 

In other quarters, the common languase of that day was, that 
our commerce and our seamen were entitled to protection, and that 
it was the duly of the government to afford it at every hazard. 
The conduct of Great Britain, we were then told, was " an outrage 
upon our national independen'-e." These clamours, which com- 
menced as early as January, 1S06, were continued up to 1812. In 
a message from the governor of one of the New England stales, as 
late as the lOth of October, 1811,tliis language is held : "a manly 
and decisive course has become indispensable ; a course to satisfy 
foreign nations, thai while we desire peace, we have the means and 



of the country, as inconsistent with the longer con- 
tinuance of South Carolina in the Union ; and that 
the people of the said state will thenceforth hold 



the spirit to repel aggression. We aie false to ourselves, when our 
commerce or our territory is invaded with impunity." 

About this time, however, a remarkable change was observable 
in the tone and temper of those who had been endeavouring to 
force the counliy into a war. The language of complaint was 
changed into that of insult, and calls for protection converted into 
reproaches : " smoke, smoke," (says one writer,) " my life on it, 
our executive has no more idea of declaring war, than my grand- 
mother." " The committee of ways and means," (says another,) 
" have come out with their Pandora's box of taxes, and yet nobody 
dreams of war." " Congress do not mean to declare war : they 
dare not." But why multiply examples'! An honourable member 
of the other house, from the city of Boston, (Mr. duincy,) in a 
speech delivered on the 3d of April, 1812, says, " Neither promises, 
nor threats, nor asseverations, nor oaths, will make me believe that 
you will go to war. The navigation slates are sacrificed, and the 
spirit and character of the country prostrated by fear and avarice." 
" You can not," said the same gentleman, on another occasion, " be 
kicked inlo a war." 

Well, sir, the war at length came, and what did we behold ! 
The very men who had been for six years clamorous for war, and 
for whose protection it was waged, became at once equally clamo- 
rous against it. They had received a miraculous vi.sitalion ; a new 
light suddenly beamed upon their minds ; the scales fell ftom their 
eyes, and it was discovered that the war w?s declared from " sub- 
serviency to France;" and that congress and the executive "had 
sold themselves to Napoleon ;" that Great Britain had, in fact, 
" done us no essential injury ;" that she " was the bulwark of our 
religion ;" that where " she took one of our ships, she protected 
twenty;" and that if Great Britain had impressed a few of our sea- 
men, it was because '* she could not distinguish them from her 
own." And so far did this spirit extend, that a committee of the 
Massachusetts legislature actually fell to calculation, and discover- 
ed, 10 their infinite satisfaction, but to the astonishment of all the 
world beside, that only eleven Massachusetts sailors had ever been 
impressed. Never shall I forget the appeals that had been made 
to the .sympathies of the south, in behalf of the " thousands of im- 
pressed Americans," who had been torn from their families and 
friends, and " immured in the floating dungeons of Britain." The 
most touching pictures were drawn of the hard condition of the 
American sailor, " treated like a slave," forced to fight the battles 
of his enemy, " lashed to the mast to be shot at like a dog." But, 
sir, the very moment w-e had taken up arms in their defence, it was 
discovered that all these were mere " fictions of Ihe brain," and 
that the whole number in the state of Massachusetts was hut eleven ; 
and that even these had been " taken by mistake." Wonderful dis- 
covery ! The secretary of state had collected authenlic lists of no 
less than six thousand impre.'^sed Americans. Lord Casllereagh 
himself acknowledged sixteen hundred. Calculations on the basis 
of the number found on board of the Guerriere, the Macedonian, the 
Java, and other British sliips, (captured by the skill and gallantry 
of those heroes, whose achievements are the treasured monuments of 
their country's glory,) fixed the number at seven ihousanit ; and yet, 
itseems, Massachusetts had lost but eleven ! Eleven Massachusetls 
sailors taken by mistake ! A cause of war indeed I Their ships, 
loo, Ihe capture of which had threatened " universal bankruptcy," 
it was discovered that Greal Britain was their friend and protector ; 
" where she had taken one, she had protected twenty." Then was 
the discovery made, that subserviency to France, hostilily to com- 
merce, " a determination on the part of the south and the west to 
break down the eastern stales;" and especially, (as reported by a 
committee of the Massachusetts legislature,) " to force the sons of 
commerce to populate Ihe wilderness," were the true causes of the 
i war. (Olive Branch, pages 134,291.) 

But lei us look a liille further into the conduct of the peace parly 
of New England, at, that important crisis. Whatever difference of 
opinion might have existed as to the causes of the war, the country 
had a right to expect, that when once involved in the contest, all 
America would have cordially united in its support. Sir, the war 



394 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



themselves absolved from all furthe^^ obligation to 
maintain or preserve their political connexion -with 
the people of tlie other states, and will forthwith 

effected, in its progress, a union of all parlies at the south. But 
not so in New England ; there, great efforts were made to slir up 
the minds of the people to oppose it. Nothing was left undone to 
embarrass the financial operations of the government, to prevent 
the enlistment of troops, to keep baclc the men and money of New 
England from the service of the union, to force the president from 
his seat. Yes, sir, " the island of Elba ! or a halter !" were the al- 
ternatives they presented to the excellent and venerable James 
Madison. Sir, the war w-as further opposed, by openly carrying 
on illicit trade with the enemy; by permitting that enemy to esta- 
blish herself on the very soil of Massachusetts; and by opening a 
free trade between Great Britain and America, with a separate 
custom-house. Yes, sir, those who can not endure the thought 
that we sliould insist on a free trade in time of profound peace, could, 
without scruple, claim and exercise the right of carrying on a free 
trade with the enemy in a time of war ; and, finally, by getting up 
the renowned "Hartford convention," and prepaiing the way for 
an open resistance to the government, and a separation of the 
states. Sir, if I am asked for the proof of those things, I fearlessly 
appeal to contemporary history, to the public documents of the 
country, to the recorded opinion and acts of public assemblies, to 
the declaration and acknowledgments, since made, of the executive 
and legislature of Massachusetts herself 

Sir, the time has not been allowed me to trace this subject through, 
even if I had been disposed to do so. But I can not refrain from 
referring to one or two documents, which have fallen in my way 
since this debate began. I read, sir, from the Olive Branch of 
Matthew Carey, in which are collected " the actings and doings" 
of the peace party of New England, during the continuance of the 
embargo and the war. I know the senator from Massacliuselts 
will respect the high authority of his political friend and fellow- 
labourer in the great cause of " domestic industry." 

In page 301 of this work, is a detailed account of the measures 
adopted in Massachusetts during the war, for the express purpose of 
embarrassing the financial operations of the government, by pre- 
venting loans, and thereby driving our rulers from their seats, and 
forcing the country into a dishonourable peace. It appears that 
the Boston banks commenced an operation, by which a run was to 
he made upon all the banks to the south ; at the same time stopping 
their own discounts, the efl'ect of which was to produce a sudden 
and most alarming diminution of the circulating medium, and uni- 
versal distress over the whole country, a distress which they failed 
not to attribute to the "unholy war." 

To such an extent was this system carried, that it appears from 
a statement of the condition of the Boston banks, made up in Janua- 
ry, 1814, that with nearly $5,000,000 of specie in their vaults, they 
had but S2, 000, 000 of bills in circulation. It is added by Carey, 
that at this very time an extensive trade was carried on in British 
government hills, for which specie was sent to Canada, for the pay- 
ment of the British troops, then laying waste our northern frontier, 
and this too at the very moment when New England ships, sailing 
under British licenses, (a trade declared to be lawful by the courts 
both of Great Britain and Massachusetts,) were supplying with 
provisions those very armies destined for the invasion of our own 
shores. Sir, the author of the Olive Branch, with a holy indigna- 
tion, denounces these acts as "treasonable!" "giving aid and com- 
fort to the enemy." I shall not follow his example. But I will 
Hsk, with what justice or propriety can the south be accused of dis- 
loyalty from that quarter? If we had any evidence that the sena- 
tor from Massachusetts had admonished his brethren then, he 
might, with a belter grace, assume the office of admonishing us now. 

When I look at the measures adopted in Boston at that day, to 
dejirive the government of the necessary means for carrying on the 
war, and think of the success and the consequences of these mea- 
sures, I feel my pride as an American humbled in the dust. Hear, 
sir, the language of .that day ; I read from pages 301 and 302 of the 
Olive Branch: "Let no inan who wishes to sontinue the war, by 
active means, by vote, or lending money, dare to prostrate himself 
at the altar on the fast day." " Will federalists subscribe to the 



proceed to organize a separate government, and do all 
other acts and things which sovereign and independ- 



ent states may of right do: 



loan 1 Will they lend money to' our national rulers 1 It is impos- 
sible. First, because of the principal; and, secondly, because of 
the principal and interest." " Do not prevent Ihe abusers of their 
trust from becoming bankrupt. Do not prevent them from becoming 
odious to the public, and being replaced by better men." " Any 
federalist who lends money to government, must go and shake 
hands with James Madison, and claim fellowship with Felix Grun- 
dy. (I beg paidon of my honourable friend from Tennessee; but 
he is in good company. I had thought it was 'Jaines Madison, 
Felix Grundy, and the devil.') Let hira no more call himself a 
federalist, and a friend to his country — he will be called by others 
infamous," &c. 

Sir, the spirit of the people sunk under these appeals. Such was 
the effect produced by them on the public mind, that the very agents 
of the government (as appears from their public advertisements, 
now before me) could not obtain loans, without a pledge that " the 
names of the subscribers should not be known." Here are the ad- 
verlisemenls : " the names of all subscribers (say Gilbert and Dean, 
the brokers employed by government) shall be known only to the 
undersigned." As if those who came forward to aid their country 
in the hour of her utmost need, were engaged in some dark and 
foul conspiracy, they were assured "that their names should not 
be known." Can any thing show more conclusively the unhappy 
stale of public feeling, which prevailed at that day, than this single 
fact ■? Of the same character with these measures was the conduct 
of Massachusetts, in withholding her militia from the service of 
the United Slates, and devising measures for withdrawing her 
quota of the taxes, thereby attempting, not merely to cripple the re- 
sources of the country, but actually depriving the government (as 
far as depended upon her) of all the means of carrying on the war — 
of the hone, and muscle, and sinews of war — " of man and steel — 
the soldier and his sword." But it seems Massachusetts was to 
reserve her resources for herself— she was to defend and protect 
her own shores. And how was that duty performed'? In some 
places on the coast neutralit}' was declared, and the enemy was 
suffered to invade the soil of Massachusetts, and allowed to occupy 
her territory, until the peace, without one efl'ort to rescue it from 
his grasp. Nay, more, while our own government and our rulers 
were considered as enemies, the troops of the enemy were treated 
like friends — the most intimate commercial relations were establish- 
ed with them, and maintained up to the peace. At this dark pe- 
riod of our national affairs, where was the senator from Massa- 
chusetts 1 How were his political associates employed'? " Calcu- 
lating the value of the union 1" Yes, sir, that was the propitious 
moment, when our country stood alone, Ihe last hope of the world, 
struggling for her existence against the colossal power of Great 
Britain, " concentrated in one mighty effort to crush us at a blow" — 
that was the chosen hour to revive Ihe grand scheme of building 
up " a great norlhern confederacy" — a scheme which, it is stated 
in the work before me, had ils origin as far back as the year 1796, 
and which appears never to have been entirely abandoned. In ihe 
language of the writers of that day, (1796,) " rather ihan have a 
conslilution such as the anti-federalists were conleijding for, (such 
as we now are contending for,) the union ought to be dis.solved ;" 
and 10 prepare the way for that measure, the same methods were 
resorted to then, that have always been relied on for that purpose, 
exciting prejudice against the south. Yes, sir, our norlhern brethren 
were then told, " that if the negroes were good for food, their south- 
ern masters would claim the right to destroy them at pleasure." 
(Olive Branch, p. 267.) Sir, in 1814, all these topics were revived. 
Again we heard of " a northern confederacy;" " the slave slates 
by themselves;" "the mountains aie the natural boundary;" we 
want ncilher " the counsels nor the power of the west," &c. &c. 
The papers teemed with accusations against the sovik and ihen-est, 
and Ihe calls for a dissolution of all connexion with them, were 
loud and strong. I can not consent to go through the disgusting 
details. But to show Ihe height to which the spirit of disaffection 
was carried, I will take you to the temple of the living God, and 
.show you that sacrtd place (which should be devoted to the exien- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



395 



" And whereas, the said ordinance prescribes to 
the people of South Carolina a course of conduct in 
direct violation of thfeir duty as citizens of the United 

sionof "peaceon earlh and good will towards men," where " one day' s 
truce oiiglit surely to be allowed to ilie dissensions and animosities 
of mankind") converted iulo a fierce arena of political strife, where, 
from the lips of the priest standing between the horns of the altar, 
there went forth the most terrible deaunciations against all who 
should be true to their country, in the hour of her utmost need. 

" If you do not wish," said a reverend clergyman, in a sermon 
preached in Boston, on the 23d of July, 1812, " to become the slaves 
of those who own slaves, and who are themselves the slaves of 
French slaves, you must either, in the language of the day, cut the 
CONNEXION, or so far alter the national compact, as to ensure to 
yourselves a due share in the government." (Olive Branch, page 
319.) "The union," says the same writer, (page 320,) " has been 
long since virtually dissolved, and it is full time that this part of 
the disunited states should lake care of itself." 

Another reverend gentleman, pastor of a church at Medford, 
(page 321,) issues his anathema — " let him stand accursed" — against 
all who, by their " personal services," or " loans of money," " con- 
versation," or " writing," or " influence," gives countenance or sup- 
port to the unrighteous war, in the following terms : " that man is 
an accomplice in the wickednes.s — he loads his conscience with the 
blackest crimes — he brings the guilt of blood upon his soul, and, in 
the sight of God and his law, he is a murderer." 

One or two more quotations, sir, and 1 shall have done. A reve- 
rend doctor of divinity, the pastor of a church at Byfield, Massa- 
chusetts, on the 7th of April, 1814, thus addresses his flock, (page 
321) — " The Israelites became weary of yielding the fruit of their 
labour to pamper their splendid tyrants. They left their political 
woe.s. .They separated. Where is our Hoses'? Where the rod 
of his miracles? Where is our Aaron 7 Alas! no voice from 
the burning bush has directed them here." 

" We must trample on the mandates of despotism, or remain 
slaves for ever." (Page 322.) " You must drag the chains of 
Virginian despotism, unless you discover some other mode of es- 
cape." " Those western stales, which have been violent for this 
abominable war, those slates which have thirsted for blood — God 
has given them blood to drink." (Page 323.) Mr. President, I 
can go no further. The records of the day are full of such senti- 
ments, i.ssued from the press, spoken in public assemblies, pouring 
out from the sacred desk! God forbid, sir, that I should charge 
the people of Massachusetts with participating in these sentiments. 
The south and the west had there, their friends — men who stood 
by their country, though encompassed all around by their enemies. 
The senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Silsbee) was one of them ; 
the senator from Connecticut (Mr. Fool) was another ; and there 
are others now on this floor. The sentiments I have read were the 
sentiments of a party embracing the political associates of the gen- 
tleman from Massachusetts. If they could only be found in the 
columns of a newspaper, in a few occasional pamphlets, issued by 
men of intemperate feeling, 1 should not consider them as afford- 
ing any evidence of the opinions even of the peace party of New 
England. But, sir, they were the common language of that day; 
they pervaded the whole land ; they were issued from the legisla- 
tive hall, from the pulpit, and the pre.ss. Our books are full of 
them. And there is no man who now hears me, but knows, that 
they were the sentiments of a party, by whose members they were 
promulgated. Indeed, no evidence of this would seem to be re- 
quired, beyond the fact, that such sentiments found their way even 
into the pulpits of New England. What must be the state of pub- 
lic opinion, where any respectable clergyman would venture to 
preach, and to print sermons, containing the sentiments I have 
quoted ? I doubt not the piety or moral worth of these gentlemen. 
I am told they were respectable and pious men. But they were 
men, and they " kindled in a common blaze." And now, sir, I 
must be suffered to remark, that at this awful and melancholy pe- 
riod of our national history, the gentleman fiom Massachusetts, 
who now manifests so great a devotion to the union, and so much 
anxiety lest it should be endangered from the south, was " with 
his brethren in Israel." He saw all these thmgs passing before his 



States, contrary to the laws of their country, subver- 
sive of its constitution, and having for its object the 
destruction of the union — that union which, coeval 



eyes — he heard these sentiments uttered all around him. I do not 
charge that gentleman with an)' participation in these acts, or with 
approving of^ these sentiments. 

But 1 will ask why, if he was animated by th same sentiments 
then, which he now professes, if he can " augur disunion at a dis- 
tance, and snulF up rebellion in every tainted breeze," why he did 
not, at that day, exert his great talents and acknowledged influence 
with the political associates by whom he was surrounded, (and 
who then, as now, looked up to him for guidance and direction,) 
in allaying this general excitement; in pointing out to his deluded 
friends the value of the union, in instructing them, that, instead of 
looking " to some prophet to lead them out lium the land of Egypt," 
they should become reconciled to their brethren, and unite with 
them in the support of a just and necessary war ■? Sir, the gentle- 
man must excuse me for saying, that if the records of our country 
afforded any evidence that he had pursued such a course, then if 
we could find it recorded in the history of those times, that, like 
the immortal Dexter, he had breasted that mighty torrent, which 
was sweeping before it all that was great and valuable in our po- 
litical institutions ; if, like him, he had stood by his country in op- 
position to his party, sir, we would, like little children, listen to his 
precepts, aud abide by his counsels. 

As soon as the public mind was suflSciently prepared for the 
measure, the celebrated Hartford convention was got up; not ns 
the act of a few unauthorized individuals, but by authority of the 
legislature of Ma.ssachuseits; and, as has been shown by the able 
historian of that convention, in accordance with the views and 
wishes of the parly, of which it was the organ. Now, sir, I do not 
desire to call in question the motives of the gentlemen who com- 
posed that assembly : I knew many of them to be, in private life, 
accomplished and honourable men, ami I doubt not there were 
some among them who did not perceive the dangerous tendency o 
their pioceedings. I will even go further, and say, ihat if the au- 
thors of the Hartford convention believed, that " gross, deliberate, 
and palpable violations of the constitution" had taken place, utterly 
destructive of their rights and interests, I should be the last man 
to deny their fight to resort to any constitutional measures for re- 
dress. But, sir, in any view of the case, the lime when, and the 
circumstances under which that convention assembled, as well as 
the measures recommended, render their conduct, in my opinion, 
wholly indefensible. Let us contemplate, for a moment, the spec- 
tacle then exhibited to the view of the world. I will not go over 
the disasters of the war, nor describe the difficulties in which the 
government was involved. It will be recollected, that its credit 
was nearly gone, Washington hod fallen, the whole coast was 
blockaded, and an immense force collected in the West Indies, was 
about to make a descent, which it was supposed we had no means 
of resisting. In this awful state of our public aflaiis, when the go- 
vernment seemed almost to be tottering on its base, when Great 
Britain, relieved from all her other enemies, had proclaimed her 
purpose of " reducing us to unconditional submission," we beheld 
the peace parly of New England (in the language of the work be- 
fore us) "pursuing a course calculated to do more injury to their 
country, and to render England more efl^ective service, than all her 
armies." Those who could not find it in their hearts to rejoice at 
our victories, sang Te Dcum at the king's chapel in Boston, for 
the restoration of the Bourbons. Those who could not consent to 
illuminate their dwellings for the capture of the Guerriere, could 
give visible tokens of their joy at the fall of Detroit. The " bea- 
con fires" of their hills were lighted up, not for the encouragement 
of their friends, hut as signals to the enemy ; and, in the gloomy 
hours of midnight, the very lights burned blue. Such were the 
dark and portentous signs of the times, which ushered into bei-ng 
the renowned Hartford convention. That convention met, and 
from their proceedings it appears, lhat their chief object was to 
keep back the men and money of New England from the service oi 
the union, and to effect radical changes in the government — changes 
that can never be effected without a dissolution of the union. 

Let us now, sir, look at their proceedings. I read from " a short 



396 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



with our political existence, led our fathers, without 
any other ties to unite them than those of patriotism 
and a common cause, through a sanguinary struggle 

account of the Hartford convention," (written by one of its mem- 
bers,) a very rare book, of which I was fortunate enough, a few 
years a^o, lo obtain a copy. 

It appears at page 6 of " the account," that by a vote of the house 
of representatives of Massachusetts, [260 to 90,] delegates to this 
convention were ordered to be appointed, to consult upon the sub- 
ject " of their public grievances and concerns," and upon " the best 
means of preserving their resources," and for procuring a revision 
of the constitution of the United Slates, "more effectually to secure 
the support and attachment of all the people, by placing all upon the 
basis ol' fair representation." 

The convention assembled at Hartford on the 15th of December, 
1814. On the next day it was 

" Resolved, That the most inviolable secrecy shall be observed 
by each member of this convention, including the secretary, as to 
all propositions, debates, and proceedings thereof, until this injunc- 
tion shall be suspended or altered." 

On the 24lh of December, the committee appointed to prepare 
and report a general project of such measures as may be proper for 
the convention to adopt, reported, among other things, 

" 1. That it was expedient to recommend to the legislatures of 
the states, the adoption of the most effectual and decisive measures 
to protect the militia and the states from the usurpations contained 
in these proceedings." [The proceedings of congress and the ex- 
ecutive, in relation to the militia and the war.] 

" 2. That it was expedient also to prepare a statement e.^chibiting 
the necessity which the improvidence and inability of the general 
government have imposed upon the states of providing for their 
own defence, and the impossibility of their discharging this duty, 
and at the same time fulfilling the requisitions of the general go- 
vernment ; and also to recommend to the legislatures of the several 
states to make provision for mutual defence, and to make an earnest 
application to the government of the United States, with a view to 
some arrangement whereby the states may be enabled to retain a 
portion of the taxes levied by congress, for the purposes of self-de- 
fence, and for the reimbursement of expenses already incurred on 
account of the United Slates. 

" 3. That it is expedient to recommend to the several state legis- 
latures certain amendments to the constitution, viz.: 

" That the power to declare or make war by the congress of the 
United States be restricted. 

" That it is expedient to attempt to make provision for restrain- 
ing congress in the exercise of an unlimited power to make new 
states, and admit them into the union. 

" That an amendment be proposed respecting slave representa- 
tion and slave taxation." 

On the 29lh of December, 1814, it was proposed "that the capa- 
city of naturalized citizens lo hold offices of trust, honour, or profit, 
ought to be restrained," &c. 

The subsequent proceedings are not given at large ; but it seems 
that the report of the committee was adopted, and also a recom- 
mendation of certain measures (of the character of which we are 
not inforined) lo the slates for their mutual defence ; and having 
voted " that the injunctien of secrecy, in regard to all the debates 
and proceedings of the convention, (except so far as relates to the 
report finally adopted,) be continued," the convention adjourned sine 
die, but (as it was supposed) to meet again when circumstances 
should require it. 

It i* unnecessary to trace Ihe matter further, or to ask what 
would have been the next chapter in this history, if the measures 
recommended had been carried into effect; and if, with the men 
and money of New England withheld from the government of the 
United States, she had been withdrawn from the war ; if New Or- 
leans had fallsn into the hands of the enemy; and if, without troops 
and almost destitute of money, the southern and the western states 
had been thrown upon their own resources for the prosecution of 
Ihe war, and the recovery of New Orleans 1 Sir, whatever may 
have been the issue of the contest, the union must have been dis- 
solved. But a wise and just Providence, which " shapes our ends, 



to a glorious independence — that sacred union, 
hitherto inviolate, which, perfected by our happy 
constitution, has brought us, by the favour of Heaven, 

rough-hew them as we will," gave us the victory, and crowned our 
efforts with a glorious peace. The ambassadors of Hartford were 
seen retracing their steps from Washington, " the bearers of the 
glad tidings of great joy." Courage and patriotism triumphed — 
the country was saved — the union was preserved. And aie we, 
Mr. President, who stood by our country then ; who threw open 
our cofters ; who bared our bosoms ; who freely periled all in that 
conflict, to be reproached with want of attachment to the union '! 
If, sir, we are to have lessons of patriotism read to us, they must 
come from a different quarter. The senator from Massacbuseils, 
who is now so sensitive on all subjects connected with the union, 
seems to have a memory forgetful of the political events that have 
passed away. I must, therefore, refresh his recollection a liltle 
further on these subjects. The history of disunion has been written 
by one whose authority stands too high with the American people 
to be questioned — f mean Thomas Jefferson. I know not how the 
gentleman may receive this authority. When that great and good 
man occupied the presidential chair, I believe he commanded no 
portion of that gentleman's respect. 

I hold in my hand a celebrated pamphlet on Ihe embargo, in' 
which language is held in relation to Mr. Jefferson, which my re- 
spect for his memory will prevent me from reading — unless any 
gentleman should call for it. But the senator fiom Massachusetts 
has since joined in singing hosannas to his name — he has assisted 
at his apotheosis, and has fixed him as" a brilliant star in the clear 
upper siiy." I hope, therefore, he is now prepaied lo receive with 
dei"erence and respect the high authority of Mr. Jefferson. In the 
fourth volume of liis memoirs, which has just issued from the piess, 
we have the following history of disunion from the pen of thai il- 
lustrious statesman: " Mr. Adams called on me pending the em- 
bargo, and while endeavours were making to obtain its repeal ; he 
spoke of the dissatisfaction of the eastern portion of our confedera- 
cy with the restraints of the embargo then existing, and their rest- 
lessness under it; that there was nothing which might not be at- 
tempted to rid themselves of it ; that he had information of the 
most unquestionable certainty, that certain citizens of the eastern 
slates (I think he named Massachusetts particularly) were in nego- 
tiation with the agents of the British government, the object ol 
which was an agreement, that the New England stales should take 
no further part in the war [ihe commercial war, the " war of re- 
strictions," as it was called] then going on; and that without for- 
mally declaring their separation from the union, they should with- 
draw from all aid and obedience to them, &c. From that moment, 
says Mr. Jefferson, I saw the necessity of abandoning it, [the em- 
bargo,] and, instead of effecting our purpose by this peaceful 
weapon, we must fight it out, or break the union." In another let- 
ter, Mr. Jefferson adds: " I doubt whether a single fact known to 
the world, will carry as clear conviction to it of the correctness of 
our knowledge of the treasonable views of the federal party of that 
day, as that disclosed by this the most nefarious and daring attempt 
to dissever the union, of which Ihe Hartford convention was a sub- 
sequent chapter; and both of these having failed, consolidation be- 
comes Ihe founh chapter of Ihe next book of their histoiy. Bui 
this opens with a vast accession of strength from their 3'ounger re- 
cruits, who, having nothing in them of the feelings and principles 
of 76, now look to a single and spkndid government, &c., riding 
and ruling over the plundered ploughman and beggared yeoman- 
ry."— (4th vol. p. 419, 422.) 

The last chapter, says Mr. Jefferson, of that history, is to be 
found in the conduct of those who are endeavouring to bring about 
consolidation: aye, sir, Ihat very consolidation for which the gen- 
tleman from Massachusetts is contending — the exercise by the fede- 
ral government, of powers not delegated in relation to "internal 
improvements," and the " protection of manufactures." And why, 
sir, does Mr. Jefferson consider consolidation as leading directly to 
disunion ? Because he knew that Ihe exercise by the federal go- 
vernment of the powers contended for, would make this " a go- 
vernment without Mmitation of powers," the submission to which 
he considered as a greater evil thpn disunion itself. ' There is one 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



397 



\o a state of prosperity at home, and high considera- 
tion abroad, rarely, if evfer, equalled in the history of 
nations. To preserve this bond of our political ex- 

chapler ia this history, however, which Mr. Jefferson has not filled 
up, aud I must therefore supply the deficiency. It is to be found in 
the protests made by New England against the acquisition of Lou- 
isiana. In relation to that subject, the New England doctrine is 
thus laid down hy one of her learned political doctois of that day, 
now a doctor of laws, at the head of the great literary institution of 
the east; I mean Josiah Cluincy, president of Harvard College. I 
quote from the speech delivered by that gentleman on the floor of 
congress, on the occasion of the admission of Louisiana into the 
union. 

" Mr. Gluincy repeated and justified a remark he had made, which, 
"to save all misapprehensions, he had committed to writing, in ihe 
following words: ' If this bill passes, it is my deliberate opinion, 
that it is virtually a dissolution of the union ; that it will free the 
states from their moral obligation ; and as it will be the right of 
all, so it will be the duty of some, to prepare for a separation, ami- 
cably if they can, violently if they must.' " 

JVir. President, I wish it to be distinctly understood, that all the 
remarks I have made on this subject, are intended to be exclusively 
' applied ta a party, which I have described as the " peace party of 
New England" — embracing the political associates of the senator 
from Ma.ssachusetts — a party which controlled the operations of 
that state during the embargo and the war, and who are justly 
chargeable with all the measures I have reprobated'. Sir, nothing 
has been further from my thoughts than to impeach the character 
or conduct of the people of New England. For their steady habits 
and hardy virtues, I trust I entertain a becoming respect. I fully 
subscribe to the truth of the description given before the revolution, 
by one whose praise is the highest eulogy, "tliat the perseverance 
of Holland, the activity of France, and the dexterous and firm sa- 
gacity of English enterprise, have been more than equalled by this 
' recent people.' " Hardy, enterprising, sagacious, industrious, and 
moral, the people of New England, of the present day, are worthy 
of their ancestors. Still less, Mr. President, has it been my inten- 
tion to say any thing that could be construed into a want of respect 
for that party, who, trampling on all narrow, sectional feelings, 
have been true to their principles in the worst of times — I mean the 
democracy of New England. 

Sir, I will declare, that, highly as I appreciate the democracy of 
the south, I consider even higher praise to be due to the democracy 
of New England — who have maintained their principles " through 
good and through evil report ;" who, at every period of our na- 
tional history, have stood up manfully for " their country, their 
whole country, and nothing but their country." In the great poli- 
tical revolution of '98, they were found united with the democracy 
of the south, marching under the banner of the constitution, led on 
by the patriarch of liberty, in search of the land of political promise, 
which they lived not only to behold, but to possess and to enjoy. 
Again, sir, in the darkest and most gloomy period of the war, when 
our country stood single handed against " the conqueror of the 
conquerors of the world ;" when all about and around them was 
dark and dreary, disastrous and discouraging, they stood a Spar- 
tan band in that narrow pass, where the honour of their country 
was to be defended, or to find its grave. And in the last great 
struggle, involving, as we believe, the very existence of the princi- 
ple of popular sovereignty, where were the democracy of New Eng- 
land 1 Where they always have been found, sir ; struggling, side 
by side, with their brethren of the south and the west, for popular 
rights, and assisting in that glorious triumph by which the man of 
the people was elevated to the highest office in their gift. 

Who, then, Mr. President, are the true friends of the union ■? 
Those who would confine the federal government strictly within 
the limits prescribed by the constitution; who would preserve to 
ihe states and the people all powers not expressly delegated ; who 
would make this a federal, and not a national union, and who, ad- 
ministering the government in a spirit of equal justice, would make 
it a blessing, and not a curse. And who are its enemies'! Those 
who are in favour of consolidation — who are constantly stealing 
power from the states, and adding strength to the federal govern- 



istence from destruction to maintain inviolate this 
state of national honour and prosperity, and to iustify 
the confidence my fellow citizens have reposed in 

ment. Who, assuming an unwarrantable jurisdiction over the 
states and the people, undertake to regulate the whole industry and 
capital of the country. But, sir, of all descriptions of men, I con- 
sider those as the worst enemies of the union, who sacrifice the 
equal rights which belong to every member of the confederacy 
to combinations of interested majorities, for personal or political 
objects. But the gentleman apprehends no evil from the depend- 
ance of the states on the federal government ; he can see no danger 
of corruption from the influence of money or of patronage. Sir, I 
knov/ that it is supposed to be a wise saying, "that patronage is a 
source of weakness," and in support of that maxim, it has been 
said, that "every ten appointments makes a hundred enemies." 
But I am rather inclined to think, with the eloquent and sagacious 
orator now reposing on his laurels ^ the banks of the Roanoke, 
that " the power of conferring favours creates a crowd of depend- 
ants ;" he gave a forcible illustration of the truth of the remark, 
when he told us of the effect of holding up the savouiy morsel to 
the eager eyes of the hungry hounds gathered around his door. It 
mattered not whether the,gifl was bestowed on Towser or Sweet- 
lips, " Tray, Blanch, or Sweetheart," while held in suspense, they 
were all governed by a nod, and when the morsel was bestowed, 
the expectation of the favours of to-morrow kept up the subjection 
of to-day. 

The senator from Massachusetts, in denouncing what he ia 
pleased to call the Carolina doctrine, has attempted to throw ridi- 
cule upon the idea, that a state has any constitutional remedy, by 
the exercise of its sovereign authority, against " a gross, palpable, 
and deliberate violation of the constitution." He calls it " an idle," 
or "a ridiculous notion," or something to that efl^ect, and added 
that it would make the union " a mere rope "of sand." Now, sir, 
as the gentleman has not condescended to enter into any examina- 
tion of the question, and has been satisfied with throwing ihe 
weight of his authority into the scale, I do not deem it necessary 
to do more than to throw into the opposite scale the authority on 
which South Carolina relies, and there, for the present, I am per- 
fectly willing to leave the controversy. The South Carolina doc- 
trine, that is to say, the doctrine contained in an exposition report- 
ed by a committee of the legislature, in December, 1828, and pub- 
lished by their authority, is the good old republican doctrine of '98- 
the doctrine of the celebrated " Virginia resolutions" of that year, 
and of "Madison's report" of '99. It will be recollected, that the 
legislature of Virginia, in December, '98, took into consideration 
the alien and sedition laws, then considered by all the republicans 
as a gross violation of the constitution of the United States, and on 
that day passed, among others, the following resolution^: 

" The general assembly doth explicitly and peremploi*ily declare, 
that it views the powers of the federal government, as resulting 
from the compact to which the states are parties, as limited by the 
plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting that com- 
pact, as no further valid than they are authorized by^ the grants 
enumerated in that compact; and that in case of a deliberate, pal- 
pable, and dangerous exercise of other powers not granted by the 
said compact, the states who are parties thereto, have the right, and 
are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the 
evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits, the authori- 
ties, rights, and liberties, appertaining to them." 

In addition to these resolutions, the general assembly of Virginia 
"appealed to the other states, in the confidence that they would 
concur with that commonwealth, that the acts aforesaid [the alien 
and sedition laws] are unconstitutional, and that the necessary and 
proper measures would be taken by each for co-operating with Vir- 
ginia in maintaining unimpaired the authorities, rights, and liber- 
ties, reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." 

The legislatures of several of the New England slates having, 
contrary to the expectation of the legislature of Virginia, expressed 
their dissent from these doctrines, the subject came up again for 
consideration during Ihe se.ssion of 1799, 1800, when it was refer- 
red to a select committee, by whom was made that celebrated re- 
port, which is familiarly known as " Madison's report," and which 



39S 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



me, I, Andrew Jackson, President of the United 
Slates, have thought proper to issue this my PRO- 
CLAMATION, stating my views of the constitution 



deserves to last as long as the constitution itself. In that report, 
which was subsequently adopted by the legislature, the whole sub- 
ject was deliberately re-examined, and the objections urged against 
the Virginia doctrines carefully considered. The result was, Ihal 
the legislature of Virginia re-affirmed all Ihe principles laid down 
in the resolulions of 1798, and issued to the world that admirable 
report, which has stamped the character of Mr. Madison as the 
preserver of that constitution which he had contributed so largely 
to create and establish. 1 will heie quote from Mr. Madison's re- 
port one or two passages which bear more immediately on the point 
in controversy. " The resolution having talien this view of the 
federal compact," proceeds to infer, "that in case of a deliberate, 
palpable, and dangerous exeraise of other powers, not granted by 
the said compact, the states who are parties thereto have the right, 
and are in duty bound, lo interpose for arresting the progress of 
the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits, the au- 
thorities, rights, and liberties, appertaining lo them. 

" It appears to your coinmiltee to be a plain principle, founded on 
common sense, illustrated by common practice, and essential to the 
nature of compacts, that, where resort can be had to no tribunal, 
superior lo the authority of the parlies, the parlies themselves must be 
the rightful judses in the last resort, whether the bargain made has 
been pursued or violated. The constitution of the United States 
was formed by the sanction of the states, given by each in its sove- 
reign capacity. It adds to the stability and dignity, as well as lo 
the authority of the constitution, that it rests on this legitimate and 
.^olid foundation. The states, then, being Ihe parlies to the consti- 
tutional compact, and, in their sovereign capacity, it follows of ne- 
cessity, Ihal there can be 7W tribunal above their aulhoritij, to decide 
in the last resort, whetlier the compact made by them be violated, 
and consequently, that as the parlies lo it, they must themselves 
decide, in the last resort, such questions as may be of sufficient 
magnitude to require their interposition. 

" The resolution has guarded against any misapprehen.sion of its 
object, by expressly requiring for such an interposition ' the case of 
a deliberate, palpable, and dangeroiis breach of the constitution, by 
the exercise of powers not granted by it.' It must be a case, not of 
a light and transient nature, but of a nature dangerous to the great 
purposes for which ihe consliuition was established. 

" But the resolution has done more than guard against miscon- 
struction, by expressly referring to cascs^f a deliberate", palpable, 
and dangerous nature. It specifies the object of the interposition, 
which it contemplates to be solely that of arresting ihe progress of 
the evil of_ ysurpation, and of maintaining the authorities, rights, 
and liberties, appertaining lo the slates, as parlies to the consli- 
tution. 

" From this view of the resolution, it would seem inconceivable 
that it can incur any just disapprobation from those who, laying 
aside all momentary impressions, and recollecting the genuine 
source and object of the federal constitution, shall candidiv and ac- 
curately interpret the meaning of the general assembly. If the de- 
liberate exercise of dangerous powers, palpably withheld by the 
constitution, could not justify the parties lo it, in interposing even 
so far as to arrest the progress of the evil, and thereby lo preserve 
the constitution itself, as well as to provide for Ihe safely of the 
parlies to it, there would be an end lo all relief from usurped power, 
and a direct subversion of the rights specified or recognised under 
all the slate constitutions, as well as a plain denial of the funda- 
mental principles on which our independence itself was declared." 

But, sir, our authorities do not stop here. The slate of Ken- 
tucky responded to Virginia, and on the lOlh of November, 1798, 
adopted those celebrated resolulions, well known to have been 
penned by the author of the declaration of American independence. 
In those resolulions, the legislature of Kentucky declare, " that the 
government created by this compact, was not made the exclusive or 
final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to ilself, since that 
Would have made its discretion, and not the constitution, the mea- 
sure of its powers ; hut that, as in all other cases of compact among 



and laws applicable to the measures adopted by the 
convention of South Carolina, and to the reasons 
they have put forth to sustain them, declaring the 



parlies having no common judge, each party has an equal right to 
judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure 
of redress." 

At the ensuing session of the legislature, the subject was re-ex- 
amined, and on ihe 14th of November, 1799, the resolutions of the 
preceding year were deliberately re-affirmed, and it was, among 
other things, solemnly declared, 

"That if those wtio administer the general government be per- 
mitted to transgress the limits fixed by that compact, by a total dis- 
regard to the special delegations of power therein contained, an an-_ 
nihilation of Ihe stale governments, and the erection upon their 
ruins of a general consolidated government, will be the inevitable 
consequence. That the principle and construction contended for 
by sundry of the state legislatures, that the general government is 
tlie exclusive judge of Ihe extent of the powers delegated to it, .stop 
nothing short of despotism; since the discretion of those who ad- 
minister the government, and not the constilulion, would be the 
measure of their powers. That the several states who formed that 
instrument, being sovereign and independent, have the unqtiestiona- 
ble right to judge of its infraction, and that a nullification by those 
sovereignties, of all unauthorized acts done under colour of that 
instrument, is the rightful remedy." 

Time and experience confirmed Mr. Jefferson's opinion on this 
all important [loint. In the year 1821, he expressed himself in this 
einphalic manner: " It is a fatal heresy lo suppose that either our 
stale governments are superior to the federal, or the federal lo the 
stale ; neither is authorized literally lo decide which belongs to 
ilself or its copartner in government; in differences of opinion be- 
tween their different sets of public servants, the appeal is lo neither, 
but to their employers, peaceably assembled by their representa- 
tives in convention." The opinion of Mr. Jefferson on this subject 
has been so repeatedly and so solemnly expressed, that they may 
be said to have been among the most fixed and settled convictions 
of his mind. 

In Ihe prolest prepared by him for Ihe legislature of Virginia, in 
December, 1825, in respect lo the powers exercised by the federal 
government in relation to the tariff and internal improvements, 
which he declares to be "usurpations of the powers retained by 
the stales, mere interpolations into the compact, and direct infrac- 
tions of it," — he solemnly reasserts all the principles of Ihe Vir- 
ginia resolulions of '98 — protests against " these acts of the federal 
branch of the government, as null and void, and declares, tliat al- 
though Virginia would consider a dissolution of the union as 
among the greatest calamities that could befall them, yet it is not 
the greatest. There is one yet greater — submission to a govern- 
ment of unlimited powers. It is only when the hope of this shall 
become absolutely desperate, that further forbearance could not be 
indulged." 

In his leiier to Mr. Giles, written about the same time, he says; 

" I see, as you do, and with the deepest affliction, the rapid strides 
with which the federal branch of our government is advancing to- 
wards ihe usurpation of all the rights reserved to ihe state, and the 
consolidalinn in ilself of all powers, foreign and domestic, and that 
loo, by constructions which leave no limits to their powers, &c. 
Under Ihe power lo regulate commerce, they assume indefinitely 
that also over agriculture and manufactures, &c. Under the au. 
Ihorily lo establish post roads, they claim that of cutting down 
mountains for Ihe construction of roads and digging canals, &c. 
And what is our resource for the preservation of the constitution 1 
Reason and argument t You might as well reason and argue with 
the marble columns encircling them, &c. Are we then to stand 
to our arms, with the hol-headed Georgian 1 No — [and I say no, 
and South 'Carolina has said no] — that must be the last resource. 
We must have patience and long endurance with our brethren, &c. 
and separate from our companions only when Ihe sole alternaliveo 
left are a dissolution of our union with them, or submission to a 
government without limitation of powers. Between these two evils, 
when we must make a choice, there can be no hesitation.*" 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



399 



course which duty will require me to pursue, and 
appealing to the understanding and patriotism of the 
people, warn them of the consequences that muat 

Such, sir, are the high and imposing authorities in support of 
" the Carolina doctrine," whicli is, in lact, the doctrine of the Vir- 
ginia resolutions of 1798. 

Sir, at that day the whole country was divided on this very ques- 
tion. It formed the line of demarcation between the federal and 
republican parties, and the great political revolution which then 
took place turned upon the very question involved in these resolu- 
tions. That question was decided by the people, and by that de- 
cision the constitution was, in the emphatic language of Mr. Jeffer- 
son, " saved at its last gasp." I should suppose, sir, it would re- 
quire more self-respect than any gentleinan liere would be willing 
to assume, to treat lightly doctrines derived from such high sources. 
Resting on authority like this, I will ask genllemen whether South 
Carolina has not manifested a high regard for the union, when 
under a tyranny ten times more grievous than the alien and sedi- 
tion laws, she has hitherto gone no further than to petition, remon- 
strate, and solemnly to protest against a scries of measures which 
she believes to be wholly unconstitutional, and utterly destructive 
of her interests'? Sir, South Carolina has not gone one step fur- 
ther than Mr. Jefferson hitnself was disposed to go, in relation to 
the very subject of our present complaints; not a step further than 
the statesmen from New England were disposed to go under simi- 
lar circumstances ; no further than the senator from Massachusetts 
himself once considered as within " the limits of a constitutional 
opposition." The doctrine thai it is .the right of a slate to judge of 
the violations of the constitution on the part of the federal govern- 
ment, and to protect her citizens from the operations of unconsiilu- 
tional laws, was held by the enlightened citizens of Boston, who as- 
sembled in Paneuil Hall, on the 25th of January, 1809. They 
slate, in that celebrated memorial, that " they looked only to the 
state legislature, who were competent to devise relief against the 
unconstitutional acts of the general government. That your power 
(say they) is adequate to that object, is evident from the organiza- 
tion of the confederacy." 

A distinguished senator from one of the New England states, 
[Mr. Hillhouse,] in a speech delivered here, on a bill for enforcing 
the embargo, declared, " 1 feel myself hound in conscience to de- 
clare, (lest the blood of those who shall fall in the execution of this 
measure, shall be on my head,) that I consider this to be an act 
which directs a mortal blow at the liberties of my country — an act 
containing unconstitutional provisions, to which the people are not 
bound to submit, and to which, in my opinion, they will not submit." 

And the senator from Massachusetts himself, in a speech deli- 
vered on the same subject, in the other house, said, " This opposition 
is constitutional and legal ; it is also conscientious. It rests on 
settled and sober conviction, that such policy is destructive to the 
interests of the people, and dangerous to the being of the govern- 
ment. The experience of every day confirms these sentiments. 
Men who act from .such motives, are not to be discouraged by tri- 
fling obstacles, nor awed by any dangers. They know the limit of 
constitutional opposition : up to that limit, at their own discretion, 
they will walk, and walk fearlessly.' How " the being of the go- 
vernment" was to be endangered by "constitutional opposition" to 
the embargo, I leave to the gentleman to explain. 

Thus, it will be seen, Mr. President, that the South Carolina 
doctrine is the republican doctrine of '98; that it was first promul- 
gated by the fathers of the faiih ; that it was maintained by Vir- 
ginia and Kentucky in the worst of times ; that it constituted the 
very pivot on which the political revolution of that day turned ; 
that it embraces the very principles, the triumph of which, at that 
time, saved- the constitution at its last gasp, and which New Eng- 
land statesmen were not unwilling to adopt, when they believed 
themselves lobe the victims of uneonslitulional fegislalion. Sir, as 
to the doctrine that the federal government is ihr exclusive judge of 
the extent, as well as the limitations of its po vers, it seems to me 
to be lUterly st;''versive of the sovereignty and independence of the 
states. It makes but little difference, in my estimation, whether 
congress or the supreme court are invested with this power. If the 
federal sovernment, in all, or any of its departments, are to pre- 

51 



inevitably result from an observance of the dictates 
of the convention. 

" Strict duty would require of me nothing more than 



scribe the limits of its own authority, and the stales are bound tc 
submit to the decision, and are not to be allowed to examine anc 
decide for themselves, when the barriers of the constitution shall 
be overleaped, this is practically " a government without limitation 
of powers." The states are at once reduced to mere petty corpo- 
rations, and the people are entirelj' at your mercy. I have but one 
word more to add. In all the efforts that have been made by South 
Carolina, to resist the unconstitutional laws which congress has 
extended over them, she has kept steadily in view the preservation 
of the union, by the only means by which she believes it can be 
long preserved — a firm, manly, and steady resistance against usur- 
pation. The measures of the federal government have, it is true, 
prostrated her interests, and will soon involve the whole south in 
irretrievable ruin. But even this evil, great as it is, is not the chiei 
ground of our complaints. It is the principle involved in the con- 
test, a principle which, substituting the discretion of congress for 
the limitations of the constitution, bring the states and the people 
to the feet of the federal government, and leaves them nothing they 
can call their own. Sir, if the measures of the federal government 
were less oppressive, we should still strive against this usurpation 
The south is acting on a principle she has always held sacred — re 
sistance to unauthorized taxation. These, sir, are the principles 
which induced the immortal Plampden to resist the payment of a 
tax of twenty shillings. Would twent}' shillings have ruined liis 
fortune 1 No; Inil the payment of half twenty shillings, on the 
principle on which it was demanded, would have made him a slave 
Sir, if, in acting on these high motives — if animated by that ardent 
love of liberty which has always been the most prominent trait in 
the southern character — we should be hurried beyond the bounds o) 
a cold and calculating prudence, who is there, with one noble and 
generous sentiment in his bosom, that would not be disposed, in the 
languiige of Burke, to exclaim, " you must pardon something to the 
spirit of liberty !" 

After Mr. Hayne had concluded, Mr. Webster made the follow- 
ing reply to his speech : — 

Mr. President : When the mariner has been tossed, for manv 
days, in thick weather, and on an unknown sea, he naturally avails 
himself of the first pause in the storm, the earliest glance of the 
sun, to take his latitude, and ascertain how far the elements have 
driven him from his true course. Let us imitate this prudence, and, 
before we float further, refer to the point from which we departed, 
that we may at least be able to conjecture where we now are. ' 
ask for the reading of the resolution. 

[The secretary read the resolution as follows: 

" Re><olved, that the committee on public lands be instructed to 
inquire and report the quantity of the public lands remaining un- 
sold within each stale and territory, and whether it be expedient to 
limit, for a certain period, the sales of the public lands to such 
lands only as have heretofore been offered for sale, and are now 
subject to entry at the minimum price. And, also, whether the 
office of surveyor general, and some of the land offices, may not be 
abolished without detriment to the public interest ; or whether it be 
expedient to adopt measures to hasten the sales, and extend more 
rapidly the surveys of the public lands."] 

We have thus heard, sir, what the resolution is, which is actu- 
ally before us for consideration ; and it will readily occur to every 
one, that it is almost the only subject about which something has not 
been said in the speech, running through two days, by which the 
senate has been now entertained by the gentleman from South Ca- 
rolina. Every topic in the wide range of our public affaiis, whclh- 
er past or present -every thing, general or local, -whether belonging 
to national politics or party politics, seems to have attracted more 
or less of the honourable member's attention, save only the resolu- 
tion before us. He has spoken of every thing but the public lands. 
They have escaped his notice. To that subject, in all his excur- 
sions, he has not paid even the cold respect of a pa.ssing glance. 

When this debate, sir, w-as (o be resumed, on Thursday morning, 
it so happened that it would have been convenient for me to be 
elsewhere. The honourable member, however, did not incline to 



400 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



the exercise of those powers with which I am now, 
or may hereafter be invested, for preserving the peace 
of the union, and for the execution of the laws. But 

fiut off the discussion to anolher day. He had a shot, he said, to 
return, and he wished to discharge it. That shot, sir, which it 
was kind thus to inform us was coming, that we might stand out 
of the way, or prepare ourselves to fall before it, and die with de- 
cency, has now been received. Under all advantages, and with 
t'.\pectation awakened by the tone which preceded it, it has been 
discharged, and has spent \\.n force. It may become me to say no 
more of its effect, than that, if nobody is found, after all, either 
killed or wounded by it, it is not the iirst time, in the history of 
human affairs, that the vigour and success of the war have not 
quite come up to the lofty and sounding phrase of the manifesto. 

The gentleman, sir, in declining to postjione the debate, told the 
senate, with the emphasis of his hand upon his heart, that there 
was something rankling here which he wished to relieve. [Mr. 
Hayne rose, and disclaimed having used the word rayikling.] It 
would not, Mr. President, be safe for the honourable member to 
appeal to those around him, upon the question, whether he did, in 
fact, make use of that word. But he may have been unconscious 
of it. At any rate, it is enough that he disclaims it. But still, with 
or without the use of that particular word, he had yet something 
here, he said, of which he wished to rid himself by an imiuediate 
reply. In this respect, sir, I have a great advantage over the ho- 
nourable gentleman. There is nothing Acre, sir, which gives me 
the slightest uneasiness; neither fear, nor anger, nor that which is 
sometimes more troublesome than either, the consciousness of 
having been in the wrong. There is nothing, either originating 
kcre, or now received here, by the gentleman's shot. Nothing ori- 
ginal, for I had not the slightest feeling of disiespect or unkindness 
towards the honourable member. Some passages, it is true, had 
occurred since our acquaintance in this body, which I could have 
wished might have been otherwise; but I had used philosophy, and 
forgotten them. AVhen the honourable member rose, in his first 
.speech, I paid him the respect of attentive listening; and when he 
sat down, though surprised, and I must say even astonished, at 
some of his opinions, nothing was further from my intention, than 
to commence any personal warfare ; and through the whole of the 
few remarks I made in answer, 1 avoided, studiously and carefully, 
every thing which I thought possible to be construed into disre- 
spect. And, sir, while there is thus nothing originating here, which 
I wished at any time, or now wish to discharge, I must repeat, also, 
that nothing has been received here which rankles, or in any way 
gives me annoyance. I will not accuse the honourable member of 
violating the rules of civilized war ; I will not soy that he poisoned 
his arrows. But whether his shafts were, or were not, dipped in 
that which would have caused rankling, if they had reached, there 
was not, as it happened, quite strength enough in the bow to bring 
Ihem to their mark. If he wishes now to gather up those shai'is, 
he must look for them elsewhere ; they will not be found fixed and 
quivering in the object at which they were aimed. 

The honourable member complained that I had slept on his .speech. 
I must have slept on it, or not slept at all. The moment the ho- 
nourable member sal down, his friend from Missouri rose, and 
with much honeyed commendation of the speech, suggested that the 
impressions which it had produced were too charming and delight- 
ful to be disturbed by other sentiments or other sounds, and pro- 
posed that the senate should adjourn. Would it have been quite 
amiable in me, sir, to interrupt this excellent good feeling? Must 
I not have been absolutely malicious, if I could have thrust myself 
forward to destroy sensations thus pleasing 7 Was it not mucn 
belter and kinder, both to sleep upon them myself, and to allow 
others, also, the pleasure of sleejiing upon ihem 1 But if it be 
meant, by sleeping upon his speecli, that I took time to prepare a 
reply to it, it is quite a mistake ; owing to other engagements, I 
could not employ even the interval between the adjournment of the 
senate, and its meeting the next morning, in attention to the subject 
of this debate. Nevertheless, sir, the mere matter of fact is un- 
doubtedly true — I did sleep on the gentleman's speech, and slept 
soundly. And I slept equally well on his speech of yesterday, to 
V'liicli I am now replying. It is quite possible, that, in this re.spect 



the imposing aspect which opposition has assumed m 
this case, by clothing itself with state authority, and 
the deep interest which the people of the United 

also, I possess some advantage over the honourable member, attri- 
butable, doubtless, to a cooler temperament on my part; for, in 
truth, I slept upon his .speeches remarkably well. But the gentle- 
man inquires, why he was made the object of such a replyl Why 
was he singled outl If an attack had been made on the east, he 
he assures us, did not begin it — it was the gentleman from Missouri. 
Sir, I answered the gentleman's speech, because I happened to lieai 
it ; and because, also, I chose to give an answer to that speech, 
which, if unanswered, I thought most likely to produce injurious 
impressions. I did not slop to inquire who was the original drawer 
ol the bill. 1 found a responsible endorser before me, and it was 
my purpos^ to hold him liable, and to bring him lo his just respon- 
sibility, without delay. But, sir, this interrogatory of the honoura- 
ble member was only introductory to another. He proceeded to 
ask me, whether I had turned upon him, in this debate, from the 
consciou.sness that 1 should find an over-match, if I ventured on a 
contest with his friend from Missouri. If, sir, the honourable 
member, ex ernlia vwdestitr, had chosen thus to defer to his friend, 
and lo pay him a complinncnt, without intentional disparagement 
to others, it would have been quite according to the friendly cour- 
tesies of debate, and not at all ungrateful to my own feelings. 1 
am not one of those, sir, who esteem any tribute of regard, whether 
light and occasional, or more serious and deliberate, which may he 
bestowed on others, as so much unjustly wiihholden from them- 
selves. But the lone and manner of the gentleman's question, for- 
bid me that I thus interpret it. I am not at liberty lo consider 
it as nothing more than a civility to his friend. It had an air ol 
taunt and disparagement, a little of the loftiness of asserted supe- 
riority, which does no\ allow me lo pass it over without notice. It 
was put as a question for me to answer, and so put, as if it w ere 
difficult for me to answer, whether I deemed the member from Mis- 
souri an over-match for myself, in debate here. It seems to me, 
sir, that this is extraordinary language, and an extraordinary tone, 
for the discussions of this body. 

Matches and over-matches ! Those terms are more applicable 
elsewhere than here, and filler for other assemblies than this. Sir, 
the gentleman seems to forget where and what we are. This is a 
senate; a senate of equals; of men of individual honour and per- 
sonal character, and of absolute independence. We know no 
masters ; we acknowledge no dictators. This is a hall for mutua' 
consultation and discus.sion ; not an arena for the exhibition o. 
champions. I offer myself, sir, as a match for no man ; I throw 
the challenge of debate at no man's feel. But then, sir, since the 
honourable member has put the question, in a manner that calls for 
an answer, I will give him an answer; and I tell him, that, hold- 
ing myself lo be Ihe humblest of the members here, 1 yet know 
nothing in the arm of his friend from Missouri, either alone or 
when aided by the arm of Ms friend from South Carolina, that need 
deter even me from espousing whatever opinions 1 may choose to 
espouse, from debating whenever I may choose lo debate, or from 
.speaking whatever I may see fit to say, on the floor of the senate. 
Sir, when uttered as matter of commendation or compliment, I 
should dissent from nothing which the honourable member might 
say of his friend. Still le.ss do I put forth any pretensions of my 
own. But, when put to me as mailer of taunt, I throw it back, 
and say to the gentleman, that he could possibly say nothing less 
likely than such a comparison, lo wound my pride of personal cha- 
racler. The anger of ils lone rescued the remark from intentional 
irony, which otherwise, probably, would have been its general ac- 
ceptation. Bui, sir, if it be imagined thai by this mutual quotation 
and commendation; if it be supposed that, by casting the charac- 
ters of the drama, assigning to each his parl^lo one the attack, lo 
anolher ihe cry of onset ; or if it he ihoughl Ihal, by a loud and 
empty vaunt of aniicipaied victory, any laurels are to be won here; 
if ii he imagined, especially, that any or all Ihese things will shake 
any purpose of mine, I can lell Ihe honourable member, once for 
all, that he is greatly mistaken, and that he is dealing with one of 
whose temper and character he hasyel much to learn. S.'r, I shall 
not allow myself, on this occasion, I hope on no oceaiion, to be be- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



401 



States must all feel in preventing a resort to stronger 
measures, while there is a hope that any thing will be 
yielded to reasoning and remonstrance, perhaps de- 

trayed into any loss of temper; but, if provoked, as I trust I never 
shall allow myself lo be, into crimination and recrimination, the 
honourable member may perhaps find, that, in that contest, there 
will be blows to take as well as blows to give ; that others can 
state comparisons as significant, at least, as his own; and that his 
impunity may, perhaps, ilemand of him whatever powers of taunt 
and sarcasm he may possess. I commend him lo a prudent hus- 
bandry of his resources. 

But, sir, the coalition ! The coalition ! Ay, " the murdered coa- 
lition !" The gentleman asks, if I were led or frighted into this 
debate by the spectre of the coalition. " Was it the ghost of the 
murdered coalition," he exclaims, " which haunted the member 
from Massachusetts, and which, like the ghost of Eanquo, would 
never down V "The murdered coalition!" Sir, this charge of 
a coalition, in reference to the late administration, is not original 
with the honourable member. It did not spring up in the senate. 
Whether as a fact, as an argument, or as an embellishment, it is 
all borrowed. He adopts it, indeed, from a very low origin, and a 
still lower present condition. It is one of the thousand calumnies 
with which the press teemed during an e.xcited political canvass. 
It was a charge pf which there was not only no proof or probabili- 
ty, but which was, in itself, wholly impossible to be true. No man 
of common information ever believed a syllable of it. Yet it was 
of that class of falsehoods, which, by continued repetition, through 
all the organs of detraction and abuse, are capable of misleading 
those who are already far misled, and of further fanning passion, 
already kindling into flame. Doubtless, it served in its day, and, 
in greater or less degree, the end designed by it. Having done 
that, it has sunk into the general mass of stale and loathed calum- 
nies. It is the very cast-off slough of a polluted and shameless 
press. Incapable of further mischief, it lies in the sewer, lifeless 
and despised. It is not now, sir, in the power of the honourable 
member to give it dignity or decency, by attempting to elevate it, 
and to introduce it into the senate. He can not change it from 
what it is, an object of general disgust and scorn On the contra- 
ry, the contact, if he choose to touch it, is more likely to drag him 
down, down, to the place where il lies itself. 

But, sir, the honourable member was not, for other reasons, en- 
tirely happy in his allusion to the story of Banquo's murder and 
Banquo's ghost. It was not, I think, the friends, bul the enemies 
of the murdered Banquo, at whose bidding his spirit would not 
down. The honourable gentleman is fresh in his reading of the 
English classics, and can put me right, if I am wrong; but, ac- 
cording to my poor recollection, il was at those who had begun with 
caresses, and ended with foul and treacherous murder, that the gory 
locks were shaken. The ghost of Banquo, like that of Hamlet, was 
an honest ghost. It disturbed no innocent man. It knew where 
its appearance would strike terror, and who would cry out, a ghost! 
It made itself visible in the right quarter, and compelled the guilty 
and the conscience-smitten, and none others, to start, with 

" Pry'thee, see there ! behold !— look ! lo I 
If I stand here, I saw him !" 

T%ar eye-balls were seared (was it not so, sir?) who had thought 
to shield themselves, by concealing their own hand, and laying the 
imputation of the crime on a low and hireling agency in wicked- 
ness, who had vainly attempted to stifle the workings of their own 
coward consciences, by ejaculating, through v.'hite lips and chatter- 
ing teeth, " Thou canst not say I did it !" I have misread the 
great poet, if it was those who had no way partaken in the deed of 
the death, who either found that they were, or feared tkai they should 
he, pushed from their stools by thf ghost of the slain ; or who ex- 
claimed, to a spectre created by their own fears, and their own re- 
morse, " Avaunt ! and quit our sight!" 

There is another particular, sir, in which the honourable mem- 
ber's quick perception of resemblances might, I should think, have 
.seen something in the story of Banquo, making it not altogether a 
subject of the most pleasant contemplation. Those who rtiurdered 



mand, and will certainly justify a full exposition to 
South Carolina and the nation of the views I entertain 
of this important question, as well as a distinct enun- 

Banquo, what did they win by it '\ Substantial good 1 Permanent 
power 1 Or disappointment, rather, and sore mortification — dusl 
and ashes — the common late of vaulting ambition, overleaping it- 
self? Did not even-handed justice, ere long, commend the poi- 
soned chalice to their own lipsl Did they not soon find that for 
another they had " filled their mind ■?" that their ambition, though 
apparently for the moment successful, had but put a barren sceptre 
in 4heir grasp 1 Ay, sir, 

" A barren sceptre in their gripe, 
Thence to be wrenched by an nnlineal hand, 
A^ S07L of their^s succeeding." 

Sir, I need pursue the allusion no further. I leave the honoura- 
ble gentleman to run it out at his leisure, and to derive from it all 
the gratification it is calculated to administer. If he finds himsell 
pleased with the associations, and prepared to be quite satisfied, 
though the parallel should be entirely completed, I had almost said, 
I am satisfied also; but that I shall think of. Yes, sir, I will think 
of that. 

In the course of my observations, the other day, Mr. President, 
I paid a passing tribute of respect to a very worthy man, Mr. Dane, 
of Massachusetts. It so happened, that he drew the ordinance ot 
1787, for the government of the Northwestern Territory. A man 
of so much ability, and so little pretence ; of so great a capacity to 
do good, and so unmixed a disposition to do it for its own sake ; a 
gentleman who acted an important part, forty years ago, in a mea- 
sure, the influence of which is still deeply felt in the very matter 
which was the subject of debate, might, I thought, receive from me 
a commendatory recognition. 

But the honourable member was inclined to be facetious on the 
subject. He was rather di.sposed to make it matter of ridicule, that 
I had introduced into the debate the name of one Nathan Dane, of 
whom, he assures us, he had never before heard. Sir, if the ho- 
nourable member had never before heard of Mr. Dane, I am sorry 
for it. It shows him less acquainted with the public men of the 
country than I had sujiposed. Let me tell him, however, that a 
sneer from him, at the mention of the name of Mr. Dane, is in bad 
taste. It may well be a high mark of ambition, sir, either with the 
honourable gentleman or myself, to accomplish as much to make 
our names known to advantage, and remembered with gratitude, 
as Mr. Dane has accomplished. But the truth is, sir, I suspect, 
that Mr. Dane lives fl, little too far north. He is of Massachusetts, 
and too near the north star to be reached by the honourable gentle- 
man's telescope. If his sphere had happened to range south ot 
Mason's and Dixon's line, he might, probably, have come within 
the scope of his vision ! 

I spoke, sir, of the ordinance of 1787, which prohibited slavery, 
in all future times, northwest of the Ohio, as a measure of great 
wisdom and foresight, and one which had been attended with highly 
beneficial and permanent consequences. I suppose, that, on this 
point, no two gentlemen in the senate could entertain diffeient 
opinions. But, the simple expression of this sentiment has led the 
gentleman, not only into a laboured defence of slavery, in the ab- 
stract, and on principle, but also into a warm accu.sation against 
me, as having attacked the system of domestic slavery, now exist- 
ing in the southern slates. For all this, there was not the slightest 
foundation, in any thing said or intimated by me. I did not utter 
a single word, which any ingenuity could torture into an attack on 
the slavery of the south. I said only, that it was highly wise and 
useful, in legislating for the northwestern country, while it was yet 
a wilderness, to prohibit the introduction of slaves; and added, 
that, I presumed, in the neighbouring slate of Kentucky, there was 
no reflecting and intelligent gentleman, who would doubt, that if 
the same prohibition had been extended, at the same early period, 
over Ihat commonwealth, her strength and population would, at this 
day, have been far greater than they are. If these opinions be 
thought doubtful, they are, nevertheless, I trust, neither extraordi- 
nary nor disrespectful. They attack nobodv, and menace nobody, 



402 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



ciation of the course which my sense of duty will 
require me to pursue. 

" The ordinance is founded, not on the indefeasi- 



And yet, sir, the gentleman's optics have discovered, even in tlie 
mere expression of this sentiment, what he calls the very spirit of 
the Missouri question ! He represents me as making an onset on 
the whole south, and manifesting a spirit which would interfere 
with, and disturb their domestic condition ! Sir, this injustice no 
otherwise surprises me, than as it is done here, and done without 
the slightest pretence of gronnd for it. I say it only surprises me, 
as being dune here ; for I know full well, that it is, and has been, 
the settled policy of some persons in the south, for years, to repre- 
sent the people of the north as disposed to interfere with them in 
their own exclusive and peculiar concerns. This is a delicate and 
sensitive point in southern feeling; and of late yea»B it has alwaj's 
been touched, and generally with effect, whenever the object has 
been to unite the whole south against northern men, or northern 
measures. This feeling, always carefully kept alive, and main- 
tained at too intense a heat to .idmit discrimination or reflection, is 
a lever of great power in our political machine. It moves vast 
bodies, and gives to them one and the same direction. But the 
feeling is without all adequate cause, and the suspicion which ex- 
ists wholly groundless. There is not, and never has been, a di.spo- 
sition in the north to interfere with these interests of the south. 
Such interference has never been supposed to be within the power 
of government ; nor has it been in any way attempted. It has al- 
ways been regarded as a matter of doinestic policy, left with the 
states themselves, and with which the federal^ government had 
nothing to do. Certainly, sir, I am, and ever have been, of that 
opinion. The gentleman, indeed, argues that slavery, in the ab- 
stract, is no evil. Most assuredly, I need not say I Jitfer with him 
altogether and most widely on that point. I regard domestic slave- 
ry as one of the greatest of evils, both moral and political. But, 
though it be a malady, and whether it be curable, and if so, by 
what means; or, on the other hand, whether it be the vulnus im- 
medicaode of the social system, I leave it to tho.se whose right 
and duty it is to inquire and to decide. And this, I believe, sir, is, 
and uniformly has been, the sentiment of the north. Let us look 
a little at the history of this matter. 

When the present constitution was submitted for the ratification 
of the people, there were those who imagined that the powers of 
the government which it proposed to establish, might, perhaps, in 
some possible mode, be exerted in measures tending to the abolition 
of slavery. This suggestion would of course attract much atten- 
tion in the southern conventions. In that of Virginia, Governor 
Randolph said : 

" I hope there is none here who, considering the subject in the 
calm light of philosophy, will make an objection dishonourable to 
Virginia — that, at the moment they are securing the rights of their 
citizens, an objection is started, that there is a spark of hope that 
those unfortunate men now held in bondage, may, by the operation 
of the general government, be made free." 

At the very first congress, petitions on the subject were presented, 
if I mistake not, from different states. The Pennsylvania Society 
for promoting the Abolition of Slavery, took a lead, and laid be- 
fore congress a memorial, praying congress to promote the aboli- 
tion by such powers as it possessed. This memorial was referred, 
in the house of representatives, to a select committee, consisting of 
Mr. Fosier,.of New Hampshire; Mr. Gerry, of Massachusetts; 
Mr. Huntington, of Connecticut; Mr. Lawrence, of New York: 
Mr. Sinnickson, of New Jersey; Mr. Hartley, of Pennsylvania; 
and Mr. Parker, of Virginia. All of them, sir, as you will ob- 
serve, northern men, but the last. This committee made a report, 
which was committed to a committee of the whole house, and there 
considered and discussed on several days; and being amended, al- 
• hough in no material respect, it was made to express three distinct 
uropositions on the subjects of^ .slavery and the slave trade. First, 
in the words of the constitution, that congress could not, prior to 
the year 1808, prohibit the migration or importation of such per- 
sons as any of the stales, then existing, should think proper to 
odmit. Second, that congress had authority to restrain the citizens 
of the United States from carrying on the African slave trade, for 



ble right of resisting acts which are plainly unconsti- 
tutional and too oppressive to be endured ; but on 
the strange position that any one state may not only 



the purpose of supplying foreign countries. On this proposition, 
our early laws against those who engage in that traffic are found- 
ed. The third proposition, and that which bears on the present 
question, was expressed in the following terms: 

" Bi'soht'd, That congress have no authority to interfere in llie 
emancipation of slaves, or in the treatment of them in any of the 
states; it remaining with the several states alone to provide rules 
and regulations therein, which humanity and true policy may re- 
quire." 

This resolution received the sanction of the house of representa- 
tives so early as March, 1790. And now, sir, the honourable 
member will allow me to remind him, that not only were the select 
committee who reported the resolution, with a single exception, all 
northern men, but also that of the members then composing the 
house of representatives, a large majority, I believe nearly two 
thirds, were northern men also. 

The house agreed to insert these resolutions in its journal ; and, 
from that day to this, it has never b%en maintained or contended, 
that congress had any authority to regulate, or interfere with, the 
condition of slaves in the several states. No northern gentleman, 
to my knowledge, has moved any such question in either house of 
congress. 

The fears of the south, whatever fears they might have enter- 
tained, were allayed and quieted by this early decision ; and so re- 
mained, till they were excited afresh, without cause but for collate- 
ral and indirect purposes. When it became necessary, or was 
thought so, by some political persons, to find an unvarying ground 
for the exclusion of northern men from confidence and from lead 
in the affairs of the republic, then, and not till then, the cry was 
raised, and the feeling industriously excited, that the influence of 
northern men in the public councils would endanger the relation of 
master and slave. For myself, I claim no other merit, than that 
this gross and enormous injustice towards the whole north, has 
not wrought upon me to change my opinions, or. my political con- 
duct. I hope I am above violating any principles, even under the 
smart of injury and false imputations. Unjust suspicions and un- 
deserved reproach, whatever pain I may experience from them, 
will not induce nie, I trust, nevertheless, to overstep the limits of 
constitutional duty, or to encroach on the rights of others. The 
domestic slavery of the south, I leave where I find it.— in the hands 
of their own governments. It is their affair, not mine. Nor do I 
complain of the peculiar effect which the magnitude of that popu- 
lation has had in the distribution of power under this federal go- 
vernment. We know, sir, that the representation of the stales in 
the other house, is not equal. We know that great advantage, in 
that respect, is enjoyed by the slave-holding states; and we know, 
too, that the intended equivalent for that advantage, that is to say, 
the imposition of diiect taxes in the same ratio, has become merely 
nominal ; the habit of the government being almost invariably to 
collect its revenues from other sources, and in other modes. Never- 
theless, I do not complain, nor would I countenance any movement 
to alter this ariangemcnt of representation. It is the original bar- 
gain, the compact — let it stand: let the advantage of it be fully en- 
joyeil. The union itself is too full of benefit to be hazarded in pro- 
positions for changing its original basis. I go for the constitution 
as it is, and for the union as it is. But I am resolved not to sub- 
mit in silence to accusations, either against myself individually, or 
against the north, wholly unfounded and unjust; accusations which 
impute to us a disposition to evade the constitutional compact, and 
to extend the power of the government over the internal laws and 
domestic condition of the states. All such accusations, wherever 
and whenever made; all insinuations of the existence of any such 
purposes, I know and feel to be groundless and injurious, And w-e 
must confide in southern gentlemen themselves; we must trust to 
those W'hose integrity of heart and magnanimity of feeling will lead 
them to a desire to maintain and disseminate truth, and who pos- 
sess the means of its diffusion with the southern public; we must 
leave it to them to disabuse that public of its prejudices. But, in 
the mean time, for my own part, I shall continue to act jastly, 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



403 



declare an act of cons^ress void, but prohibit its ex- 
ecution — that they may do tliis consistently with the 
constitution — that the true construction of that 

whether those towards whom justice is exercised receive it with 
candour or with contumely. 

Having had occasion to recur to the ordinance of 17.87, in order 
to defend myself against the inferences which the honourable mem- 
ber has chosen to draw from my observations on that subject, I am 
not willing now entirely to take leave of it without another remark. 
It need hardly be said, that that paper expresses just sentiments on 
the great subject of civil and religious liberty. Such senlimenis 
were common, and abound in all our slate papers of that day. But 
this ordinance did that which was not so common, and which is not, 
even new, universal ; that is, it set forth and declared, as a high 
and binding duty of government itself, to encourage schools, and 
advance the means of education ; on the plain reason, that religion, 
iforality, and knowledge, are necessary to good government, and 
to the hai)piness of mankind. One observation further. The im- 
portant provision incorporated into the constitution of the United 
Slates, and several of those of the states, and recently, as we have 
seen, adopted into the reformed constitution of Virginia,' restrain- 
ing legislative power, in questions of private right, and from im- 
pairing the obligation of contracts, is first introduced and establish- 
ed, as far as I am informed, as matter of express written constitu- 
tional law, in this ordinance of 1787. And I must add, also, in 
regard to the author of the ordinance, who has not had the happi- 
ness to attract the gentleman's notice, heretofore, nor to avoid his 
sarcasm now, that he was chairman of that select comraiiiee of 
the old congress, whose report first expressed the strong sense of 
that body, that the old confederation was not adequate to the exi- 
gencies of the country, and recommending to the states to send 
delegates to the convention which formed the present constitution. 

An attempt has been made to transfer from the north to the 
south, the honour of this exclusion of slavery from the Northwest- 
ern Territory. The journal, without argument or comiuent, re- 
futes such attempt. The cession by Virginia was made March, 
1784. On ihe 19lh of April following, a committee, corisisting of 
Messrs. Jefferscm, Chase, and Howell, reported a plan for a tempo- 
rary government of the territory, in which was this article: " thai, 
after the year 1800, there shall be neither slavery, nor involuntary 
servitude, in any of the said states, otherwise than in punishment 
of crimes, whereof the party shall have been convicted." Mr. 
Spaight, of North Carolina, moved to strike out this paragraph. 
The question was put, according to the form then practised ; 
"shall these words stand as part of the plan," &c. New Hamp- 
shire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New 
Jersey, and Pennsylvania — seven stales, voted in the affirmative. 
Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina, in the negative. North 
Carolina was divided. As the consent of the nine slates was ne- 
cessary, the words could not stand, and were struck out according- 
ly. Mr. Jefferson voted for the clause, but was overruled by his 
colleagues. 

In March of tne next year, (1785,) Mr. King, of Massachusetts, 
seconded by Mr. Ellery, of Rhode Island, proposed the formerly re- 
jected article, with this addition : " And that this regulation shall be 
an article of compact, and remain a fundamental principle of the con- 
slitulions between the thirteen original stales, and each of the stales de- 
scribed in the resolve" &c. On this clause, which provided the 
adequate and thorough security, the eight northern states at that 
time voted aflirmatively, and the four southern stales negatively. 
The votes of nine states were not yet obtained, and thus, the pro- 
vision has again rejected by the southern states. The perseverance 
ot the north held out, and two years afterwards the object was at- 
tained. It is no derogation from the credit, whatever that maybe, 
of drawing the ordinance, that its principles had before been pre- 
pared and discussed, in Ihe form of resolutions. If one should rea- 
son in that way, what would become of the distinguished honour 
of the author of the declaration of independence 1 There is not 
a sentiment in that paper which had not been voted and resolved in 
Ihe assemblies, and other popular bodies in the country, over and 
over again. 

But the honourable member has now found out that this gentle- 



instrument permits a state to retain its place in the 
union, and yet be bound by no other of its laws 
than those it m;iy choose to consider as constitution- 



man, Mr. Dane, was a member of the Hartford convention. How- 
ever uninformed the honourable member may be of characters and 
occurrences at the north, it would seem that he has at his elbow on 
this occasion, some high-minded and lofty spirit, some magnani- 
mous and true-hearled monitor, possessing the means of local know- 
ledge, and ready to supply the honourable member with every thing, 
down even to forgotten and molh-eaten twopenny pamphlet.s, which 
may be used to the disadvantage of his own country. But as to 
the Hartford coiivehtion, sir, allow me to say, that the proceedings 
of that body seem now to be less read and studied in New England 
than further south. They appear to be looked to, not in New Eng- 
land, but elsewhere, for the purpose of seeing how far they may 
serve as a precedent. But they will not answer the purpose ; they 
are quite loo tame. The latitude in whicli they originated was too 
cold. Other conventions, of more recent existence, have gone a 
whole bar's length beyond it. The learned doctors of Colleton and 
Abbeville have pushed their commentaries on the Hartford collect 
.so far, that tlie original text-writers are ihiown entiiely into the 
shade. I have nothing to do, sir, with the Hartford convention. 
Its journal, which the gentleman has quoted, I never read. So far 
as the honourable member may discover in its proceedings a spirit 
in any degree resembling that which was avowed and justified in 
those other conventions to which I have alluded, or so far as those 
proceedings can be shown to be disloyal to the constitution, or tend- 
ing to disunion, so far I shall be as ready as any one to bestow on 
them reprehension and censure. 

Having dwelt long on this convention, and other occurrences of 
that day, in the hope, probably, (which will not be gratified,) that 
I should leave the course of this debate to follow him at length in 
those discussions, the honourable member returned, and attempted 
another object He referred to a speech of mine in the other house, 
the same which I had occasion to allude to myself the other day, 
and has quoted a passage or two from it, with a bold, though un- 
easy and labouring air of confidence, as if he had delected in me 
an inconsistency. Judging from the gentleman's manner, a stranger 
to the course of the debate, and to the point in discussion, would 
have imagined, from so triumphant a tone, that the honourable 
member was about to overwhelm me with a manifest contradiction. 
Any one who heard him, and who had not heard what I had, in 
fact, previously said, must have thought me routed and discomfited, 
as the gentleman had promised. Sir, a breath blows all this tri- 
umph away. There is not the .slightest difl^erence in the senti- 
ments of my remarks on the two occasions. What 1 said here on 
Wednesday, is in exact accordance with the opinions expressed by 
me in the other house, in 1825. Though the gentleman had the 
metaphysics of Hudibras — though he were able 

" To sever and divide 

A hair 'Iwixt north and northwest side," 

he yet could not insert his metaphysical sci.ssors between the fair 
reading of my remarks in 1825, and what I said here last week. 
There is not only no contradiction, no difierence, but, in truth, too 
exact a siinilarity, both in thought and language, to be c-itirely in 
just taste. I had myself quoled the same speech ; had recuired to 
it, and spoke with it open before me ; and much of *'hat I said wa= 
little more than a repetition from it. In order to make, tnishing 
work with this alleged contradiction, permit me to recur lo the 
origin of this debate, and review its coui^e. This seems expedi- 
ent, and may be done as well now as at any time. 

Well, then, its history is this: The honourable member from 
Connecticut moved a resolution, which constitutes the first branch 
of that which is now before us ; that is to say, a resolution, instruct- 
ing the committee on public lands lo inquire into the expediency 
of limiling, for a certain period, the sales of the public lands, to 
such as have heretofore been offered for sale; and whether sundry 
offices, connected with the sales of the lands, might not be abolish- 
ed, without detriment to the public service. 

In the progress of the discussion which irose on this resolutior, 



404 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



al. It is true, the/ add, that to justify this abroga- 
tion of a law, it must be palpably contrary to the 
constitution ; but it is evident, that to give the right 

an honourable member from New Hampshire moved to amend the 
resolution, so as entirely lo reverse its object ; that is, to strike it all 
out, and insert a direction tc the committee to inquire into the ex- 
pediency of adopting measures to hasten the sales, and extend more 
rapidly the surveys of the lands. 

The honourable member from Maine, (Mr. Sprague,) suggested, 
that both those propositions might well enough go, for considera- 
tion, to the committee; and in this state of the question, the mem- 
ber from South Carolina addressed the senate in his first speech. 
He rose, he said, to give us his own free thoughts on the public 
lands. I saw him rise with pleasure, and listened with expecta- 
tion, though, before he concluded, I was filled with surprise. Cer- 
tainly, I was never more surprised, than to find him following up, 
to the extent he did, the sentiments and opinions which the gentle- 
man fiom Missouii had put forth, and which it is known he has 
long entertained. 

I need not repeat, at large, the general topics of the honourable 
gentleman's speech. When he said, yesterday, that he did not at- 
tack the ea.stern slates, he certainly must have forgotten, not only 
particular remarks, but the whole drift and tenor of his speech ; 
unless he means, by not attacking, that he did not commence hos- 
tilities — but that another had preceded him in the attack. He, in 
the first place, disapproved of the whole course of the government, 
for forty years, in regard to its dispositions of the public land ; and 
then, turning northward and eastward, and fancying he had found 
a cause for alleged narrowness and niggardliness in the " accurs- 
ed policy" of the tarifl!", lo which he represented the people of New 
England as wedded, he went on, for a full hour, with remarks, the 
whole scope of which was lo exhibit the results of this policy, in 
feelings and measures unfavourable to the west. I thought his 
opinions unfounded and erroneous, as to the general course of the 
government, and ventured to reply to them. 

The gentleman remarked on the analogy of other cases, and 
quoted the conduct of European governments towards their own 
subjects, settling on this continent, as in point, to show, that we had 
been harsh and rigid in selling, when we should have given the 
public lands to settlers. I thought the honourable member had suf- 
fered his judgmeni to be betrayed by a false analogy; that he was 
struck with an appearance of resemblance, where there was no real 
similitude. I think so still. The first settlers of North America 
were enterprising spirits, engaged in private adventure, or fleeing 
from tyranny at home. When arrived here, they were forgotten 
by the mother country, or remembered only to be oppres^*d. Car- 
ried away again by Ihe appearance of analogy, or struck with the 
eloquence of the passage, the honourable member yesterday obser- 
ved, that the conduct of government towards the western emigrants, 
or my representation of it, brought to his mind a celebrated speech 
in the British parliament. It was, sir, the speech of Col. Barre. 
On the question of the stamp act, or tea lax, I forget which. Col. 
Barre had heard a member on the treasury bench argue, that the 
people of the United Slates, being British colonists, planted by the 
maternal care, nourished by the indulgence, and protected by the 
ariTK of England, would not grudge their mite lo relieve the mother 
country from the heavy burden under which she groaned. The 
language of Col. Barre, in reply to this, was — " They planted by 
vour care ! Your oppression planted them in America. They fled 
from your tyranny, and grew by your neglect of them. So soon as 
yon began to care for them, you showed your care by sending per- 
sons to spy out their liberties, misrepresent their character, prey 
upon them, and eat out their substance." 

And now, does the honourable gentleman mean to maintain, that 
language like this is applicable lo the conduct of the government 
of the United States towards the western emigrants, or lo any re- 
presentation given by me of that conduct'? Were Ihe settlers of 
the west driven thither by our oppression 1 Have they flourished 
only by our neglect of them'! Has the government done nothing 
but to prey upon them, and eat out their substance? Sir, this fer- 
vid eloquence of the British speaker, just when and where it was 
-ittcred, and fit to remain an exercise for the schools, is not a little 



of resisting laws of that description, coupled with the 
uncontrolled right to decide what laws deserve that 
character, is to give the power of resisting all laws. 

out of place, when it is brought thence to be applied here, lo the con- 
duct of our own country towards her own cilizens. From America 
to England, it may be true; from Americans to their own govern- 
ment; ii would be strange language. Let ns leave it to be declaim- 
ed by our boys against a foreign nation; not introduce it here to 
recile and declaim ourselves againsi our own. 

But I come lo the point of the alleged contradiction. In my 
remarks on Wednesday, I contended, that we could not give away 
gratuitously all the public lands ; that we held them in trust; that 
the government had solemnly pledged itself to dispose of them as a 
common fund for the common benefit, and to sell and settle them 
as its discretion should dictate. Now, sir, what contradiction does 
the gentleman find lo Ihis sentiment, in the .speech of 1825 1 He 
quotes me as having then said, that we ought not to hug these lai^ls 
as a very great treasure. Very well, sir, supposing me to be accu- 
rately reported, in that expression, what is the contradiction 1 I 
have not now said, that we should hug these lands as a favourite 
source of pecuniary income. No such thing. It is not my view. 
What I have said, and what I do say, is, that they are a common 
fund — to be disposed of for the common benefit — to be sold al low 
prices, for the accommodation of settlers, keeping the object of set- 
tling the lands as much in view, as that of raising money from 
them. This I say now, and this I have always said. Is this hug- 
ging them as a favourite treasure 1 Is there nodifierence between 
hugging and hoarding this fund, on the one hand, as a great trea- 
sure, and, on the other, of disposing of it at low prices, placing Ihe 
proceeds in Ihe general treasury of ihe union ? My opinion is, that 
as much is to be made of the land, as fairly and reasonably may 
be, selling it all the while at such rales as to give Ihe fullest efiect 
to setilemenl. This is not giving it all away to the stales, as the 
gentleman would propose ; nor is it hugging the fund closely and 
tenaciously, as a favourite treasure ; but it is, in my judgmeni, a 
just and wise policy, perfectly according with all the various duties 
which rest on government. So much for my contradiction. And 
what is it'! Where is Ihe ground of the gentleman's triumph ? 
What inconsistency, in word or doctrine, has he been able lo de- 
lect t Sir, if this be a sample of that discomfiture with which the 
honourable member threatened me, commend me lo the word dis- 
comfiliire for the rest of my life. 

But, after all, this is not the point of Ihe debate ; and I must now 
bring the gentleman back to that which is the point. 

The real question between him and me is, where has the doc- 
trine been advanced, at Ihe south or Ihe east, thai Ihe population o) 
the west should be retarded, or at least need not be hastened, on ac- 
count of ils efiecl lo drain ofi" the people from Ihe Atlantic slates "? 
Is this doctrine, as has been alleged, of eastetn origin '? Thai is 
the question. Has the gentleman found any thing, by which he 
can make good his accusation 1 I submit lo the senate, that he has 
entirely failed; and, as far as this debate has shown, the only per- 
son who has advanced such senlimenis, is a gentleman from Souih 
Carolina, and a friend lo the honourable member himself The 
honourable gentleman has given no answer lo this; there is none 
which can be given. The simple fact, while it requires no com- 
ment lo enforce it, defies all argument lo refule it. I could refer 
to Ihe speeches of another southern gentleman, in years before, of 
the same general character, and lo Ihe same effect, as that which 
has been quoted ; but I will not consume the lime of the senate by 
the reading of Ihem. 

So ihen, sir, New England is guiltless of the policy of retarding 
western population, and of all envy and jealousy of the growth of 
the new stales. Whalever ihcre be of that policy in the country, 
no part of it is her's. If it has a local habitation, the honourable 
member has probably seen, by Ihis time, where he is to look for it ; 
and if it has now received a name, he has himself christened il. 

We approach, at length, sir, lo a more important part of Ihe ho- 
nourable gentleman's observations. Since it does not accord with 
my views of justice and policy lo give away the public lands alto- 
gether, as mere matter of graluily, I am asked by Ihe honourable 
gentleman, on what ground it is, that I con.sent to vote them away 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



405 



For, as by the theory, tnere is no appeal, the reasons 
alleged by the state, good or bad, must prevail. If 
it sliould be said, that public opinion is a sufficient 

in particular instances 1 How, he inquires, do I reconcile with these 
professed ^;entiments, my support of measures appropriating por- 
tions of the lands to particular roads, particular canals, particular 
rivers, and particular institutions of education in the west 1 This 
leads, sir, to the real and wide difference in political opinion be- 
tween the honourable gentleman and myself. On my part, I look 
npon all these objects as connected with the coinmon good, fairly 
embraced in its object and its terms; he, on the contrary, deems 
them all, if good at all, only local good. This is our difference. 
The interrogatory which he proceeded to put, at once e.xjilains this 
difference. " What interest," asl;s he, " has South Carolina in a 
canal in Ohio I" Sir, this very question is full of significance. It 
develops the gentleman's whole political system ; and its answer 
e.xpounds mine. Here we differ, loto ccclu. I look upon a road 
over the Alleghany, a canal round Ihe falls of the Ohio, or a canal 
or railway from the Atlantic to the western waters, as being objects 
large and extensive enough to be fairly said to be for the common 
benefit. The gentleman thinks otherwise, and this is the key to 
open his construction of the powers of the government. He may 
well ask, upon his system, what interest has South Carolina in a 
canal in Ohio 1 On that system, it is true, she has no interest. On 
that system, Ohio and Carolina are different governments, and dif- 
ferent countries, connected here, it is true, by some slight and ill- 
defined bond of union, but in all main respects, separate and diverse. 
On that system, Carolina has no more interest in a canal in Ohio, 
than in Mexico. The gentleman, therefore, only follows out his 
own principles; he does no more than arrive at the natural con- 
clusions of his own doctrines; he only announces the true results 
of that creed which he has adopted himself, and would persuade 
others to adopt, when he thus declares that South Carolina has no 
interest in a public work in Ohio. Sir, we narrow-minded people 
of New England do not reason thus. Our notion of things is en- 
tirely different. We look npon the stales not as separated, but as 
united. We love to dwell on that union, and on Ihe mutual hap- 
piness which it has so much promoted, and Ihe common renown 
which it has so greatly contribuled lo acquire. In our contempla- 
tion, Carolina and Ohio are parts of the same country ; states, 
united under the same general government, having interests, com- 
mon, associated, intermingled. In whatever is within the proper 
sphere of the consiitutinnal power of this government, we look upon 
ihe stales as one. We do not impose geographical limits to our 
patriotic feeling or regard ; we do not follow rivers, and mountains, 
and lines of latitude, to find boundaries beyond which public im- 
provements do not benefit us. We who come here, as agents and 
representatives of these narrow-minded and selfish men of New 
England, consider ourselves as bound lo regard, with equal eye, 
the good of the whole, in whatever is within our power of legisla- 
tion. Sir, if a railroad or a canal, beginning in South Carolina, 
and ending in South Carolina, appeared to me to be of national im- 
portance and national magnitude, believing, as I do, that the power 
of government extends to the encouragement of works of that de- 
scription, if I were to stand up here, and ask, what interest has 
Massachusetts in a railroad in South Carolina, I should rot be 
willing to face my constituents. These same narrow-minded men 
would tell me, that they had sent me to act for the whole counlrv, 
and that one who possessed too little comprehension, either of intel- 
lect or feeling; one who was not large enough, in mind and heart, 
to embrace the whole, was not fit to be entrusted with the interest 
of any part. Sir, I do not desire to enlarge the powers of the go- 
vernment, by unjustifiable construciion ; nor to exercise any not 
within a fair interpretation. But when it is believed, that a power 
does exist, then it is, in my judgment, to be exercised for the gene- 
ral benefit of the whole: so far as respects the exercise of such a 
poowr, Ihe states are one. It was the very object of the constitu- 
tion to create unity of interests to the extent of the powers of the 
general government. In war and peace, we are one; in commerce 
one; because the authority of Ihe general government reaches to 
war and peace, and to the regulation of commerce. I have never 
seen any more difficulty in erecting light-houses on the lakes, than 



check against the abuse of this power, it may be 
asked, why it is not deemed a sufficient guard against 
the passage of an unconstitutional act by congress. 



on the ocean ; in improving the harbours of inland seas, than if 
they were within the ebb and flow of the tide ; or of removing ob- 
structions in the vast streams of the west, more than in any work 
10 facilitate commerce on the Atlantic coast. If there be power for 
one, there is power also for the other ; and Ihey are all and equally 
for the country. 

There are other objects, apparently more local, or the benefit of 
which is less general, towards which, nevertheless, I have concur 
red with others lo give aid, by donations of land. It is proposed to 
construct a road in or through one of the new states in which this 
government possesses large quantities of land. Have the United 
Stales no right, as a great and untaxed proprietor ■? Are Ihey under 
no obligation to contribute lo an object thus calculated to promote 
the common good of all the proprietors, themselves included ? And 
even with respect to education, which is the extreme ca.'<e, let the 
question be considered. In the first place, as we have seen, it was 
made mailer of compact with these stales, that they should do their 
part to promote education. In the next place, our whole system of 
land laws proceeds on Ihe idea that education is for the coinmon 
good ; because, in every division, a certain portion is uniformly re- 
served and appropriated for the use of schools. And, finally, have 
not these new slates singularly strong claims, founded on the ground 
already staled, that Ihe government is a great untaxed proprietor in 
the ownership of the soil I It is a consideration of great import- 
ance, that probably there is in no part of the country, or of the world, 
so great a call for the means of education, as in those new slates ; 
owing to Ihe vast numbers of persons within those ages, in which 
education and instruction are usually received, if received at all. 
This is the natural consequence of recency of settlement and rapid 
increase. The census of these states shows how great a proportion 
of the whole population occupies the classes between infancy and 
manhood. These are the wide fields, and here is. the deep and 
quick soil for Ihe seeds of knowledge and virtue; and this is the 
favoured season, the spring time for sowing them. Let them be 
disseminated without stint. Let them be scattered with a bountiful, 
broad cast. Whatever the government can fairly do towards these 
objects, in my opinion, ought lo be done. 

These, sir, are the groimds, succincily slated, on which my votes 
for grants of lands for particular objects rest ; while I maintain, at 
Ihe same time, that it is all a common fund, for the coinmcm benefit. 
And reasons like these, I presume, have influenced the votes of 
other gentlemen from New England. Those who have a different 
view of the powers of the government, of course, come to difl'erent 
conclusions, on these, as on other questions. I observed, when 
speaking on this subject before, ihat if we looked to any measure, 
whether for a road, a canal, or any thing else, intended for Ihe im- 
provement of the west, it would be found, that if the New England 
ayes were struck out of the lists of votes, the southern -nncs would 
always have rejected the measure. The truth of this has not been 
denied, and can not be denied. In stating this, I thought it just Ic 
ascribe it to the constitutional scruples of the south, rather than lo 
any other less favourable or less charitable cause. But, no sooner 
had I dohe this, than Ihe honourable genlleman asks, if I reproach 
him and his friends with their constitutional scruples'? Sir, I re- 
proach nobody. I stated a fact, and gave the most respectful rea- 
son for it that occurred to me. The gentleman can not deny the 
fact; he may, if he-choo.se, disclaim the reason. It is not long 
since 1 had occasion, in presenting a petition from his own stale, tc 
account for its being entru.sted to my hands, by saying, that ;he 
constitutional opinions of the gentleman and his worthy colleague, 
prevented them from supporting it. Sir, did I stale this as a mas- 
ter of reproach ■? Far from it. Did I attempt to find any other 
cause than an honest one for these scruples'? Sir, I did not. It 
did not become me lo doubt nor to insinuate that ihe gentleman had 
either changed his sentiments, or lhat he had made up a set of con- 
stitutional opinions, accomm'odaled to any particular combination 
of political occurrences. Had I done so, I should have felt, that 
while I was entitled to little credit in thus questioning other peo- 
ple's motives, I justified the whole world in suspecting my own, 



4C6 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



There is, however, a restraint in this last case, which 
makes the assumed power of a state more indefensi- 
ble, and which does not exist in the other. There 

Bill how has the genllemaii returned this respect for others' opinions ] 
Ilis own candour and justice, how have they been exhibited towards 
the motives of others, while he has been at so much pains to main- 
tain, what nobody has disputed, Ihc purity of his own t Why, sir, 
he has aslied, wheii, and hoii\ and v/iy, New England votes were 
found going for measures favourable to the west; he has demand- 
ed to be informed, whether all this did not begin in 1825, and irhile 
the election of -president was still pending ? Sir, to these questions 
retort would be justified ; and it is both cogent and at hanil. 
Nevertheless, I will answer the inquiry, not by relort, but by facts. 
I will tell the gentleman mhcn, and hoio, and lukii, New England has 
supported measures favourable to the west. I have already refer- 
red to the early history of the government — to the first acquisition 
of the lands — to the original laws for disposing of them, and for 
governing the territories where they lie ; and have shown the in- 
fluence of New England men and New England principles in all 
these leading measures. Ishould not be pardoned were I to go 1 
over that ground again. Coming to more recent times, and to 
measures of a less general character, I have endeavoured to prove 
that everv thing of this kind, designed for western improvement, 
has depended on the voles of New England; all this is true, beyond 
the power of contradiction. 

And now, sir, there are two, measures to which I will refer, not 
so ancient as to belong to the early history of the public lands, and 
not so recent as to be on this side of the period when the gentleman 
charitably imagines a new direction may have been given the New 
England feeling, and New England votes. These" measures, and 
the New England votes in support of them, may be taken as sam- 
ples and specimens of all the rest. In 1820, observe, iVIr. Presi- 
dent, in 1820, the people of the west besought congress for a rednc- 
lion in the price of lands. In favour of that reduction. New Eng- 
land, with a delegation of forty members in the other house, gave 
thirty-three votes, and one only against it. The four southern 
states, with fifty members, gave thirty-two votes for it, and seven 
against it. Again, in 1821, (observe again, sir, the time,) the law 
passed for the relief of the purchasers of the public lands. This 
was a measure of vital importance to the west, and more especially 
to the southwest. It authorized the relini|uishment of contracts for 
lands, which had been entered into at high prices, and a reduction 
in the other cases of not less than 37 1-2 per cent, on the purchase 
money. Many millions of dollars, six or seven, I believe, at least, 
probably much more, were relinquished by this law. On this 
bill. New England, with her forty members, gave more affirmative 
votes than the four southern states, with their fifly-two or three 
members. These two are far the most important measures, re- 
specting the public lands, which have been adopted within the last 
twenty years. They took place in 1820 and 1821. That is the 
lime leken. And as to the manner/iOTC, the gentleman already.sees 
that it was by voting, in solid column, for the required relief; and, 
lastly, as to the cause w/ti/, I tell the gentleman, it was because the 
members from New England thought the measures just and saluta- 
ry ; because they entertained towards the west neither envy, ha- 
tred, nor malice ; because thev deemed it becoming them, as just 
and enlightened public men, to meet the exigency which had arisen 
in the west, with the appropriate measure of relief; because they 
felt it due to their own characters, and the characters of their New 
England predecessors in this government, to act towards the new 
states in the spirit of a liberal, patronizing, magnanimous policy. 
So much, sir, for the cause vhy ; and I hope that by this time, sir, 
the honourable gentleman is satisfied ; if not, I do not know when, 
or Aot", or lehy, he ever will be. 

Having recurred to these two important measures, in answer to 
the gentleman's inquiries, I must now beg permission to go back to 
a period ye. something earlier, for the purpose of still further show- 
ing how much, or rather, how little reason there is for the gentle- 
man's insinuation, that political hopes, or fears, or party associa- 
tions, were the grounds of these New England votes. And after 
what has been said, I hope it may be forgiven me, if I allude to 
Bome political opinions and votes of my own, of very little public 



are two appeals from an unconstitutional act passed 
by congress — one to the judiciary, the other to the 
people and the states. There is, no appeal from 



importance, certainly, but which, from the time at which they were 
given and expressed, may pass for good witnesses on this occasion. 

This governiTient, Mr. President, from its origin to the peace of 
1815, had been too much engrossed with various other important 
concerns, to be able to turn its thoughts inward, and look to the 
development of its vast internal resources. In the early part of 
Presidenl Washington's administration, it was fully occupied with 
organizing the government, providing for the public debt, defend- 
ing the frontiers, and maintaining domestic peace. Before the ter- 
mination of that administration, the fires of the French revolution 
blazed forth, as from a new opened volcano, and ihe whole breadth 
of the ocean did not entirely secure us from its effects. The smoke 
and the cinders reached us, though not the burning lava. Difficult 
and agitating questions, embarrassing to government, and dividing 
public opinion, sprung out of the new state of our foreign relations, 
and were succeeded by others, and yet again by others, equally em- 
barrassing, and equally exciting division and discord, through the 
long series of twenty years ; till they finally i.ssued in the war with 
England. Down to the close of that war, no distinct, marked, and 
deliberate attention, had been given, or could have been given, to 
the internal condition of the country, its capacities of improvement, 
or the constitutional power of the government, in regard to objects 
connected wilh such improveiuent. 

The ))eace, Mr. President, brought about an entirely new, and a 
most interesting state of things: it opened to us other prospects, 
and suggested other duties. AVe ourselves were changed, and the 
whole world was changed. The pacification of Europe, after June, 
1815, assumed a firm and permanent aspect. The nations evident- 
ly manifested that they were disposed for peace. Some agitation 
of the waves might be expected, even after the storm had subsided, 
hut the tendency was, strongly and rapidly, towards settled repose. 

It so happened, sir, that I was at that time a member of congress, 
and, like others, naturally turned my attention to the contemplation 
of ihe newly altered condition of the country, and of the world. It 
appeared plainly enough to me, as well as to wiser and more ex- 
perienced men, that the policy of the government would necessari- 
ly lake a start, in a new direction ; because new directions would 
necessarilv be given to the pursuits and occupations of the people. 
We had pushed our commerce far and fast, under the advantage of 
a neutral flag. But there were now no longer flags, either neutral 
or belligerent. The harvest of neutrality had been great, but we 
had gathered it all. With the peace of Europe, it was obvious 
there would spring up in her circle'of nations, a revived and in- 
vigorated spirit of trade, and a new activity in all the business 
and objects of civilized life. Hereafter, our commercial gains 
were to be earned only by success in a close and intense competi- 
lion. Other nations would produce for themselves, and carry for 
themselves, and manufacture for themselves, to the full extent of 
their abilities. The crops of our plains would no longer sustain 
European armies, nor our ships longer supply those whom war had 
rendered unable to supply themselves. It was obvious, that, under 
these circumstances, the country would begin to survey itself, and 
to estimate its own capacity of improvement. And this improve- 
ment, how was it to be accomplished, and who was to accomplish 
it 1 We were ten or twelve millions of people, spread over almost 
half a world. We were twenty-four states, some stretching along 
the same seaboard, some along the same line of inland frontier, and 
others on opposite banks of the same vast rivers, Tw-o considera- 
tions at once presented themselves, in looking at this state of things, 
with great force. One was, that that great branch of improvement, 
which consisted in furnishing new facilities of intercourse, necessa- 
rily lan into diffeient .stales, in every leading instance, and would 
benefit the citizens of all such slates. No one state, therefore, in 
such cases, would assume the whole expense, nor was the co-opera- 
tion of several stales to be expected. Take the instance of the 
Delaware Breakwater, It will cost several millions of money. 
Would Pennsylvania alone have ever constructed it ? Certainly 
never, while this union lasis, because it is not for her sole benefit. 
Would Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, have united to 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



407 



the state decision in theory, and the practical illus- 
tration shows that the courts are shut against an 
application to review it, both judges and jurors being 

accomplish it al their joint expense % Certainly not, for the same 
reason. It could not be done, therefore, but by the general go- 
vernment. The same may be said of the larfje inland nnderta- 
king's, except that, in them, government, instead of bearing the 
whole expense, co-opeiales with others who bear a part. The 
other consideration is, that the United Slates have the means. 
They enjoy the revenues derived from commerce, and the stales 
have no abundant and easy sources of public income. The cus- 
tom-houses fill the general treasury, while the slates have scanty 
resources, e.tcept by resort to heavy direct taxes. 

Under this view of things, I thought it nece.ssary to settle, al 
least for myself, some definite notions, with respect to the powers 
of the government, in regard to internal affairs. It may not sa- 
vour too much of self-commendation to remark, that, willi this ob- 
ject, I considered the constitution, its judicial conslruclion, its co- 
temporaneous exposition, and the whole history of the legislation 
of congress under it; and I arrived at the conclusion, "hpl govern- 
ment had power to accomplish sundry objects, or aid m their ac- 
complishment, which are now commonly spoken of as internal jm- 
PR0VEMEKT15. That couclusion, sir, may have been right, or it may 
have been wrong. I am not about to argue the grounds of it at 
large. I only say, that it was adopted and acted on even so early as 
in 1816. Yes, Mr. President, I made up my opinion, and determined 
on my intended course of political conduct, on these subjects, in the 
fourteenth congress, in 1816. And now, Mr. President, I have 
further to say, that I made up these opinions, and entered on this 
course of political conduct, Tcucro duce. Yes, sir, I pursued, in 
all this, a South Carolina track. On the doctrines of internal im- 
provement, South Carolina, as she was then represented in the 
other house, set forth, in 1816, under a fresh and leading breeze, and 
I was among the followers. But if my leader sees new lights, and 
turns a sharp corner, unless I see new lights also, I keep straight 
on in the same path. I repeat, that leading gentlemen from South 
Carolina were first and foremost in behalf of the doctrines of in- 
ternal improvements, when those doctrines first came to be consi- 
dered and acted upon in congress. The debate on the bank ques- 
tion, on the tarifl^ of 1816, and on the direct tax, will show who 
was who, and what was what, at that time. The tariff" of 1816, 
one of the plain cases of oppression and usurpation, from which, 
if the government does not recede, individual states may justly 
secede from the governinent, is, sir, in truth, a South Carolina 
tariff, supported by South Carolina votes. But for those votes, it 
could not have passed in the form in which it did pass; whereas, 
if it had depended on Massachusetts votes, it would have been lost. 
Does not the honourable gentleman well know all this 1 There are 
certainly those who do, full well, know it all. I <lo not say this to 
reproach South Carolina. I only state the fact ; and I think it w'ill 
appear to be true, that among the earliest and boldest advocates of 
the tariff, as a measure of protection, and on the express ground of 
protection, were leading gentlemen of South Carolina, in congress. 
I did not then, and can not now, understand their language in any 
other sense. While this tariff of 1816 was under discussion, in the 
house of representatives, an honourable gentleman from Georgia, 
now of this house, (Mr. Forsyth,) moved to reduce the proposed 
duty on cotton. He failed, by four voles, South Carolina giving 
three votes (enough to have turned the scale) against his motion. 
The act, sir, then passed, and received on its passage the support 
of a majority of the representatives of South Carolina present and 
voting. This act is the first, in the order of those now denounced 
as plain usurpations. We see it daily, in the list, by the side of 
those of 1824 and 1828, as a case of manifest oppression, justifying 
disunion. I put it home to the honourable member from South 
Carolina, that his own state was not only "art and part" in this 
measure, but the causa cauwns. Without her aid, this seminal 
principle of mischief, this root of Upas, could not have been plant- 
ed. I have already said, and it is true, that this act proceeded on 
the ground of protection. It interfered, directly, with existing in- 
terests of great value and amount. It cut up the Calcutta cotton 
trade by the roots, but it passed, nevertheless, and it passed on the 

52 



But reasoning on this 



sworn to decide in its favour. 

subject is superfluous, when our social compact iu 

express terms declares, that the laws of the United 



principle of protecting manufactures, on the principle against free 
trade, on the principle opposed to ikat which lets vs alone. 

Such, Mr. President, were the opinions of important and leading 
genllemen from South Carolina, on the subject of internal improve- 
ment, in 1816. I went out of congress the next year; and return- 
ing again in 1823, thought I found South Carolina where I had 
Iclt her. I really supposed that all things remained as they were, 
and that the South Carolina doctrine of internal improvements 
would be defended by the same eloquent voices, and the same strong 
arms, as formerly. Jn the lapse of these six years, it is true, politi- 
cal associations had assumed a new aspect, and new divisions. A 
party had arisen in the south, hostile to the doctrine of internal 
improvements, and had vigorously attacked that doctrine. Anti 
con.solidation was the flag under which this party fought ; and its 
supporters inveighed against internal improvements, much after the 
manner in which the honourable gentleman has now inveighed 
against them, as part and parcel of the systetn of consolidation 
Whether this party arose in South Carolina herself, or in hei 
neighbourhood, is mote than I know. I think the latter. How 
ever that may have been, there were those found in South Carolina 
ready to make war upon it, and who did make intrepid war upon 
it. Names being regarded as things, in such controversies, they 
bestowed on the anti-improvement genllemen the appellation of ra- 
dicals. Yes, sir, the name of radicals, as a term oi^ dislinclion, ap- 
plicable and applied to those who denied the liberal doctrines of 
internal imjirovements, originaled, according to the best of my re- 
collection, somewhere between North Caiolina and Georgia. Well, 
sir, these mischievous radicals were to be put down, and the strong 
arm of Soulh Carolina was stretched out to put them down. About 
this time, sir, I returned to congress. The liattle with the radicals 
had been fought, and our Soulh Carolina champions of the doc- 
trines of internal improvement had nobly maintained their ground, 
and wore understood to have achieved a victory. They had driven 
back the enemy with discomfiture — a thing, by the way, sir, which 
is not ahvays performed when it is promised. A gentleman, to 
whom I have already referred in this debate, had come into con- 
gress, during my absence from it, from South 'Carolina, and had 
brought with him a high reputation for ability. He came from a 
• school with which we have been acquainted, ct voscitiir a sociis. I 
hold in my hand, sir, a printed speech of this distinguished gentle- 
man, (Mr. M'Duflie.) "on iNTERNALiMPRnvi',MENT.s,"deliveredabout 
the period to which I now refer, and printed with a few introduc- 
tory remarks upon consolidation ; in which, sir, I think he quite 
consolidated the arguments of his opponents, the radicals, \i \o crush 
be to consolidate. I give you a short, but subsianlive quotation, 
from these remarks. He is speaking of a pamphlet, then recently 
published, entitled, " Consolidation ;" and having alluded to the 
question of renewing the charier of the former bank of the United 
States, he says, "Moreover, in the early history of parties, and 
when Mr. Crawford advocated a renewal of the old charier, it was 
considered a federal measure; which internal improvements Tirecr 
vas, as this author erroneously slates. This latter measure origi- 
naled in the administration of Mr. Jefferson, with the appropriation 
for the Cumberland road ; and was first proposed, as a system, by " 
Mr. Calhoun, and carried through the house of representatives by 
a large majority of the republicans, in(duding alinosL every one of 
the leadino- men who carried us through the lute war." 

So, then, internal improvement is not one of the federal heresies. 
One paragrajih more, sir: 

"The author in question, not content with denouncing as fede 
lalists General Jackson, Mr. Adams, Mr. Calhoun, and the majori. 
ty of the South Carolina delegation in congress, modestly extends 
the denunciation to Mr. Monroe, and the whole republican party. 
Here are his words: 'During the administration of Mr. Monroe, 
much has passed which the republican party would be glad to aj)- 
prove if they could. But the principal feature, and that which has 
chiefly elicited these observations, is the renewal of the system of 
INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.' Now this mcasure was adopted by a vote 
of 115 to 86, of a republican congress, and sanctioned by a repub- 



408 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



States, its constitution and treaties made under it, 
are the supreme law of the land — and for greater 
caution adds, ' that the judges in every state shall be 

licaQ president. Who, Ihen, is this aulhor, who assumes the high 
prerogative of denouncing, in the name of the republican parly, the 
republican administration of the country'! A denunciation inclu- 
ding within its sweep Calhoun, Lownics, and Chevcs — men who will 
be regarded as the brightest ornaments of South Caiolina, and the 
strongest pillars of the republican party, as long as the late war 
shall be remembered, and talents and patriotism shall be regarded 
as the proper objects of the admiration and gratitude of a free 
people." 

Such are the opinions, sir, which were maintained by South 
Carolina gentlemen, in the house of represcntiitives, on the subject 
of internal iinprovements, when I took my seal there as a member 
from Massachusetts, in 1823. But this is not all: we had a bill 
before us, and passed it in that house, entitled, " An act to procure 
the necessary surveys, plans, and estimates, upon the subject of 
roads and canals." It avthori::ed Ike president to canse surrtys and 
esiiTn^tes to be made of tke routes of suck roads and, canals as he might 
deem, of nationalhnportancc, in a commercial or military point of vien', 
or for the transportation of the mail, and appropriated thirty thousand 
dollars, out of the treasury, to defray the expense. This act, though 
preliminary in its nature, covered the whole ground. It took for 
granted the complete power of internal improvement, as far as any 
of its advocates had ever contended for it. Having passed the 
other house, the bill came up to the senate, and was here consider- 
ed and debated in April, 1824. The honouralile member from 
South Carolina was a member of the senate at that time. While 
the bill was under consideration here, a motion was made to add 
the following proviso : 

" Provided, That nothing herein contained shall be construed to 
affirm or admit a power in congress, on their own authority, to 
make roads or canals, within any of the states of the union." 

The yeas and nays were taken on this proviso, and the honoura- 
ble member voted in the negative! The proviso failed. A motion 
was Ihen made to add this proviso, viz. ; 

" Provided, That the faith of the United States is hereby pledged, 
that no money shall ever be expended for roads or canals, except 
it shall be among the several states, and in the same proportion as 
direct taxes are laid and assessed by the provisions of the constitu- 
tion." 

The honourable meinber voted against this proviso also, and it 
failed. The bill was then put on its passage, and the honourable 
member voted /or it, and it passed, and became a law. 

Now, it strikes me, sir, that there is no maintaining these votes, 
but upon the power of internal improvement, in its broadest sense. 
In truth, these bills for surveys and estimates have always been 
considered as test questions — they show who is for and who against 
internal improvement. This law itself went the whole length, and 
assumed the full and complete power. The gentleman's vote sus- 
tained that power, in every form in which the various propositions 
to amend presented it. He went for the entire and unrestrained 
authority, without consulting the states, and without agreeinf tr 
any proportionate distribution. And now suffer me to remind you, 
Mr. President, that it is this very same power, thus sanctioned, in 
every form, by the gentleman's own opinion, that is so plain and 
manifest a usurpation, that the state of South Carolina is supposed 
to be justified in refusing submission to any laws carrying the power 
into effect. Truly, sir, is not this a little too hard 1 May we not 
crave some mercy, under favour and protection of the gentleman's 
own authority'? Adinitling that a road, or a canal, must be writ- 
ten down llal usurpation as ever was committed, may we find no 
mitigation in our respect for his place, and his vote, as one that 
knows the law % 

The tajiff, which South Carolina had an efl^cient hand in esta- 
blishing, in 1816, and this asserted power of internal improvement, 
advanced by her in the saine year, and, as we have seen, approved 
and sanctioned by her representatives in 182-1, these two measures 
nre the great grounds on which she is now thought to be justified 
in breaking up the union, if she sees fit to break it up! 

I may now safely say, I think, that we have had the authority of 



bound thereby, any thing in the constitution- or laws 
of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.' And 
it may be asserted without fear of refutation, that no 



leading and distinguished gentlemen from Soulli Carolina, in sup- 
port of the doctrine of internal improvement. I repeat, that, up to 
1824, I, for one, followed South Carolina; but, when that star, in 
its ascension, veered oS in an unexpected direction, I relied on its 
light no longer. [Here the Vice-President said, " Does the Chair 
understand the gentleman from Ma.ssachusetts to say, that the per- 
son now occupying the chair of the senate has changed his opinions 
on the subject of internal improvement ■?] From nothing ever said 
to me, sir, have I had reason to know of any change in the opinions 
of the person filling the chair of the senate. If such change has 
taken place, I regret it. I speak generally of the state of South 
Carolina. Individuals, we know there are, who hold opinions fa- 
vourable to the power. An application for its exercise, in behalf 
of a public work in South Carolina itself, is now pending, I believe, 
in the other house, presented by members from that state. 

I have thus, sir, perhaps not without some tediousness of detail, 
shown that if I am in error, on the subjects of internal impiovement, 
how, and in what company, I fell into that error. If I am wrong, 
it is apparent who misled me. 

I go to other remarks of the honourable member, and I have to 
complain of an entire misapprehensitm of \^'hat I said on the subject 
of the national debt, though I can hardly perceive how any one 
could misunderstand me. What 1 said was, not that I wished to 
put off the payment of the debt, but, on the contrary, that I had al- 
ways voted for every measure for its reduction, as uniformly as the 
gentleman himself. He seems to claim the exclusive merit of a 
disposition to reduce the public charge. I do not allow it to him. 
As a debt, I was, I am for paying it, because it is a charge on our 
finances, and on the industry of the country. But I observed, that 
I thought I perceived a morbid fervour on that subject — an exces- 
sive anxiety to pay off the debt, not so much because it is a debt 
simply, as because, while it lasts, it furnishes one objection to dis- 
union. It is a tie of common interest, while it lasts. I did rot 
impute such motives to the honourable member himself, but that 
there is such a feeling in existence, I have not a particle of doubt. 
The most I said was, that if one effect of the debt was to strengthen 
our union, that effect itself was not regretted by me, however much 
others might regret it. The gentleman has not seen how to reply 
to this, otherwise than by supposing me to have advanced the doc- 
trine that a national debt is a national blessing. Others, I must 
hope, will find le.ss difficulty in understanding me. I distinctly and 
pointedly cautioned the honourable member not to understand me 
as expressing an opinion favourable to the continuance of the debt. 
I repeated this caution, and repeated it more than once ; but it was 
thrown away. 

On yet another point, I was still more unaccountably misunder- 
stood. The gentleman had harangued against "consolidation." I 
told him, in reply, that there was one kind of consolidation to which 
I was attached, and that was the consolioation of our dnion ; and 
that this was precisely that con.>-olidation to which I feared others 
M-e'e not attached. That such consolidation was the very end of 
the constitution— the leading object, as they had informed us them- 
selves, which its framcrs had kept in view. I turned to their com- 
munication, and read their very words — " the consolidation of the 
union" — and expressed my devotion to this sort of consolidation. I 
said, in terins, that I wished not, in the slightest degree, to augment 
the powers of this government ; that my object was to preserve, not 
to enlarge; and that by consolidating the union, I understood no 
more than the strengthening of the union, and perpetuating it. 
Having been thus explicit; having thus read, from the printed 
book, the precise words which I adopted, as expressing my own 
sentiments, it passes comprehension, how any man could under- 
stand me as contending for an extension of the powers of the go- 
vernment, or for consolidation, in that odious sense, in which it 
means an accumulation in the federal government of the powers 
properly belonging to the states. 

I repeat, sir, that in adopting the sentiment of the framers of the 
constitution, I read their language audibly, and word for word ; and 
I pointed out the distinction, just as fully as I have now done, be- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



409 



federative government could exist without a similar 
provision. Look for a moment to the consequence. 
If South Carolina considers the revenue laws uncon- 

tween the consolidation of the union, and that other obnoxious con- 
solidation which I disclaimed. And yet the honourable member 
misunderstood me. ^The gentleman had said that he wished for no 
fixed revenue — not a shilling. If, by a word, he could convert the 
capitol into gold, he would not do it. Why all this fear of reve- 
nue 1 Why, sir, because, as the gentleman told us, it tends to con- 
solidation. Now, this can mean neither more nor less than that a 
common revenue is a common interest, and that all common inte- 
rests lend to hold the union of the states together. I confess I like 
that tendency; if the gentleman dislikes it, he is right in depreca- 
ting a shilling's fixed revenue. So much, sir, for consolidation. 

As well as I recollect the course of his remarks, the honourable 
gentleman next recurred to the subject of the tariff. He did nut 
doubt the word must be of unpleasant sound to me, and proceeded, 
with an effort, neither new, nor attended with new success, to in- 
volve me and my votes in inconsistency and contradiction. 1 am 
happy the honourable gentleman has furnished mo an opportunity 
of a timely remark or two on that subject. I was glad he approach- 
ed it, for it is a question I enter upon without fear from any body. 
The strenuous toil of the gentleman has been to raise an incon- 
sistency between my dissent to the tariff in 1824, and my vote in 
1828. It is labour lost. He pays undeserved compliment to my 
speech in 1824; but this is to raise me high, that my fall, as he 
would have it, in 1828, may be more signal. Sir, there was no 
fall at all. Between the ground I stood on in 1824, and that I 
took in 1828, there was not only no precipice, but no declivity. It 
was a change of position, to meet new circumstances, but on the 
saine level. A plain lale explains the whole matter. In 1816, I 
had not acquiesced in the tariff, then supported by South Carolina. 
To some parts of it, especially, I felt and expressed great repug- 
nance. I held the same opinions in 1821, at the meeting in Faneuii 
Hall, to which the gentleman has alluded. I said then, and say 
noiv, that, as.an original question, the authority of congress to ex- 
ercise the revenue power, with direct reference to the protection of 
manufactures, is a questionable authority, far more questionable, in 
my judgment, than the power of internal improvements. I must 
confess, sir, that, in one respect, some impression has been made on 
my opinions lately. Mr. Madison's publication has put the power 
in a very strong light. He has placed it, I must acknowledge, 
upon grounds of construction and argument, which seem impreg- 
nable. But even if the power were doubtful, on the face of the 
constitution itself, it had been' assumed and asserted in the first 
revenue law ever passed under that same constitution ; and, on 
this ground, as a matter settled by contemporaneous practice, I had 
refrained from expressing the opinion, that the tariff laws tran- 
scended constitutional limits, as the gentleman supposes. What I 
did say at Paneuil Hall, as far as I now remember, was, that this 
was originally matter of doubtful construction. The gentleman 
himself, I suppose, thinks there is no doubt about it, and that the 
laws are plainly against the constitution. Mr. Madison's letters, 
already referred to, contain, in my judgment, by far the most able 
exposition extant, of this part of the constitution. He has satisfied 
me, so far as the practice of the government had left it an open 
question. 

With a great majority of the representatives of Massachusetts, I 
voted against the tariff of 1824. My reasons were then given, and 
I will not now repeat them. But, notwithstanding our dissent, the 
great states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Kentucky, 
went for the bill, in almost unbroken column, and it pa.ssed. Con- 
gress and the president sanctioned it, and it became the law of the 
land. What, then, were we to dol Our only option was, either 
to fall in with this settled course of public policy, and accommo- 
date ourselves to it as well as we could, or to embrace the South 
Carolina doctrine, and talk of nullifying the statute by stale inter- 
ference. 

This last alternative did not suit our principles, and, of course, 
we adopted the former. In 1827, the subject came again before 
congress, on a proposition favourable to wool and woollens. We 
looked upon the system of protection as being fixed and settled. 



stitutional, and has a right to prevent their execution 
in the port of Charleston, there would be a clear 
consthutional objection to their collection in every 

The law of 1824 remained. It had gone into full operation, and 
in regard to some objects intended by it, perhaps most of them, had 
produced all its expected effects. No man proposed to repeal it ; 
no man attempted to renew the general contest on its principle. 
But, owing to subsequent and unforeseen occurrences, the benefit 
intended by it to wool and woollen fabrics had not been realized. 
Events, not known here when the law passed, had taken place, 
which defeated its object in that particular respect. A measure 
was accordingly brought forward to meet this precise deficiency, to 
remedy this particular defect. It was limited to wool and woollens. 
Was ever any thing more reasonable'? If the policy of the tarifi 
laws had become established in principle, as the permanent policy ol 
the government, should they not be revised and amended, and made 
equal, like other laws, as exigencies should arise, or justice require I 
Because we had doubted about adopting the system, were we to re- 
fuse to cure its manifest defects, after it became adopted, and when 
no one attempted its repeal 1 And this, sir, is the inconsistency so 
much bruited. I had voted against the tariff of 1824— but it pass- 
ed; and in 1827 and 1828, I voted ro amend it, in a point essential 
to the interest of my constituents. Where is the inconsistency! 
Could I do otherwise ■■ Sir, does political consistency consist in 
always giving negative votes 1 Does it require of a public man to 
refuse to concur in amending laws, because they passed against 
his consent 1 Having voted against the tariff" originally, does con- 
sistency demand that I should do all in my power to maintain an 
unequal tariff", burdensome to my own constituents, in many re- 
spects, favourable in none? To consistency of that sort, I lay no 
claim ; and there is another sort to which 1 lay as little — and th'at 
is, a kind of consistency by which persons feel themselves as much 
bound to oppose a proposition after it has become a law of the land, 
as before. 

The bill of 1827, limited, as I have said, to the single object m 
which the tariff" of 1824 had manifestly failed in its efli'ect, passed 
the house of representatives, but was lost here. We had then the 
act of 1828. I need not recur to the history of a measure so recent. 
Its enemies spiced it with whatsoever they thought would render it 
distasteful; its friends took it, drugged as it was. Vast amounts 
of property, many millions, had been invested in manufactures, 
under the inducements of the act of 1824. Events called loudly, 
as I thought, for further regulation to secure the degree of protec- 
tion intended by that act. I was disposed to vote for such regula- 
tions, and desired nothing more ; but certainly was not to be ban- 
tered out of my purpose by a threatened augmentation of duty on 
molasses, put into the bill l^or the avowed purpose of making it ob- 
noxious. The vote may have been right or wrong, wise or un- 
wise ; but it is little less than absurd to allege against it an incon- 
sistency with opposition to the former law. 

Sir, as to the general subject of the tariff, I have little now to say 
Another opportunity may be presented. I remarked the other day, 
that this policy did not begin with us in New England ; and yet, 
sir. New England is charged, with vehemence, as being ("avourable, 
or charged with equal vehemence, as being unfavourable to the ta- 
riffs policy, just as best suits the time, place, and occasion for making 
some charge again.st her. The credulity of the public has been 
put to its extreme capacity of false impression, relative to her con- 
duct in this particular. Through all the. south, during the late con- 
test, it was New England policy, and a New England administra- 
tion, that was afflicting the country with a tariff" policy beyond all 
endurance ; while on ihe other side of the Alleghany, even the act 
of 182S itself, the very sublimated essence of oppression, according 
to southern opinions, was pronounced lo be one of those blessings, 
for which the west was indebted to the " generous south." 

With large investments in manufacturing establishments, and 
many and various interests connected with and dependent on them, 
it IS not to be expected that New England, any more than other 
portions of the country, will now consent to any measure, destruc- 
tive or highly dangerous. The duty of the government, at the pre- 
sent moment, would seem to be to preserve, not to destroy ; to main- 
tain the position which it has assumed ; and, for one, I shall feel it 



410 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



other port, and no revenue could be collected any- 
where, for all imposts must be equal. It is no answer 
to repeat, that an unconstitutional law is no law, so 



an indispensable obligation to hold it steady, as far as in my power, 
to that degree of protection which it has undertaken to bestow. No 
more of the tariff. 

Professing to be provoked by what he chose to consider a charge 
made by me against South Carolina, the honourable member, Mr. 
President, has taken up a new crusade against New England. 
Leaving altogether the subject of the public lands, in which his 
success, perhaps, had been neither distinguished nor satisfactory, 
and letting go, also, of the topic of the tariff, he sallied forth, in a 
general assault on the opinions, politics, and parlies of New Eng- 
land, as they have been exhibited in the last thirty years. This is 
natural. The " narrow policy" of the public lands had proved a 
legal settlement in South Carolina, and was not to be removed. 
The "accursed policy" of the tariff, also, had established the fact 
of its birth and parentage, in the same state. No wonder, there- 
fore, the gentleman wished to carry the war, as he expressed it, 
into the enemy's country. Prudently willing to quit these subjects, 
he was, doubtless, desirous of fa.stening on others, which could not 
be transferred south of Mason and Dixon's line. The politics of 
New England became his theme ; and it was in this part of his 
speech, I think, that he menaced me with such sore discoinfilure. 
Discomfiture! Why, sir, when he attacks any thing which I 
maintain, and overthrows it ; when he turns the right or left of any 
position which I take up ; when he drives me from any ground I 
choose to occupy; he may then talk of discomfiture, Ijut not till 
that distant day. What has he done t Has he maintained his own 
charges! Has he proved what he alleged 1 Has he sustained 
himself in his attack on the government, and on the history of the 
north, in the matter of the public lands 1 Has he disproved a fact, 
refuted a proposition, weakened an argument, maintained by met 
Has he come within beat of drum of anj' position of 'mine ■? Oh, 
no, but he has " carried the war into the enemy's country I" Car- 
ried the war into the enemy's country I Yes, sir, and wliat sort of 
a war has he made of it? Why, sir, he has stretched a drag-net 
over the whole surface of perished pamphlets, indiscreet sermons, 
frothy paragraphs, and fuming popular addresses; over whatever 
the pulpit, in its moments of alarm, the press in its heats, and par- 
lies in their extravagance, have severally thrown off, in times of 
general excitement and violence. He has thus swept together a 
mass of such things as, but that they are now old, the public health 
would have required him rather to leave in their state of dispersion. 
For a good long hour or two, we had the unbroken pleasure of 
listening to the honourable member, while he recited, with his usual 
grace and spirit, and with evident high gusto, speeches, pamphlets, 
addresses, and all the ct ccteras of the political press, such as warm 
heads produce in warm times; and such as it would be " discomfi- 
ture," indeed, for any one, whose taste did not delight in that sort 
of reading, to be obliged to peruse. This is his war. This it is to 
carry the war into the enemy's country. It is in an invasion of this 
sort, that he flatters himself with the expectation of gaining laurels 
fit to adorn a senator's brow ! 

Mr. President, I shall not, it will, I trust, not be expected that I 
should, either now, or at any time, separate this farrago into parts, 
and answer and examine its components. I shall hardly bestow 
upon it all, a general remark or two. In the run of forty years, 
sir, under this constitution, we have experienced sundry successive 
violent party contests. Party arose, indeed, with th,e constitution 
itself, and, in some form or other, has attended it through the 
gieater part of its historj'. Whether any other constitution than 
the old articles of confederation, was desirable, was, itself, a ques- 
tion on which parties formed ; if a new constitution were framed, 
what powers should be given to it, was another question; and, 
when it had been formed, what was, in fact, the just extent of the 
powers actually conferred, was a third. Parties, as we know, ex- 
isied, under the first administration, as distinctly marked as those 
which manifested themselves at any subsequent jieriod. The con- 
test immediately preceding the political change in 1801, and that, 
again, which existed at the commencement of the late war, are 
sther instances of party excitement, of something more than usual 



long as the question of its legality is to be decided 
by the state itself; for every law operating injuriously 
upon any local interest will be perhaps thought, and 

strength and intensity. In all these conflicts, there was, no doubt, 
much of violence on both and all sides. It would be impossible, il 
one had a fancy for such employment, to ailjust the relative q-uan- 
Inm of violence belw'een these contending' parties. There was 
enough in each, as must always be exjiected in popular govern- 
ments. With a great deal of proper and decorous discussion, there 
was mingled a great deal, also, of declamation, virulence, crimina- 
tion, and abuse. In regard to any party, probably, at one of the 
leading ej)ochs in the history of parties, enough may be found to 
make out another equally inflamed exhibition, as that with which 
the honourable member has edified us. For myself, sir, I shall not 
rake among the rubbish of by-gone times, to see what I can find, or 
whether I can not find something, by which I can fix a blot on the 
escutcheon of any stale, any party, or any part of the country. 
General Wa>hington's administration was steadily and zealously 
maintained, as we all knoiv, by New England. It was violently 
opposed elsewhere. We know in what quarter he had the most 
earnest, constant, and persevering support, in all his great and 
leading measures. We know where his private and jiersonal cha- 
racter were held in the highest degree of attachment and venera- 
tion ; and we know, too, where his measures were opposed, his 
services slighted, and his character vilified. We know, or we 
might know, if we turned to the journals, who expressed respect, 
gratitude, and regret, when he retired from the chief magistracy; 
and who refused to express either respect, gratitude, or regret. I 
shall not open those journals. Publications more abusive or scur- 
rilous never saw the light, than were sent forth against Washing- 
ton, and all his leading measures, from presses south of New Eng- 
land. But I shall not look them up. I employ no scavengers^no 
one is in attendance on me, tendering such means of retaliation ; 
and, if there were, with an ass's load of them, with a bulk as huge 
as that which the gentleman himself has produced, I would not 
touch one of them. I see enough of the violence of our own times, 
to be no w-ay anxious to rescue from forgetfulness the extravagan- 
ces of times past. Besides, what is all this to the present purpose? 
It has nothing to do with the public lands, in regard to which the 
attack was begun ; and it has nothing to do with those sentiments 
and opinions, which, I have thought, tend to disunion, and all oi 
which (he honourable member seems to have adopted himself, and 
undertaken to deiend. New England has, at times, so argues the 
gentleman, held opinions as dangerous as those which he now 
holds. Suppose this were so; why should Ae, therefore, abuse 
New England l If he finds himself countenanced b)' acts of hers, 
how is it that, while he relies on these acts, he covers, or seeks to 
cover, their authors with reproach 1 But, sir, if, in the course of 
forty years, there have been undue effervescences of party in New 
England, has the same thing happened nowhere else 1 Party ani- 
mosity and party outrage, not in New England, but elsewhere, de- 
nounced President Washington, not only as a federali.'-t, but as a 
toiy, a British agent, a man who, in his high office, sanctioned cor- 
ruption. But does the honourable member suppose, that, if I had 
a tender here, who should put such an effusion of wickedness and 
folly in tiry hand, that I would stand up and read it against the 
south 1 Parties ran into great heats, again, in 1799 and 1800. 
What was said, .sir, or rather, what was not said, in those years, 
against John Adams, one of the signers of the declaration of inde- 
pendence, and its admitted ablest defender on the floor of congressi 
If the gentleman wishes to increase his stores of party abuse and 
frothy violence ; if he has a determined proclivity to such pursuits, 
there are treasures of that sort south of the Potomac, much to his 
taste, yet untouched — I shall not touch them. 

The parties which divided the country at the commencement of 
the late war, were violent. But, then, there was violence on both 
sides, and violence in every state. Minorities and majorities were 
equally violent. There was no more violence against the war in 
New England, than in other states; nor any more appearance ol 
violence, except that, owing to a dense population, greater facility 
of assembling, and more presses, there may have been more in 
quantity spoken and printed there, than in some other places. In, 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



411 



certainly represented, as unconstitutional, and, as has 
been shown, there is no appeal. 

" If this doctrine had been established at an earlier 

the article of sermons, too, New England is somewhat more ahnn- 
dant than South Carolina; and, for that reason, the chance of find- 
ing here and there an exceptionable one, may be greater. I hope, 
too, there are more good ones. Opposition may have been more 
formidable in New England, as it embraced a larger portion of the 
whole population ; but it was no more unrestrained in its principle, 
or violent in manner. The minorities dealt quite as harshly with 
their own state governments, as the majorities dealt with the ad- 
ministration here. There were presses on both sides, popular 
meetings on both sides, ay, and pulpits on both sides, also. The 
gentleman's purveyors have only catered for him among the pro- 
ductions )f one side. I certainly shall not supply the deficiency by 
furnishing saihples of the other. I leave to him, and to them, the 
whole concern. 

It is enough for me to say, that if, in any part of this, their 
grateful occupation ; if, in all their researches, they find any thing 
in the history of Massachusetts, or New England, or in the proceed- 
ings of any legislative, or other public body, disloyal to the union, 
speaking slightly of its value, proposing to break' it up, or recom- 
mending non-intercourse with neighbouring states, on account of 
difference of political opinion, then, sir, I give them all up to the 
honourable gentleman's unrestrained rebuke; excepting, however, 
that he will extend his hufl"etings, in like manner, to all simitar 
proceedings, wherever the found. 

The gentleman, sir, has spoken at large of former parties, now 
QO longer in being, by their received appellations, and has underta- 
ken to instruct us, not only in the knowledge of their principles, 
but of their respective pedigrees, also. He has ascended to the 
origin, and run out their genealogies. With most exemplary mo- 
desty, he speaks of the party to which he professes to have be- 
longed himself, as the true Pure, the only honest, patriotic party, 
derived by regular descent, from father to son, from the time of the 
virtuous Romans! Spreading before us \he family tree of political 
parties, he lakes e.^pecial care to show himself snugly perched on a 
popular bough ! He is wakeful to the expediency of adopting such 
rules of descent, as shall bring him in, in exclusion of others, as an 
heir to the inheritance of all public virtue, and all true political 
principle. His parly, and his opinions, are sure to be orthodox ; 
heterodoxy is confined to his opponents. He spoke, sir, of the 
federalists, and I thought I saw some eyes begin to open and stare 
a little, when he ventured on that ground. I expected he would 
draw his sketches rather lightly, when he looked on the circle 
round him, and, especially, if he should cast his thoughts to the 
high places, out of the senate. Nevertheless, he went back to 
Rome, ad annum urbe condita, and found the fathers of the fede- 
ralists, in the primeval aristocrats of that renowned empire! He 
traced the flow of federal blood down, through successive ages and 
centuries, till he brought it into the veins of the American tories, 
(of whom, by the way, there were twenty in the Carolinas, for one 
in Massachusetts.) Prom the tories he followed it to the federal- 
ists ; and, as the federal parly was broken up, and there wa.s no 
possibility of transmitting it further on this side the Atlantic, he 
seems to have discovered, that it has gone off, collaterally, though 
against all the canons of descent, into the ultras of France, and 
finally become extinguished, like exploded gas, among the adhe- 
rents of Don Miguel! This, sir, is an abstract of the gentleman's 
history of federalism. I am not about t,o controvert it. It is not, 
at present, worth the pains of refutation ; because, sir, if, at this 
day, any one feels the sin of federalism lying heavily on his con- 
science, he can easily obtain remission. He may even obtain an 
indulgence, if he be desirous of repeating the same Iriinsgre.ssion. 
It is an afl^air of no difficulty to get into this same right line of pa- 
triotic descent. A man, now-a-daj's, is at liberty to choose his po- 
litical parentage. He may elect his own father. Federalist, or 
not, he may, if he choose, claim to belong to the favoured stock, 
and his claim will be allowed. He may carry back his pretensions 
just as far as the honourable gentleman himself; nay, he may make 
himself out the honourable gentleman's cousin, and prove, satisfac- 
torily, that he is descended I'rom the same political great grandfa- 



day, the union would have been dissolved in its in- 
fancy. The excise law in Pennsylvania, the embargo 
and. non-intercourse law in the eastern states, the 

ther. All this is allowable. We all know a process, sir, by which 
the whole Essex Junto could, in one hour, be all washed white from 
their ancient federalism, and come out, every one of them, an ori- 
ginal democrat, dyed in the wool ! Some of them have actually 
undergone the operation, and lliey say it is quite easy. The only 
inconvenience it occasions, as they tell us, is a slight tendency of 
the blood to the face, a soft suflusion, which, however, is very tran- 
sient, since nothing is said by those whom they join, calculated to 
deepen the red on the cheek, but a prudent silence observed, in re- 
gard to all the past. Indeed, sir, some smiles of approbation have 
been bestowed, and some crumbs of comfort have fallen, not a thou- 
sand mites from the door of the Hartford convention itself. And if 
the author of the ordinance of 1787 possessed the other requisite 
qualifications, there is no knowing, notwithstanding his federalism, 
to what heights of favour he might not yet attain. 

Mr. President, in carrying his warfare, such as it was, into New 
England, the honourable gentleman all along professes to be acting 
on the defensive. He elects to consider me as having assailed 
South Carolina, and insists that he comes forth only as her cham- 
pion, and in her defence. Sir, I do not admit that I made any at- 
tack whatever on South Carolina., Nothing like it. The honoura- 
ble member, in his first speech, expressed opinions, in regard to 
revenue, and some other topics, which 1 heard both with pain and 
with surprise. I told the gentleman that I was aware that such 
sentiments were entertained out of the government, but had not ex- 
pected to find them advanced in it ; that I knew there were persons 
in the south who speak of our union with inditference or doubt, ta- 
king pains to magnify its evils, and to say nothing of its benefits; 
that the honourable member himself, I was sure, could never be 
erne of these ; and I regretted the expression of such opinions as he 
had avowed, because I thought their obvious tendency was to en- 
courage feelings of disrespect to the union, and to weaken its con- 
nexion. This, sir, is the surn and substance of all I said on the 
subject. And this constitutes the attack, which called on the 
chivalry of the gentleman, in his opinion, to harry us with such a 
foray, among the party pamphlets and party proceedings of Massa- 
chusetts! If he means that I spoke with dissatisfaction or disre- 
spect of the ebullitions of individuals in South Carolina, it is true. 
But, if he means that I had assailed the character of the state, her 
honour, or patriotism ; that I had reflected on her history or her 
conduct; he had not the slightest giound for any such assumption. 
I did not even refer, I think, in my observations, to any collection 
of individuals. I said nothing of the recent conventions. I spoke 
in the most guarded and careful mcnner, and only expressed my 
regret for the publication of opinions which I presumed the honour- 
able member disapproved as much as myself In this, it seems, I 
was mistaken. I do not remember that the gentleman has dis- 
claimed any sentiment, or any opinion, nf a supposed anti-union 
tendency, which on all, or any of the recent occasions, has been 
expressed. The whole drift of his speech has been rather to prove, 
that, in divers times and manners, sentiments equally liable to 
objection have been promulged in New England. And one would 
suppose that his object, in this reference to Massachusetts, was to 
find a precedent to justify proceedings in the south, were it not for 
the reproach and contumely with which he labours, all along, to 
load these, his own chosen precedents. By way of defending South 
Carolina from what he chooses to think an attack on lier, he first 
quotes the example of Massachusetts, and then denounces that ex- 
ample, in good set terms. This two-fold purpose, net very con- 
sistent with itself, one would think, was exhibited more than once 
in the course of his speech. He referred, for instance, to the Hart- 
ford convention. Did he do this for authority, or for a topic of re- 
proach 1 Apparently for both : for he told us that he should find no 
fault with the mere fact of holding such a convention, and consider 
ing and discussing such questions as he supposes were then and 
there discussed ; hut what rendered it obnoxious was the time it 
was holden, and the circumstances of the country then existing 
We were in a war, he said, and the country needed all our aid— 
the hand of government required to be strengthened, not weaken- 



412 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



carriage tax in Virginia, were all deemed unconstitu- 
tional, and were more unequal in their operation than 
any of the laws now complained of; but fortunately 

ed — and pairiotism should have postponed such proceedings to 
another day. The thing itself, then, is a precedent ; the time and 
manner of it, only, a subject of censure. Now, sir, I go much fur- 
ther, on this point, than the honourable member. Supposing, as the 
gentleman seems to, that the Hartford convention assembled for any 
such purpose as breaking up the union, because they thought un- 
constitutional laws had .been passed, or to consult on that subject, 
or to calculate the valve of theunion; supposing this to be their pur- 
pose, or any part of it, then, I say the meeting itself was disloyal, 
and was obnoxious to censure, whether lield in lime of peace or 
lime of war, or under whatever circumstances. The_ material 
ijuestion is the object. Is dissolution the object ? If it be, external 
eitcumslances may make it a more or less aggravated case, but 
can not affect the principle. I do not hold, therefore, sir, that the 
Hartford convention was pardonable, even to the extent of the 
gentleman's admission, if its objects were really such as have been 
imputed lo it. Sir, there never was a lime, under any degree of 
excitement, in which the Hiirtford convention, or any other con- 
vention, could maintain itself one moment in New England, if as- 
sembled for any such purpose as the gentleman says would have 
been an allowable purpose. To hold conventions to decide ques- 
tions of constitutional law ! — lo try the binding validity of statutes, 
by votes in a convention ! Sir, the Hartford convention, I presume, 
would not desire that the honourable gentleman should be Iheir 
defender or advocate, if he puts their case upon such untenable and 
extravagant grounds. 

Then, sir, the gentleman has no fault to find with these recently 
promulgated South Carolina opinions. And, certainly, he need 
have none; for his own senliments, as now advanced, and advan- 
ced on reflection, as far as I have been able to comprehend them, 
go the full length of all these opinions. I propose, sir, to say some- 
thing on these, and lo consider how far they are just and constitu- 
tional. Before doing that, however, let me observe, that the eulo- 
gium pronounced on the character of the slate of South Carolina, 
by the honourable gentleman, for her revolulionaiy and other 
merits, meets my hearty concurrence. I shall not acknowledge 
that the honourable member goes before me in regard for whatever 
of distinguished talent, or distinguished character. South Carolina 
has [iroduced. I claim. part of the honour, I partake in the pride, 
of her great names. I claim them for countrymen, one and all. 
The Laurenses, the Rutledges, the Pinckneys, the Sumpters, the 
Marions — Americans, all — whose fame is no more to he hemmed 
in by state lines, than their talents and pairiotism were capable of 
being circumscribed within the same narrow limits. In their day 
and generation, they served and honoured the country, and the 
■whole country; and their renown is of the treasures of the whole 
counlry. Him, whose honoured name the gentleman himself bears 
—does he suppose me less capable of gratitude for his pairiotism, or 
sympathy for his sufferings, than if his eyes had first opened upon 
the light in Massachusetts, instead of South Carolina 1 Sir, does 
he suppose it in his power to exhibit a Carolina name, so bright, as 
to produce envy in my bosom? No, sir, increased gratification and 
delight, rather. Sir, I thank God, that, if I am gifted with little of 
the .spirit which is able to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet 
none, as I trust, of- that other spirit, which would drag angels 
down. When I shall be found, sir, in my place here, in the Se- 
nate, or elsewhere, lo sneer at public merit, because it happened to 
spring up beyond the little limits of my own state, or neighbour- 
hood ; when I refuse, for any such cause, or for any cause, the ho- 
mage due to American talent, to elevated patriotism, to sincere 
devotion to liberty and the counlry; or, if I see an uncommon en- 
dowment of heaven— if I see extraordinary capacity and virtue in 
any son of the south — and if, moved by local prejudice, or gan- 
grened by stale jealousy, I get up here to abate the tithe'of a hair 
from his just charac'er and just fame, may my tongue cleave to the 
roof of my mouth ! 

Sir, let me recur to pleasing recollections — let me indulge in 
refreshing rem^ibrance of the past — let. me remind you that in 
•arly times no states cherished greater harmony, both of principle 



none of those states discovered that they had the 
right now claimed by South Carolina. The war 
into which we were forced, to support the dignity of 

and of feeling, ihan Massachusetts and South Carolina. "Would 
to God, that harmony might again return! Shoulder to shoulder 
they went thiough the revolution — hand in hand they stood round 
the administration of Washington, and felt his own great arm lean 
on them for support. Unkind feeling, if it exist, alienation and 
distrust, are the growth, unnatural to such soils, of false principles 
since sown. They are weeds, the seeds of which that same great 
arm never scattered. 

Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts 
-she needs none. There she is — behold her, and judge for j'our- 
selves. There is her hislorj' — the world knows it by heart. TI.e 
past, at least, is secure. Theie is Boslon, and Concord, and Lex- 
ington, and Bunker Hill — and there they will remain for ever. 
The bones of her sons, falling in the greal .struggle for independ- 
ence, now lie mingled with the soil of every slate, from New Eng- 
land lo Georgia ; and there they will lie for ever. And, sir, where 
American liberty raised ils first voice; and where its youth was 
nurtured and sustained, there it slill lives, in ihe strength of its 
manhood, and full of its original s])irit. If discord and disunion 
shall wound it — if party strife and blind ambition shall hawk at 
and lear il — if folly and madness — if uneasiness, under salutary and 
necessary restraint — shall succeed to separate it from that Union, 
by which alone its existence is made sure, it will stand, in the end, 
by the side of that cradle in which ils infancy was rocked : it will 
stretch forth its arm, with whatever vigour it may still retain, over 
the friends who gather round it ; and it will fall at last, if fall it 
must, amidst the proudest monuments of its own glory, and on the 
very spot of its origin. 

There yet remains to be performed, Mr. President, by far the 
most grave and imporlant duty, which I feel lo be devolved on me, 
by this occasion. Ii is to stale, and lo defend, what I conceive to 
be the true principles of the constilulion under which we are here 
a.ssembled. I might well have desired that so weighty a task should 
have fallen into other and abler hands. I could have wished that 
it should have been executed by those, whose character and expe- 
rience give weight and influence lo their opinions, such as cannot 
possibly belong to mine. But, sir, I have met the occasion, not 
sought it; and I shall proceed to slate my own senliments, without 
challenging for them any particular regard, with studied plainness, 
and as much precision as possible. 

I understand the honourable gentleman from South Carolina to 
maintain, that it is a right of the state legislatures to interfere, 
whenever, in their judgment, this government transcends its con- 
stitutional limits, and to arrest the operation of its laws. 

I understand him to maintain this right, as a right existing under 
the conslitution ; not as a right to overthrow it, on the ground of 
necessity, such as would justify violent revolution. 

I ijndersland him to maintain an authority, on the part of the 
states, thus to interfere, for the purpose of correcting the exercise of 
po«'er by the general government, of checking il, and of compel- 
ling it to conform lo their opinion of the extent of ils powers. 

I understand him to maintain, that the ultimate power of judging 
of the constitutional extent of ils own aulhorily, is not lodged ex- 
clusively in the general government, or any branch of it, but that, 
on Ihe contrary, the stales may lawfully decide for themselves, and 
each stale for itself, whether, in a given case, the act of the gene- 
ral government transcends ils power. 

I understand him to insist, that if the exigency of the case, in 
the opinion of anj' slate government, require it, such state govern- 
ment may, by its own sovereign authority, annul an act of the gene- 
ral government, which it deems plainly and palpably unconstitu- 
tional. 

This is the sum of what I understand from him to be the South 
Carolina doctrine, and the doctrine which he maintains. I propose 
to consider it, and to compare it with the constitution. Allow me 
to say, as a preliminary remark, that I call this the South Carolina 
doctrine, only because the gentleman himself has so denominated 
it. I do not feel at liberty lo say that Soulh Carolina, as a slate, 
has ever advanced these senliments I hope she has not, and never 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



413 



the nation and the rights of our citizens, might have 
ended in defeat and disgrace instead of victory and 
honour, if the states wlio supposed it a ruinous and 

may. That a greal majority of her people are opposed to the tariff 
laws, is doubtless true. That a majority, somewhat less than that 
ju.st mentioned, conscientiously believe these laws unconstitutional, 
may probably also be true. But that any majority holds to the 
right of direct state interference, at state discretion, the right of 
nullifying acts of congress, by acts of slate legislation, is more than 
I know, and what I shall be slow to believe. 

That there are individuals, besides the honourable gentleman, 
who do maintain these opinions, is quite certain. I recollect the 
recent expression of a sentiment, which circumstances attending its 
utterance and publication justify us in supposing was not unpre- 
meditated. " The sovereignty of the state-i-never to be controlled, 
construed, or decided on, but by her own feelings of honourable 
justice." 

[IMr. Hayne here rose, and said, that for the purpose of being 
clearly understood, he would state, that his proposition was in the 
words of the Virginia resolution, as follows : 

" That this assemby doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, 
that it views the powers of the federal government as resulting 
from the compact, to which the stales are parties, as limited by the 
plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting that com- 
pact, as no farther valid than they are authorized by the grants 
enumerated in ihat compact; and Ihai, in case of a deliberate, pal- 
pable, and. dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the 
said compact, the states who are parties thereto have the right, and 
are in duty bound to interpose, for arresting the progress of the 
evil, and for maintaining, wilhin their respective limits, the authori- 
ties, rights, and liberties, appertaining to them."] 

Mr. Webster resumed : 

1 am quite aware, Mr. President, of the existence of the resolu- 
tion which the gentleman read, and has now repeated, and that he 
relies on it as his authority. I know the source, too, from which 
it is understood to have proceeded. I need not say that I have 
much respect for the constitutional opinions of Mr. Madison; they 
would weigh greatly with me, always. But, before the authority 
of his opinion be vouched for the gentleman's proposition, it will he 
proper to consider what is the fair interpretation of that resolution, 
to which Mr. Madison is understood to have given his sanction. 
As the gentleman construes it, it is an authority for him. Possibly, 
he may not have adopted the right construction. That resolution 
declares, that, in the case of the dangcrnus exercise of powers not 
granted, by tke general government, the states may interpose to arrest 
the progress of the evil. But how interpose, and what does this 
declaration purport 1 Does it mean no more, than that there may 
be extreme cases, in which the people, in any mode of assembling, 
may resist usurpation, and relieve themselves from a tyrannical 
government 1 No one will deny this. Such resistance is not only 
acknowledged to be just in America, but in England also. Black- 
stone admits as much, in the theory, and practice, too, of the Eng- 
lish constitution. We, sir, who oppose the Carolina doctrine, do 
not deny that the people may, if they choose, throw off any govern- 
ment, when it become oppressive and intolerable, and erect abetter 
in its stead. We all know that civil institutions are established for 
the public benefit, and that when they cease to answer the ends of 
their existence, they may be changed. But I do not understand 
the doctrine now contended for to be that which, for the sake of 
distinctness, we may call the right of revolution. I understand the 
gentleman to maintain, that, without revolution, without civil com- 
motion, without rebellion, a remedy for supposed abuse and trans- 
gression of the powers of the general government lies in a direct 
appeal to the interference of the state governments. 

[Mr. Hayne here rose : He did not contend, he said, for the mere 
right of revolution, but for the right of constitutional resistance. 
What he maintained, was, that, in case of a plain, palpable viola- 
tion of the constitution, by the general government, a state may in- 
terpose; and that this interposition is constitutional.] 
Mr. Webster resumed: 

So, sir, I understood the gentleman, and am happy to find that I 
did not misunderstand him. What he contends for, is, Ihat it is 



unconstitutional measure, had thought they possessed 
the right of niiUifying the act by which it was de- 
clared, and denying suppHes for its prosecution. 

constiiutional to interrupt the administration of the con.'titution 
itself, in the hands of those who are chosen and sworn to adminis- 
ter it, by the direct interference, in form of law, of the stales, iii 
virtue of their sovereign capacity. The inherent right in the peo- 
ple to reform their government, I do not deny; and they have 
another right, and that is, to resist unconstitutional laws, without 
overturning the government. It is no doctrine of mine, that un- 
constitutional laws bind the people. The great question is, whose 
prerogative is it to decide on the constitutionality or unconstitutional- 
ity of the lau-s? On Ihat, ihe main debate hinges. The proposi- 
tion, that, in case of a supposed violation of the constitution by 
congress, the slates have a constitutional right to inlerfere, and 
annul the law of congress, is Ihe proposition of the gentleman : I 
do not admit it. If the gentleman had intended no more than to 
assert the right of revolution, for justifiable cause, he would have 
said only what all agree to. But 1 cannot conceive that there can 
he a middle course, between submission to the laws, when regularly 
pronounced constitutional, on the one hand, and open resistance, 
which is revolulion, or rebellion, on the other. I say, the right of 
a slate to annul a law of congress, can not be maintained, but on 
Ihe ground of the unalienable right of man to resist oppression ; that 
is to say, upon the ground of revolution. I admit thai there is an 
ultimate violent remedy above the conslilulion, and in defiance ol 
the constitution, which may be resorted lo when a revolution is to 
be justified. But I do not admit, that, under Ihe constitution, and 
in conformily with it, there is any mode in which a state govern- 
ment, as a member of the union, can interfere and stop the progress 
of the general government, by force of her own laws, under any 
circumstances whatever. 

This leads us lo inquire into the origin of this government, and 
the source of its power. Whose agent is it 1 Is it the creafure ol 
the slate legislalures, or the creature of Ihe peopled If the govern- 
njent of the United Slates be the agent of the state governments, 
then they may control it, provided Ihey can agree in the manner ol 
controlling it; if it be the agent of the people, then the people 
alone can control it, restrain it, modify, or reform it. It is observ- 
able enough, that the doctrine for which the honourable gentleman 
contends, leads hira lo Ihe necessity of maintaining, not only thai 
this general government is the creature of the stales, but that it if 
the creature of each of the stales severally; so that each may 
assert the power, for itself, of determining whether it acts wilhir 
the limits of its •aiilhorily. It is the servant of four-and-twenty 
masters, of different wills and difterent purposes, and yet bound to 
obey all. This absurdity (for it seems no less) arises from a mis- 
conception as to the origin of this government and its true charac- 
ter. It is, sir, the people's conslilulion, the people's government; 
made for the people; made by the people; and answerable lo the 
people. The people of Ihe United Stales have declared ihat this 
conslilulion shall be the supreme law. We must either admit Ihe 
proposition, or dispute their authority. The stales are, unques- 
tioiiably, sovereign, so far as Iheir sovereignly is not affected by 
this supreme law. But the state legislalures, as political bodies, 
however sovereign, are yet not sovereign over Ihe people. So far 
as the people have given power to the general government, so far 
the grant is unquestionably good, and the government holds of the 
people, and not of Ihe state governments. We are all agents of the 
same supreme power, ihe people. The general government and 
the stale governments derive Iheir authority from the same source. 
Neither can, in relation to Ihe other, be called primary, though one 
is definite and restricted, and the other general and residuary. The 
national government possesses those powers which it can be >^howTi 
the people have conferred on it, and no more. All the rest belongs 
to the slate governments or to the people themselves. So far a.s 
the people have restrained slate sovereignly, by the expression o< 
their will, in ihe conslilulion of ihe Uniled States, so far, it must 
be admitted, state sovereignly is effectually controlled. I do not 
contend that it is, or ought lo be controlled farther. The sentiment 
lo which I have referred, propounds that state sovereignty is only 
to be controlled by its own " feeling of justice j" that is to say, it is 



414 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Hardly and unequally as those measures bore upon 
several members of the Union, to the legislatures of 
none did this etHcient and peaceable remedy, as it is 

noi lo be controlled at all : for one who is to follow his own feel- 
ing is under no legal control. Now, however men may think this 
ought to be, the fact is, that the people of the United States have 
chosen to impose control on state sovereignties. There are those, 
doubtless, who wish they had been left without restraint; but the 
constitution has ordered the matter differently. To make war, for 
instance, is an exercise of sovereignty ; but the constitution de- 
clares that no state shall make war. To coin money is another 
exercise of sovereign power ; but no state is at liberty to coin 
money. Again, the constitution says that no sovereign state shall 
be so sovereign as to make a treaty. These prohibitions, it must 
be confessed, are a control on the state sovereignty of South Caro- 
lina, as well as of the other states, which does not arise " from her 
own feelings of honourable justice." Such an opinion, therefore, 
is in defiance of the plainest provisions of the constitution. 

There are other proceedings of public bodies which have already 
been alluded to, and to which I refer again for the purpose of as- 
certaining, more fully, what is the length and breadth of that doc- 
trine, denominated the Carolina doctrine, which the honourable 
member has now stood up on this floor to maintain. In one of 
them I find it resolved, that " the tariff of 1828, and every other 
tariff designed to promote one branch of industry at the expense of 
others, is contrarj' to the meaning and intention of the federal com- 
pact ; and, as such, a dangerous, palpable, and deliberate usurpa- 
tion of power, by a determined majority, wielding the general go- 
vernment beyond the limits of its delegated powers, as calls upon 
the slates which compose the suffering minority, in their sovereign 
capacity, to exercise the powers which, as sovereigns, necessarily 
devolve upon them, when their compact is violated." 

Observe, sir, that this resolution holds the tariff of 1828, and 
every other tariff, designed to promote one branch of industry 
at the expense of another, to be such a dangerous, palpable, 
and deliberate usurpation of power, as calls upon the states, in 
their sovereign capacity, to interfere by their own authority. 
This denunciation, Mr. President, you will please to observe, in- 
cludes our old tariff of 1816, as well as all others; because that 
was established to promote the interest of the manufactures of 
cotton, to the manifest and admitted injury of the Calcutta cotton 
trade. Observe, again, that all the qualifications are here re- 
hearsed and charged upon the tariff, which are necessary to bring 
the case within the gentleman's proposition. The tariff is a usur- 
pation ; it is a dangerous usurpation ; it is a palpable usurpation ; 
it is a deliberate usurpation. It is such a usurpation, therefore, as 
calls upon the states to exercise their right of interference. Here 
is a case, then, within the gentleman's principles, and all his 
qualifications of his principles. It is a case for action. The con- 
stitution is plainly, dangerously, palpably, and deliberately viola- 
ted ; and the states must interpose their own authority to arrest 
the law. Let ns suppose the state of South Carolina lo express 
this same opinion, by the voice of her legislature. That would be 
very imposing ; but what then 1 Is the voice of one state conclu- 
sive 1 It so happens, that at the very moment when South Caro- 
lina resolves that the tariff laws are unconstitutional, Pennsylvania 
and Kentucky resolve exactly the reverse. The-i/ hold those laws 
to be both highly proper and strictly constitutional. And now, sir, 
how does the honourable member propose to deal with this case 1 
How does he relieve us from this difl^culty, upon any principle of 
his ■? His construction gets us into it ; how does he propose to get 
us out 1 

In Carolina, the tarifl;" is a palpable, deliberate usurpation ; 
Carolina, 'therefore, may nullifi/ it, and refuse to pay the duties. 
In Pennsylvania, it is both clearly constitutional, and highly expe- 
dient ; and there, the duties are to he paid. And yet, we live un- 
der a government of uniform laws, and under a constitution, too, 
which contains an express provision, as it happens, that all duties 
shall be equal in .all the states ! Does not this approach absurdity ? 

If there be no power to settle such questions, independent of 
either of the states, is not the whole union a rope of sand ? Are 
ve not thrown back again, precisely, upon the old confederation "? 



called, suggest itself. The discovery of this impor 
tant feature in our constitution was reserved to the 
present day. To the statesmen of South Carolina 

It is too plain to be argued. Four and twenty interpreters of 
constitutional law, each with a power to decide for itself, and none 
with authority to bind any body else, and this constitutional law 
the only bond of their union ! What is such a state of things, but 
a mere connexion during pleasure, or, to use the phraseology ol 
the limes, during fixling ? And that feeling, too, not the feeling 
of the people who established the constitution, but the feeling ol 
the stale governments. 

In another of the South Carolina addresses, having premised 
that the crisis requires " all ihe concentrated energy of passion," 
an attitude of open resistance to the laws of the union is advised. 
Open resistance to the laws, then, is the constitutional remedy, the 
conservative power of the state, which the South Carolina doc- 
trines teach for the redress of political evils, real or imaginary. 
And its authors further say, that, appealing with confidence to the 
constitution itself, to justify their opinions, they can not consent lo 
try their accuracy by the courts of justice. In one sense, indeed, 
sir, this is assuming an attitude of open resistance in favour of 
liberty. But what sort of liberty 1 The liberty of establishing 
their own opinions, in defiance of the opinions of all others; the 
liberly of judging and of deciding exclusively themselves, in a 
matter in which others have as much right to judge and decide as 
they ; the liberty of placing their own opinions above the judgment 
of all others, above the laws, and above the constitution. 'This is 
their liberly, and this is the fair result of the proposition contend- 
ed for by the honourable gentleman. Or it may be more properly 
said, it is identical with it, rather than the result from it. 

In the same publication, we find the following: " Previously to 
our revolution, when the arm of oppression was stretched ovej: 
New England, where did our northern brethren meet with a braver 
sympathy than that which sprung from the bosoms of Carolinians ■? 
Wc had no extortio^i^ no oppression^ no collision wilk the king^s mi- 
nisters, no navigation interests springing tip, in envious rivalry oj 
England." 

This seems extraordinary language. South Carolina no colli- 
sion with the king's ministers, in 1775! No extortion ! No op- 
pression! But, sir, it is also most significant language. Does any 
man doubt the purpose for which it was penned 1 Can any one 
fail to see that it was designed to raise in the reader's mind the 
question, whether, at this time — that is to say, in 1828 — South 
Carolina has any collision with the king's ministers, any oppres- 
sion, or extortion, to fear from England 1 Whether, in short, Eng- 
land is not as naturally the friend of Soulh Carolina as New Eng- 
land, with her navigation interests springing up in envious rivalry 
of England 'i 

Is it not strange, sir, that an intelligent man in South Carolina, 
in 1828, should thus labour lo prove, that, in 1775, there was no 
hostility, no cause of war, between South Carolina and England? 
That she had no occasion, in reference to her own interest, or from 
a regard to her own welfare, to take up arms in the revolutionary 
contest 1 Can any one account for the expression of such strange 
sentiments, and their circulation through the state, otherwise than 
by supposing the object to be, what I have already intimated, to 
raise the question, if they had no " ^^^^^^^^"(mark the expression) 
with the ministers of King George the Third, in 1775, what col- 
lision have they, in 1828, with the ministers of King George the 
Fourth 1 What is there now, in the existing state of things, to 
separate Carolina from Old, more, or rather, than from New Eng- 
land I 

Resolutions, sir, have been recently passed by the legislature ot 
South Carolina. I need not refer to them : they go no further than 
the honourable gentleman himself has gone — and, I hope, not so far. 
I content myself, therefore, with debating the matter with him. 

And now, sir, what I have first to say on this subject is, that, at 
no time, and under no circumstances, has New England, or any 
state in New England, or any respectable body of persons in New 
England, or any public man of standing in New England, put forth 
such a doctrine as this Carolina doctrine. 

The gentleman has found no case, he can find none, to support 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



416 



belongs the invention, and upon the citizens of that 
state will unfortunately fall the evils of reducing it to 
practice. 

his own opinions by New England authority. New England has 
studied the constitution in other schools, and under other teachers. 
She looks upon it with other regards, and deems more highly and 
reverently, both of its just authority, and its utility and excellence. 
The history of her legislative proceedings maj' be traced — the 
ephemeral effusions of temporary bodies, called together by the ex- 
citement of the occasion, maybe hunted up — they have been hunt- 
ed up. The opinions and votes of her public men, in and out of 
congress, may be explored— it will all be iu vain. The Carolina 
doctrine can derive from her neither countenance nor support. 
She rejects it now; she always did reject it; and till she loses her 
senses, she always will reject if. The honourable member has re- 
ferred to expressions, on the subject of the embargo law, made in 
this place, by an honourable and venerable gentleman, (Mr. Hill- 
house,) now favouring us with his presence. He quotes that di.s- 
tinguished senator as saying, that, in his judgment, the embargo 
law was unconstitutional, and that, therefore, in his opinion, the 
people were not bound to obey it. That, sir, is perfectly constitu- 
tional language. An unconstitutional law is not binding ; bul. Ihen 
it does not rest ivith a rcsolutum or a Jaw nf a state U'gislatiiTC to <U:~ 
tide whether an act of congress he, or be no!, const itidional. An un- 
constitutional act of congress would not bind the people of this 
district, although they have no legislature to interfere in their be- 
half; and, on tlie other hand, a constitutional law of congress does 
bind the citizens of every state, although all their legislatures 
should imdertake to annul it, by act or resolution. The venera- 
ble Connecticut senator is a constitutional lawyer, of sound prin 
ciples, and enlarged knowledge; a statesman practised and expe- 
rienced, bred in the company of Washington, and holding just 
views upon the nature of our governments. He believed the em- 
bargo unconstitutional, and so did others; but what then 1 Who 
did he suppose was to decide that question! The stale legisla- 
tures'? Certainly not. No such sentiments ever escaped his lips. 
Let us follow up, sir, this New England opposition to the embargo 
laws; let us trace it, till we discern the principle which controlled 
and governed New England throughout the whole course of that 
opposition. We shall then see what similarity there is between 
the New England school of constitutional opinions, and this modern 
Carolina school. The gentleman, I think, read a petition from 
some single individual, addres,5ed to the legislature of Massachu- 
setts, asserting the Carolina doctrine— that is, the right of state in- 
terference to arrest the laws of the union. The fate of that peti- 
. tion shows the sentiment of the legislature. It met no favour. 
The opinions of Massachusetts were otherwise. They had been 
expressed, in 1798, in answer to the resolution? of Virginia, and 
she did not depart from them, nor bend them to the times. Mis- 
governed, wronged, oppressed, as she felt herself to be, she still 
held fast her integrity to the union. The gentleman may find in 
her proceedings much evidence of dissatisfaction with the measures 
of government, and great and deep dislike to the embargo ; all 
this makes the case so much the stronger for her ; for, notwith- 
standing all this dissatisfaction and dislike, she claimed no right, 
still, to sever asunder the bonds of the union. There was heat, 
and there was anger, in her political feeling — be it so — her heat or 
her anger did not, nevertheless, betray her into infidelity to the 
government. The gentleman labours to prove that she disliked 
the embargo, as much as South Carolina dislikes the tariff, and ex- 
pressed her dislike as strongly. Be it so ; t»d did she propose the 
Carolina remedy 7 — did she threaten to interfere, by stale avthoritij, to 
annul the' laws of the union? That is the question for the gentle- 
man's consideration. 

No doubt, sir, a great majority of the people of New England 
conscientiously believed the embargo law of 1807 unconstitutional ; 
as conscientiously, certainlv. as the people of South Carolina hold 
that opinion of tie tariff. They reasoned thus: congress has power 
to regulate commerce; but here is a law, they said, stopping all 
commerce, and stopping it indefinitely. The law is perpetual; 
that is, it is not limited in point of time, and mu.st, of course, con- 
tiDUt'. until it shall be repealed bv some other law. It is as per- 

53 



" If the doctrine of the state veto upon the laws of 
the Union carries with it internal evidence of its im- 
practicable absurdity, our constitutional history will 

pelual, therefore, as the law against treason or murder. Now, Is 
this regulating commerce, or destroying it 1 Is it guiding, con- 
trolling, giving the rule to commerce, as a subsisting thing; or is 
it putting an end to it altogether 1 Nothing is more certain, than 
that a majority in New England deemed this law a violation of the 
constitution. The very case required by the gentleman, to justify 
state interference, had then arisen. Massachusetts believed this 
law to be a " deliberate, pHlpnlilc, and danscrovs exercise of a power, 
not granted by the conslihitiun." Deliberate it was, for it was long 
continued ; palpable, she thought it, as no words in the constitu- 
tion gave the power, and only a construction, in her opinion most 
violent, raised it; dangerous it was, since it threatened utter rum 
to her most important interests. Here, then, was a Carolina case. 
How did Massachusetts deal with ill It was, as she thought, a 
plain, manifest, palpable violation of the constitution ; and it 
brought ruin to her doors. Thousands of families, and hundreds 
of thousands of individuals, were beggared by it. While she saw 
and felt all this, she saw and felt, also, that, as a measure of na- 
tional policy it was perfectly futile; that the country was no way 
benefitted by that which caused so much individual distress; that 
it was efficient only for the production of evil, and all that evil in- 
flicted on ourselves. In such a case, under such circumstances, 
how did Massachusetts demean herself! Sir, she remonstrated, 
she memorialized, she addressed herself to the general govern- 
ment, not exactly " with the concentrated energy of pa.ssion," but 
with her own strong sense, and the energy of sober conviction. 
But she did not interpose the arm of her oivn power to arrest the 
.law, and break the embargo. Far from it. Her principles bound 
her to two things ; and she followed her principles, lead where 
they might. First, to submit to every constitutional law of con- 
gress ; and, secondly, if the constitutional validity of the law be 
doubted, to refer that question to the decision of the proper tribu- 
nals. The first principle is vain and ineffectual without the se- 
cond. A majority of us in New England believed the embargo 
law unconstitutional ; but the great question was, and always will 
be, in such cases, who is to decide this 1 Who is to judge between 
the people and the government 1 And, sir, it is quite plain, that 
the constitution of the United States confers on the government 
itself, to be exercised by its appropriate department, and under its 
own responsibility to the people, this power of deciding ultimately 
and conclusively, upon the just extent of its own authority. If 
this had not been done, we should not have advanced a single step 
beyond the old confederation. 

Bein? fully of opinion that the embargo law was unconstitu- 
tional, the people of New England were yet equally clear in the 
opinion — it was a matter they did not doubt upon — that the ques- 
tion, after all, must be decided by the judicial tribunals of the Uni- 
ted States. Before those tribunals, therefore, they brought the 
question. Under the provisions of the law, they had given bonds, 
to millions in amount, and which were alleged to be forfeited. 
They suffered the bonds to be sued, and thus raised the question. 
In the old-fashioned way of settling disputes, they went to law. 
The case came to hearing, and solemn argument ; and he who 
espoused their cause, and stood up for them against the validity of 
the embargo act, was none other than that great man, of whom 
the gentleman has made honourable mention, Samuel Dexter. He 
was then, sir, in the fulne.ss of his knowledge, and the maturity ol 
his strength. He had retired from long and distinguished public 
service here, to the renewed pursuit of professional duties; carry- 
iugwith him all that enlargement and expansion, all the newstrength 
and force, which an acquaintance with the more general subjects, 
discussed in the national councils, is capable of adding to profes- 
sional attainment, in a mind of true greatness and comprehension. 
He was a lawyer, and he was also a statesman. He had studied 
the constitution, when he filled public station, that he might de- 
fend it ; he had examined its principles, that he might maintain 
them. More than all men, or at least as much as any man, he 
was attached to the general government and to the union of the 
states. His feelings and opinions all ran in that direction. A 



416 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



also afford abundant proof that it would have been 
repudiated with indignation had it been proposed to 
form a feature in our government. 

question of constitutional law, too, was, of all subjects, that one 
which was best suited to his talents and learning. Aloof from 
technicality, and unfettered by artificial rule, such a question gave 
opportunity for that deep and clear analysis, that mighty grasp of 
principle, which so much distinguished his higlier efforts. His 
very statement was argument; his inference seemed demonstra- 
tion. The earnestness of his own conviction, wrought conviction 
in others. One was convinced, and believed, and assented, be- 
cause it was gratifying, delightful to think, and feel, and believe, 
in unison with an intellect of such evident superiority. 

Mr. Dexter, sir, such as I have described him, argued the New 
England cause. He put into his effort his whole heart, as well as 
all the powers of his understanding ; for he had avowed, in the 
most public manner, his entire concurrence with his neighbours, 
on the point in dispute. He argued the cause, it was lost, and 
New Engl.ind submitted. The established tribunals pronounced 
the law constitutional, and New England acquiesced. Now, sir, 
is not this the exact opposite of the doctrine of the gentleman from 
South Carolina 1 According to him, instead of referring to the 
judicial tribunals, we should have broken up the embargo by laws 
of our own ; we should have repealed it, quoad New England ; 
for %ve had a strong, palpable, and oppressive case. Sir, we be- 
lieved the embargo unconstitutional ; but still, that was matter of 
opinion, and who was to decide it t We thought it a clear case ; 
but, nevertheless, we did not take the law into our own hands, be- 
cause we did not wish to bring about a revolution, nor to break up the 
nnion ; for, I maintain, that, between submission to the decision 
of the constituted tribunals, and revolution, or disunion, there is 
no middle ground — there is no ambiguous condition, half allegi- 
ance, and half rebellion. And, sir, how futile, how very futile it 
is, to admit the right of state interference, and then attempt to save 
it from the character of unlawful resistance, by adding terms of 
qualification to the causes and occa-sions, leaving all these qualifi- 
cations, like the case itself, in the discretion of the slate govern- 
ments. It must be a clear case, it is said ; a deliberate case; a 
palpable case; a dangerous case. But then the state is still left at 
liberty to decide for herself, what is clear, what is deliberate, what 
is palpable, what is dangerous. Do adjectives and epithets avail 
any thing 1 Sir, the human mind is so constituted, that the merits 
of both sides of a controversy appear very clear and very palpa- 
ble, to those who respectively espouse them ; and both sides usual- 
ly grow clearer, as the controversy advances. South Carolina sees 
imconstitutionality in the tariff; she sees oppression there, also; 
and she sees danger. Pennsylvania, with a vision not less sharp, 
looks at the same tariff, and sees no such thing in it — she sees it 
all constitutional, all useful, all safe. The faith of South Carolina 
is strengthened by opposition, and she now not only sees, but rc- 
solves, that the tariff is palpably unconstitutional, oppressive, and 
dangerous; but Pennsylvania, not to be behind her neighbours, 
and equally willing to strengthen her own faith by a confident as- 
severation, resolves, also, and gives to every warm affirmative of 
South Carolina, a plain, downright, Pennsylvania negative. South 
Carolina, to show the strength and itnity of her opinion, brings her 
assembly to a unanimity, within seven voices; Pennsylvania, not 
to be outdone in this respect more than others, reduces her dissen- 
tient fraction to a single vote. Now, sir, again, I ask the gentle- 
man, what is to be done ? Are these states both right 1 Is he 
bound to consider them both right? If not, which is in the wrong? 
or rather, which has the best right to decide 1 and if he, and if I, 
are not to know what the constitution means, and what it is, till 
those two state legislatures, and the twenty-two others, shall agree 
in its construction, what have we sworn to, when we have sworn 
to maintain it 1 I was forcibly struck, sir, with one reflection, as 
the gentleman went on in his speech. He quoted Mr. Madison's 
resolutions to prove that a state may interfere, in a case of delibe- 
rate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of a power not granted. 
The honourable member supposes the tariff law to be such an ex- 
ercise of power ; and that, consequently, a case has arisen in which 
tlie state may, if it see fit, interfere by its own law. Now it so i 



" In our colonial state, although dependent on an- 
other power, we very early considered ourselves as 
connected by common interest with each other. 

happens, nevertheless, that Mr. Madison himself deems this same 
tariff law quite constitutional. Instead of a clear and palpable 
violation, it is, in his judgment, no violation at all. So that, while 
they use his authority for a hypothetical case, they reject it in the 
very case before them. All this, sir, shows the inherent futility — 
I had almost used a stronger word — of conceding this power of in- 
terference to the states, and then altempting to secure it from abuse 
by imposing qualifications, of which the -states themselves ore to 
judge. One of two things is true; either the laws of the union 
are beyond the discretion, and bej'ond the control of the slates; oi 
else we have no constitution of general government, and are thrust 
back again to the days of the confederacy. 

Let me here say, sir, that if the gentleman's doctrine had been 
received and acted upon in New England, in the times of the em- 
bargo and non-intercourse, we should probably not now have been 
here. The government would, very likely, have gone to pieces, 
and crumbled into dust. No stronger case can ever arise than ex- 
isted under those laws ; no states can ever entertain a clearer con- 
viction than the New England states then entertained ; and if they 
had been under the influence of that heresy of opinion, as I must 
call it, which the honourable member espouses, this union would, 
in all probability, have been scattered to the four winds. I ask 
the gentleman, therefore, to apply his principles to that case ; I ask 
him to come forth and declare, whether, in his opinion, the New 
England states would have been justified in interfering to break 
up the embargo system, under the conscientious opinions which 
they held upon it 1 Had they a right to annul that law 1 Does 
he admit or deny 1 If that which is thought palpably unconstitu- 
tional in South Carolina, justifies that state in arresting the pro- 
gress of the law, tell me, whether that which was thought palpa- 
bly unconstitutional also in Massachusetts, would have justified 
her in doing the same thing 1 Sir, I deny the whole doctrine. It 
has not a foot of ground in the constitution to stand on. No pub- 
lic man of repulation ever advanced it in Massachusetts, in the 
warmest times, or could mainlain himself upon it there at anytime. 

I wish now, sir, to make a remark upon the Virginia resolutions 
of 1798. I can not undertake to say how these resolutions were 
understood by those who passed them. Their language is not a 
little indefinite. In the case of the exercise, by congress, of a dan- 
gerous power, not granted to them, the resolutions assert the right, 
on the part of the stale, to interfere, and arrest the progress of the 
evil. This is susceptible of more than one interpretation. It may 
mean no more than that (he states may interfere by complaint and 
remonstrance ; or by proposing to the people an alteration of the 
federal constitution. This would all be quite unobjectionable; or, 
it may be, that no more is meant than to assert the general right of 
revolution, as against all governments, in cases of intolerable op- 
pression. This no one doubts; and this, in my opinion, is all that 
he who framed ihe resolutions could have meant by it: for I shall 
not readily believe, that he was ever of opinion that a state, under 
the constitution, and in conformity with it, could, upon the ground 
of her o'mi opinion of its unconstitutionality, however clear and 
palpable she might think the case, annul a law of congress, so far 
as it should operate on herself, by her own legislative power. 

I must now beg to ask, sir, whence is this supposed right of the 
states derived I Where do they find the power to interfere with 
the laws of the union 1 Sir, the opinion which the honourable gen- 
tleman maintains, is a notion, founded in a total misapprehension, 
in my judgment, of the origin of this government, and of the 
foundation on which it stands. I hold it to be a popular govern- 
ment, erected by the people ; those who administer it responsible 
to the people ; and itself capable of being amended and modified, 
just as the people may choose it should be. It is as popular, just 
as truly emanating from the people, as the .state governments. It 
is created for one purpose ; tlie state governments for another. It 
has its own powers ; they have theirs. There is no more authori- 
ty with them to arrest the operation of a law of congress, than with 
congress to arrest the operation of their laws. We are here to 
administer a constitution emanating immediately from the people 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



417 



LeagTies were formed for common defence, and before 
the Declaration of Independence we were known in 
our aggregate character as thp United Colonies 

and trusted by them to our administration. It is not the creature 
of the state governments. It is of no moment to the argument, 
that certain acts of the state legislatures are necessary to fill our 
seats in this body. That is not one of their original state powers, 
a part of the sovereignty of the state. It is a duty which the peo- 
ple, by the constitution itself, have imposed on the state legisla- 
ture ; and which they might have left to be performed elsewhere, 
if they had seen fit. So they h-Tve left the choice of president with 
electors; but all this does not affect the proposition, that this whole 
government, president, senate, and house of representatives, is a 
popular government. It leaves it still all its popular character. 
The governor of a state (in some of the states) is chosen, not di- 
rectly by the people, but by those who are chosen by the people, 
for the purpose of performing, among other duties, that of electing 
a governor. Is the government of the state, on that accoimt, not 
a popular government ■? This government, sir, is the independent 
cffspring of the popular will. It is not the creature of state legis- 
latures ; nay, more, if the whole truth must be told, the people 
brought it into existence, established it, and have hitherto support- 
ed it, for the very purpose, amongst others, of imposing certain 
salutary restraints on state sovereignties. The states can not now 
moke war; they can not contract alliances; they can not make, 
each for itself, separate regulations of commerce ; they can not 
lay imposts ; they tan not coin money. If this constitution, sir, 
oe the creature of state legislatures, it must be admitted that it 
has obtained a strange control over the volitions of its creators. 

The people, then, sir, erected this government. They gave it 
a constitution, and in that constitution they have enumerated the 
powers which they bestow on it. They have made it a limited 
government. They have defined its authority. They have re- 
strained it to the exercise of such powers as are granted ; and all 
olliers, they dcctere, are reserved to the states or the people. But, 
sir, they have not stopped here. If they had, they would have ac- 
complished but half their work. No definition can be so clear, as 
to avoid possibility of doubt ; no limitation so precise, as to ex- 
clude all uncertainty. Who, then, shall construe this grant of 
the people 1 Who shall interpret their will, where it may be sup- 
posed they have left it doubtfull With whom do they repose this 
ultimate right of deciding on the powers of the government 7 Sir, 
they have settled all this in the fullest manner. They have left 
it with the government itself, in its appropriate branches. Sir, 
the very chief end, the main design, for which the whole constitu- 
tion was framed and adopted, was to establish a government that 
.should not be obliged to act through state agency, or depend on 
state opinion and state discretion. The people had had quite 
enough of that kind of government, under the confederacv. Un- 
der that system, the legal action — the application of law to indi- 
viduals — belonged exclusively to the stales. Congress" could only 
recommend — their acts were not of binding force, till the states 
had adopted and sanctioned them. Are we in that condition still l 
Are we yet at the mercy of state discretion and state construction 1 
Sir, if we are, then vain will be our attempt to maintain the con- 
stitution under which we sit. 

But, sir, the people have wisely provided, in the constitution it- 
self, a proper, suitable mode and tribunal for settling questions of 
constitutional law. There are, in the constitution, grants of pow- 
ers to congress; and restrictions on these powers. There are, 
also, prohibitions on the states. Soine authority must, therefore, 
necessarily exist, having the ultimate jurisdiction to fix and ascer- 
tain the inlerprctati<m of these grants, restrictions, and prohibi- 
tions. The constitulion has itself pointed out, ordained, and esta- 
blished that authority. How has it accomplished this great and 
essential end ■? By declaring, sir, that " the constitution and the laws 
of Ike United States, made in jyitrsvajue thereof, shall be the supreme 
law of the land, any thiiis; in the constitution or lairs of any state to 
the contrary notwithstanding " 

This, sir, was the first great step. By this, the supremacv of 
the constitution and laws of the United States is declared. The 
people so wiU it. No state law is to be valid, which comes in con- 



OF America. That decisive and important step was 
taken jointly. We declared ourselves a nation by a 
joint, not by several acts, and when the terms of our 

diet with the constitulion, or any law of the United States. But 
who shall decide this question of interference ? To whom lies the 
last appeal 1 This sir, the constitution itself decides, also, by de- 
claring, " that the judicial power shall extend to all cases arising 
under the constitution and laws of the United States." These two 
provisions, sir, cover the whole ground. They are, in truth, the 
key-stone of the arch. With these, it is a constitution; without 
them, it is a confederacy. In pursuance of these clear and ex- 
press provisions, congress established, at its very first session, in 
the judicial act, a mode for carrying them into full effect, and for 
bringing all questions of constitutional power to the final decision 
of the supreme court. It then, sir, became a government. It 
then had the means of self-protection ; and, but for this, it would, 
in all probability, have been now among things which are past. 
Having constituted the government, and declared its powers, the 
people have further said, that since somebody must decide on the 
extent of these powers, the government .shall itself decide ; subject, 
always, like other popular governments, to its responsibility to the 
people. And now, sir, I repeat, how is it that a slate legislature 
acquires any power to interfere 1 Who, or what, gives them the 
right to say to the people, " We, who are your agents and servants 
for one purpose, will undertake to decide, that your other agents 
and servants, appointed by you for another purpose, have tran- 
scended the authority j-ou gave them"!" The reply would be, I 
think, not impertinent, " Who made you a judge over another's 
servants 1 To their own masters they stand or fall." 

Sir, I deny this power of slate legislatures altogether. It can 
not stand the test of examination. Gentlemen may say, that, in 
an extreme case, a state government might protect the people from 
intolerable oppression. Sir, in such a case, the people might pro- 
tect themselves, without the aid of the state governments. Such a 
case warrants revolution. It must rr.ake, when it corpes, a law for 
itself. A nullifying act of a slate legislature can not alter the case, 
nor make resistance any more lawful. In maintaining these senti- 
ments, sir, I am but a.sserting the rights of the people. I slate 
what they have declared, and insist on their right to declare it. 
They have chosen to repose this power in the general government, 
and I think it my diHy to support it, like other constitulional powers. 

For myself, sir, I do not admit the jurisdiction of South Caroli- 
na, or any other state, to prescribe my constitutional duty, or to 
settle, between me and the people, the validity of laws of con- 
gress, for which I have voted. I decline her umpirage. I have 
not sworn to support the constitution according to her construction 
of its clauses. I have not stipulated, by my oath of office, or other- 
wise, to come under any responsibility, except to the people, and 
those whom they have appointed to pass upon the question, whether 
laws, supported by my votes, conform to the constitution of the 
country. And, sir, if we look to the general nature of the case, 
could any thing have been more preposterous, than to make a go- 
vernment for the whole union, and yet leave its powers subject, not 
to one interpretation, but to thirteen, or twenty-four, interpreta- 
tions'! Instead of one tribunal, established by all, responsible to 
all, with power to decide for all, shall constitulional questions be 
left to four and twenty popular boflies, each at liberty to decide for 
itself, and none bound to respect the decisions of others ; and each 
at libertv, too, to give a new construction on ever)' new election oi 
its own members 1 Would any thing, with such a principle in it, 
or rather, with such a destitution of all principle, be fit to be called 
a government 1 No, sir. It should not be denominated a consti- 
tution. It should be called, rather, a collection of topics, for ever- 
lasting controversy ; heads of debate for a disputatious people. It 
would not be a government. It would not be adequate to any 
praclical good, nor fit for any country to live under. To avoid 
all possibility of being misunderstood, allow me to repeat again, in 
the fullest manner, that I claim no powers for the government by 
forced or unfair construction. I admit, that it is a government oi 
siricllv limited powers ; of enumerated, specified, and particulari- 
zed powers : and that whatsoever is not granted, is withheld. But 
notwithstanding all this, and however the grant of power? iiaay be 



418 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



confederation were reduced to form, it was in that of 
a solemn league of several states, by which they 
agreed that they would collectively form one nation 

expressed, its limit and extent may yet, in some cases, admit of 
doubt I and the general government would be good for nothing, it 
would be incapable of long existing, if some mode had not been 
provided, in which Those doubts, as they should arise, might be 
peaceably, but authoritatively, solved. 

And now, Mr. President, let me run the honourable gentleman's 
iloctrine a little into its practical application. Let us look at his 
probable modus operandi. If a thing can be done, an ingenious 
man can tell hom it is to be done. Now, 1 wish to be informed hov} 
lhi.5 state interference is to be put in practice, without violence, 
bloodshed, and rebellion. We will take the existing case of the 
tariiflaw. South Carolina is said to have made up her opinion 
upon it. If we do not repeal it, (as we probably shall not,) she 
will then apply to the case the remedy of her doctrine. She will, 
we must suppose, pass a law of her legislature, declaring the seve- 
ral acts of congress, usually called the tariff laws, null and void, 
so far as the) respect South Carolina or the citizens thereof. So 
far, all is a paper transaction, and easy enough. But the collector 
at Charleston is collecting the duties imposed by these tariif laws — 
he, therefore, must be stopped. The collector will seize the goods 
if the tariff duties are not paid. The state authorities will under- 
take their rescue ; the marshal, with his posse, will come to the 
collector's aid, and here the contest begins. The militia of the 
state will be called out to sustain the nullifying act. They will 
inarch, sir, under a very gallant leader: for I believe the honour- 
able member himself commands the militia of that part of the 
state. He will raise the nhllifying aot on his standard, and spread 
it out as his banner ! It will have a preamble, bearing, that the 
tariff laws are palpable, deliberate, and dangerous violations of 
the constitution ! He will proceed, with his banner flying, to the 
custom-house in Charleston : 

" All the while, 
Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds." 

Arrived at the custom-house, he will tell the collector that he must 
■collect no more duties under any of the tariff laws. This, he will 
be somewhat puzzled to say, by the way, with a grave coimteuance, 
considering what hand South Carolina herself had in that of 1816. 
But, .sir, the collector would, probably, not desist at his bidding — 
here w'ould ensue a pause : for they say, that a certain stillness 
precedes the tempest. Before this military array should fall on 
the custom-house, collector, clerks, and all, it is very probable some 
of those composing it would request of their gallant commander in 
chief, to be informed a little upon the point of law ; for they have, 
doubtless, a just respect for his opinions as a lawyer, as well as 
for his bravery as a soldier. They know he has read Blackstone 
and the constitution, as well as Turenne and Vauban. They would 
a^k him, therefore, something concerning their rights in this mat- 
ter. They would inquire, whether it was not somewhat danger- 
>)HS to resist a. law of the United Slates 1 What would be the na- 
ture of their offence, they would wish to learn, if they, by military 
force and array, resisted the execution in Carolina of a law of the 
United States, and it should turn out, after all, that the law irns 
'■tmslitutional ? He would answer, of course, treason. No lawyer 
could give any other answer. John Fries, he would tell them, had 
learned that some years ago. How, then, they would ask, do you 
piopose to defend usi We are not afraid of bullets, but treason 
has a way of taking people off, that we do not much relish. How 
do you propose to defend us "> " Look at my floating banner," he 
would reply; " see there the nullifyiiig law!" Is it your opinion, 
gallant commander, they would then say, that if we should be in- 
dicted for treason, that same floating banner of yours would make 
a good plea in bar 1 " South Carolina is a sovereign state," he 
would reply. That is true; but would the jud-re admit our plea^ 
"These tariff laws," he would repeat, "are unconstitutional, pal- 
uably, deliberately, dangerously." That all may he so ; hut if the 
tribunals .should not happen to be of that opinion, shall we swing 
for it 1 We are ready to die for our country, but it is rather an 



for the purpose of conducting some certain dofticstic 
concerns and all foreign relations. In the instrument 
forming that union, is found an article which declares 

awkward business, this dying without touching the ground ! Af- 
ter all, that is a sort oi hemp tax, worse than any part of the tariff. 

Mr. President, the honourable gentleman would be in a dilem- 
ma, like that of another great general. He would have a knot be- 
fore him, which he could not untie. He must cut it with his 
sword. He must say to his followers, defend yourselves with your 
bayonets ; and this is war — civil war. 

Direct collisions, therefore, between force and force, is the un- 
avoidable result of that remedy for the revision of unconstitutional 
laws, which the gentleman contends for. It must happen in the 
very first case to which it is applied. Is not this the plain result I 
To resist, by force, the execution of a law, generally, is treason. 
Can the courts of the United States take notice of the indulgence 
of a state to commit treason '! The common saying, that a .state 
can not commit treason herself, is nothing to the purpose. Can 
she authorize others to do itl If John Fries had produced an act 
of Pennsylvania, annulling the law of congress, would it have 
helped his case 1 Talk about it as we will, these doctrines go the 
length of revolution. They are incompatible with any peaceable 
administration of the government. They lead directly to dis- 
union and civil commotion ; and, therefore, it is, that at their com- 
mencement, when they are first found to he maintained by respecta- 
ble men, and in a tangible form, I enter my public protest against 
them all. • 

The honourable gentleman argues, that if this government be 
the sole judge of the extent of its own powers, whether that right 
of judging be in congress or the supreme court, it equally subverts 
state sovereignty. This the gentleman sees, or thinks he sees, al- 
though he can not perceive how the right of judging, in this mat- 
ter, if left to the exerci.se of state legislatures, has any tendency tc 
subvert the government of the union. The gentleman's opinion 
may be, that the right ovgU not to have been lodged with the ge- 
neral government ; he may like better such a constitution, as we 
should have under the right of state interference ; but I ask him 
to meet me on the plain matter of fact ; I a5k him to meet me on 
the constitution itself; I ask him if the power is not found there— 
clearly and visibly found there 1 

But, sir, what is this danger, and what the grounds of it 1 Let 
it be remembered, that the constitution of the United States is not 
unalterable. It is to continue in its present form no longer than 
the people who established it shall choose to continue it. If they 
shall become convinced that they have made an injudicious or in- 
expedient partition and distribution of power, between the state 
governments and the general government, they can alter that dis- 
tribution at will. 

If any thing be found in the national constitution, either by ori- 
ginal provision, or subsequent interpretation, which ought not to 
be in it, the people know how to get rid of it. If anj' eonstrnctiou 
he established, unacceptable to them, so as to become, practically, 
a part of the constitution, they will amend it, at their own sove- 
reign pleasure. But while the people choose to maintain it, as it 
is ; while they are satisfied with it, and refuse to change it, Avho 
has given, or who can give, to the slate legislatures a right to alter 
it, either by interference, construction, or otherwise 1 Gentlemen 
do not seem to recollect that the people have any power to do any 
thing for themselves; they imagine there is no safety for them, 
any longer than they are under the close guardianship of the state 
legislatures. Sir, tlie people have not trusted their safety, in re- 
gard to the general constitution, to these hands. They have re- 
quired other security, and taken other bonds. They have chosen 
to trust themselves, first, to the plain words of the instrument, and 
to such construction as the government itself, in doubtful cases, 
should put on its own powers, under their oaths of cflSce, and sub- 
ject to their responsibility to them ; just as the people of a stale 
trust their own state governments with a similar power. Secondly 
they have reposed their trust in the efficacy of frequent elections, 
and in their own power to remove their own servants and agents,, 
whenever they see cause. Thirdly, they have reposed trust in the 
judicial power, which, in order that it might be trust worthy, they 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



419 



that ' every state shall abide by the determination of 
congress an all questions which by that confedera- 
tion should be submitted to them.' 

" Under the confederation, then, no state could 
legally annul a decision of the congress, or refuse 
to submit to its execution ; but no provision was 
made to enforce these decisions. Congress made re- 
quisitions, but they were not complied with. The 
government could not operate on individuals. They 
had no judiciary, no means of collecting revenue. 

" But the defects of the confederation need not be 
detailed. Under its operation we could scarcely be 
called a nation. We had neither prosperity at home 
nor consideration abroad. This state of things could 
not be endured, and our present happy constitution 
was formed, but formed in vain, if this fatal doctrine 
prevails. It was formed for important objects that 
are announced in the preamble, made in the name, 
and by the authority of the people of the United 
States, whose delegates framed, and whose conven- 
tions approved it. The most important among these 

have made as respectable, as disinterested, and as independent as 
was practicable. Fourthly, they have seen fit to rely, in case of 
necessity, or high expediency, on their known and admitted power, 
to alter or amend the constitution, peaceably and quietly, whenever 
e.xperience shall point out delects or imperfections. And, finally, 
the people of the United States have, at no lime, in no way, direct- 
ly or indirectly, authorized any state legislature to construe or in- 
terpret their high instrument of government ; much less to inter- 
fere, by their own power, to arrest its course and operation. 

If, sir, the people, in these respects, had done otherwise than 
they have done, their constitution could neither have been pre- 
served, nor would it have been worth preserving. And, if its 
plain provisions shall now be disregarded, and these new doctrines 
interpolated in it, it will become as feeble and helpless a being as 
• its enemies, whether early or more recent, could possibly desire. 
It will exist in every state, but as a poor dependant on slate per- 
mission. It must borrow leave to be ; and will be no longer than 
state pleasure, or state discretion, sees fit to grant the indulgence, 
and to prolong its poor existence. 

But, sir, although there are fears, there are hopes also. The 
people have preserved tliis, their own chosen constitution, for forty 
years, and have seen their happiness, prosperity, and renown, grow 
with its growth, and strengthen with its strength. They are now, 
generally, strongly attached to it. Overthrown by direct assault, 
it can not be ; evaded, undermined, nullified, it will not be, if we, 
and those who shall succeed us here, as agents and representatives 
of the people, shall conscientiously and vigilantly discharge the two 
great branches of our public trust — faithfully to preserve, and 
wisely to administer it. 

Mr. President, I have thus stated the reasons of my dissent to the 
doctrines which have been advanced and maintained. I am con- 
scious of having detained 3'ou and the senate much too long. I 
Wis drawn into the debate, with no previous deliberation, such as 
is suited to the discussion of so grave and important a subject. 
But it is a subject of which my heart is full, and I have not been 
willing to suppress the utterance of its spontaneous sentiments. I 
can not even now persuade mj'self to relinquish it, without express- 
ing, once more, my deep conviction, that, since it respects nothing 
less than the union of the states, it is of most vital and essential 
importance to the public happiness. I profess, sir, in my career, 
hitherto, to have kept steadily in view the prosperity and honour 
of the whole country, and the preservation of our federal union. 
• It is to that union we owe our safety at home, and our consideration 



objects, that which is placed first in rank, on which 
all the others rest, is ' to form a more perfect Union.' 
Now, is it possible that even if there were no express 
provision giving supremacy to the constitution and 
laws of the United States over those of the states — 
it can be co'.iceived, that an instrument made for the 
purpose of ^forming' a 'more perfect Union' than 
that of the confederation, could be so constructed by 
the assembled wisdom of our country, as to substitute 
for that confederation a form of government, depen- 
dent for its existence on the local interest, the party 
spirit of a state, or of a prevailing faction in a state 1 
Every man of plain, unsophisticated understanding, 
who hears the question, will give such an answer as 
will preserve the union. Metaphysical subtlety, in 
pursuit of an impracticable theory, could alone have 
devised one that is calculated to destroy it. 

" I consider, then, the power to annual a law of the 
United States, assumed by one state, incompatible 

WITH THE EXISTENCE OF THE UnION, CONTRADICT- 
ED EXPRESSLY BY THE LETTER OF THE CONSTI- 



and dignity abroad. It is to that union that we are chiefly indebt- 
ed for whatever makes us most proud of our country. That union 
we reached only by the discipline of our virtues in the severe 
school of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of disor- 
dered finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under ilu 
benign influences, these great interests immediately awoke, as from 
the dead, and sprang forth w'ith newness of life. Every year of 
its duration has teemed with fresh proofs of its utility and its 
blessings; and, although our territory has stretched out wider and 
wider, and our population spread further and further, they have 
not outrun its protection or its benefits. It has been to us all a co- 
pious fountain of national, .social, and personal happiness. I have 
not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the union, to see what might 
lie hidden in the dark recess beliind. I have not coolly weighed 
the chances of preserving liberty, when the bonds that unite us to- 
gether shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to 
iiang over the precipice of disunion, to see whether, with my short 
sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss below; nor could I re- 
gard him as a safe coimsellor in the affairs of this government, 
whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not how the 
union should be best preserved, but how tolerable might be the 
condition of the people when it shall he broken up and destroyed. 
While the union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects 
spread out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that I seek 
not to penetrate the veil. God grant that, in my day, at least, that 
curtain may not rise. God grant that on my vision never may be 
opened what lies behind. When my eyes shall be turned to be- 
hold, for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him shi- 
ning on the broken and dishonoured fraginenis of a once glorious 
union ; on states dissevered, discordant, belligerent ; on a land 
rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood ! 
Let their last feeble and lingering glance, rather behold the gor- 
geous ensign of the republic, now known and honoured throughout 
the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming 
in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single 
star obscured — bearing for its motto, no such miserable interroga- 
tory as, Wliat is all this worth? not those other words of delusion 
and folly, liberln first, and union afterwards — but every where, 
spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its 
ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in 
every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to 
every true American heart— Liberty a»<i Unicn, now and forever, 
one and inseparable ! 



420 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



TUTION, UNAUTHORIZED BY ITS SPIRIT, INCONSIST- 
ENT WITH EVERY PRINCIPLE ON WHICH IT WAS 
FOUNDED, AND DESTRUCTIVE OF THE GREAT OBJECT 
FOR WHICH IT WAS FORMED. 

" After this general view of the leading principle, 
we must examine the particular application of it 
which is made in the ordinance. 

" The preamble rests its justification on these 
grounds : — It assumes as a fact, that the obnoxious 
laws, although they purport to be laws for raising reve- 
nue, were in reality intended for the protection of manu- 
factures, which purpose it asserts to be unconstitu- 
tional; that the operation of these laws is unequal; 
that the amount raised by them is greater than is 
required by the wants of the government ; and, final- 
ly, that the proceeds are to be applied to objects 
unauthorized by the constitution. These are the 
only causes alleged to justify an open opposition to 
the laws of the country, and a threat of seceding 
from the union, if any attempt should be made to 
enforce them. The first virtually acknowledges that 
the law in question was passed under a power ex- 
pressly given by the constitution, to lay and collect 
imposts ; but its constitutionality is drawn in question 
from the motives of those who passed it. However 
apparent this purpose may be in the present case, 
nothiuir can be more dana:erous than to admit the 
position, that an unconstitutional purpose, entertain- 
ed by the members who assent to a law enacted under 
a constitutional power, shall make that law void ; for 
how is that purpose to be ascertained ? Who is to 
make the scrutiny ? How often may bad purposes 
be falsely imputed 7 in how many cases are they 
concealed by false professions ? in how many is no 
declaration of motive made '.' Admit this doctrine, 
and you give to the states an uncontrolled right to 
decide, and every law may be annulled under this pre- 
text. If, therefore, the absurd and dangerous doctrine 
should be admitted, that a state may aniuil an un- 
constitutional law, or one that it deems such, it will 
not apply to the present case. 

" The next objection is, that the laws in question 
operate unequally. This objection may be made 
with truth to every law that has been or can be 
passed. The wisdom of man never yet contrived a 
system of taxation that would operate with perfect 
equality. If the unequal operation of a law makes it 
unconstitutional, and if all laws of that description may 
be abrogated by any state for that cause, then indeed 
is the federal constitution unworthy of the slightest 
effort for its preservation. We have hitherto relied 
on it as the perpetual bond of our union. We have 
received it as the work of the assembled wisdom of 



the nation. We have trusted to it as to the sheet an- 
chor of our safety, in the stormy times of conflict 
with a foreign or domestic foe. We have looked to 
it with sacred awe as the palladium of our liberties, 
and, with all the solemnities of religion, have pledged 
to each other our lives and fortunes here, and our 
hopes of happiness hereafter, in its defence and sup- 
port. Were we mistaken, my countrymen, in attach- 
ing this importance to the constitution of our country? 
Was our devotion paid to the wretched, inefficient, 
clumsy contrivance, which this new doctrine would 
make it'.' Did we pledge ourselves to the support of 
an airy nothing, a bubble that must be blown away 
by the first breath of disaflection ? Was this self-de- 
stroying, visionary theory, the work of the profound 
statesmen, the exalted patriots, to whom the task of 
constitutional reform was intrusted ? Did the name 
of Washington sanction, did the states deliberately 
ratify, such an anomaly in the history of fundamental 
legislation ? No. We were not mistaken ! The 
letter of this great instrument is free from this radical 
fault : its language directly contradicts tlie imputation : 
its spirit, its evident intent, contradicts it. No, we 
did not err ! Our constitution does not contain the 
absurdity of giving power to make laws, and another 
power to resist them. The sages, whose memory 
will always be reverenced, have given us a practical, 
and, as they hoped, a permanent constitutional com- 
pact. The Father of his country did not affix his 
revered name to so palpable an absurdity. Nor did 
the states, when they severally ratified it, do so 
under the impression that a veto on the laws of the 
United States was reserved to them, or that they 
could exercise it by implication. Search the debates 
in all their conventions — examine the speeches of 
the most zealous opposers of federal authority— look 
at the amendments that were proposed. They are 
all silent — not a syllable uttered, not a vote given, 
not a motion made, to correct the explicit supremacy 
given to the laws of the union over those of the 
states — or to show that implication, as is now con- 
tended, could defeat it. No, we have not erred ! 
The constitution is still the object of our reverence, 
the bond of our luiion, our defence in danger, the 
source of our pro.sperity in peace. It shall descend, 
as we have received it, uncorrupted by sophistical 
construction, to our posterity ; and the sacrifices of 
local interest, of state prejudices, of personal animo- 
sities, that were made to bring it into existence, will' 
again be patriotically offered for its support. 

" The two remaining objections made by the or 
dinance to these laws are, that the sums intended to 
be raised by them are greater than are required, and 



i 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



42 



that the proceeds will be unconstitutionally employ- 
ed. The constitution has given expressly to con- 
gress the right of raising revenue, and of determining 
the sum the public exigencies will require. The 
states have no control over the exercise of this right, 
other than that which results from the power of 
changing the representatives who abuse it, and thus 
procure redress. Congress may undoubtedly abuse this 
discretionary power, but the same may be said of others 
with which they are vested. Yet the discretion must 
exist somewhere. The constitution has given it to 
the representatives of all the people, checked by the 
representatives of the states, and by the executive 
power. The South Carolina construction gives it to 
the legislature or the convention of a single state, 
where neither the people of the different states, nor 
the states in their separate capacity, nor the chief 
magistrate elected by the people, have any represen- 
tation ? Which is the most discreet disposition of 
the power ? I do not ask you, fellow-citizens, which 
is the constitutional disposition — that instrument 
speaks a language not to be misunderstood. But if 
you were assembled in general convention, which 
would you think the safest depository of this discre- 
tionary power in the last resort? Would you add a 
clause giving it to each of the states, or would you 
sanction the wise provisions already made by your 
constitution ? If this should be the result of your 
deliberations when providing for the future, are 
you — can you — be ready to risk all that we hold dear, 
to establish, for a temporary and local purpose, that 
which you must acknowledge to be destructive, and 
even absurd, as a general provision ? Carry out the 
consequences of this right vested in the different 
States, and you must perceive that the crisis your 
conduct presents at this day would recur whenever 
any law of the United States displeased any of the 
states, and that we should soon cease to be a nation. 

" The ordinance, with the same knowledge of the 
future that characterizes a former objection, tells you 
that the proceeds of the tax will be unconstitutionally 
applied. If this could be ascertained with certainty, 
the objection would, with more propriety, be reserved 
for tlie law so applying the proceeds, but surely 
cannot be urged against the laws levying the duty. 

" These are the allegations contained in the ordi- 
nance. Examine them seriously, my fellow- citizens, 
judge for yourselves. I appeal to you to determine 
whether they are so clear, so convincing, as to leave 
no doubt of their correctness ; and even if you should 
come to this conclusion, how far they justify the 
reckless, destructive course, which you are directed 
to pursue. Review these objections and the conclu- 



sions drawn from them, once more. What are they ? 
Every law, then, for raising revenue, according to 
the South Carolina ordinance, may be rightfully an- 
luilled unless it be so framed as no law ever will or 
can be framed. Congress -have a right to pass laws 
for raising revenue, and each state has a right to 
oppose their execution, two rights directly opposed to 
each other ; and yet is this absurdity supposed to be 
contained in an instrument drawn for the express 
purpose of avoiding collisions between the states and 
the general government, by an assembly of the most 
enlightened statesmen and purest patriots ever embo- 
died for a similar purpose. 

" In vain have these sages declared that congress 
shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, 
imposts, aiid excises — in vain have they provided 
that they shall have power to pass laws which shall 
be necessary and proper to carry those powers into 
execution ; that those laws and that constitution 
shall be the ' supreme law of the land ; and that the 
judges in every state shall be bound thereby, any 
thing in the constitution or laws of any state to the 
contrary notwithstanding.' In vain have the people 
of the several states solemnly sanctioned these pro- 
visions, made them their paramoimt law, and indivi- 
dually sworn to support them v.'henever they were 
called on to execute any office. Vain provisions \ 
ineffectual restrictions ! vile profanation of oaths 1 
miserable mockery of legislation ! if a bare majority' 
of the voters in any one state may on a real or sup- 
posed knowledge of the intent with which a law hat; 
been passed, declare themselves free from its opera- 
tion — say here it gives too little, there too much, and 
operates unequally — here it suffers articles to be free 
that ought to be taxed, there it taxes those that ought 
to, be free — in this case the proceeds are intended to 
be applied to purposes which we do not approve, in 
that the amount raised is more than is wanted. Con- 
gress, it is true, are invested by the constitution with 
the right of deciding these questions according to 
their sound discretion. Congress is composed of the 
representatives of all the states, and of all the people 
of all the states ; but we, part of the people of one 
state, to whom the constitution has given no power 
on the subject, from whom it has expressly taken it 
away — we, who have solemnly agreed that this con- 
stitution shall be our law — toe, most of whom have 
sworn to support it — we now abrogate this law, and 
swear, and force others to swear, that it shall not be 
obeyed, and we do this, not because congress have 
no right to pass such laws, this we do not allege ; 
but because they have passed them with improper 
views. They are unconstitutional from the motives 



422 



HISTORY OP THE UNITED STATES. 



of those who passed them, which we can never with 
certainty know ; from their unequal operation, al- 
though it is impossible from the nature of things that 
they should be equal ; and from the disposition 
which we presume may be made of their proceeds, 
although that disposition has not been declared. 
This is the plain meaning of the ordinance in rela- 
tion to laws which it abrogates for alleged unconsti- 
tutionality. But it does not stop there. It repeals, 
in express terms, an important part of the constitution 
Itself, and of laws passed to give it effect, which have 
never been alleged to be unconstitutional. The 
constitution declares that the judicial powers of the 
United States extend in cases arising under the laws 
of the United States, and that such laws, the consti- 
tution, and treaties, sliall he paramount to the state 
constitutions and laws. The judiciary act prescribes 
the mode by which tlie case may be brought before 
a court of the United States by appeal, when a state 
tribunal shall decide against this provision of the 
constitution. The ordinance declares there shall be 
no appeal ; makes the state law paramount to the 
constitution and laws of the United States ; forces 
judges and jurors to swear that they will disregard 
their provisions ; and even makes it penal in a suitor 
to attempt relief by appeal. It further declares that 
it shall not be lawful for the authorities of the United 
States, or of that stale, to enforce the payment of 
duties imposed by the revenue laws within its limits. 

" Here is a law of the United States, not even 
pretended to be unconstitutional, repealed by the 
authority of a small majority of the voters of a single 
state. Here is a provision of the constitution which 
is solemnly abrogated by the same authority. 

" On such expositions^and reasonings, the ordinance 
grounds not only an assertion of the right to annul 
the laws of which it complains, but to enforce it by 
a threat of seceding from the union, if any attempt is 
made to execute them. 

" This right to secede is deduced from the nature 
of the constitution. Avhich. they say, is a compact 
between sovereign states, who have preserved their 
whole sovereignty, and, therefore, are subject to no 
superior ; that, because they made the compact, they 
can break it when, in their opinion, it has been de- 
parted from by the other states. Fallacious as this 
course of reasoning is, it enlists state pride, and finds 
advocates in the honest prejudices of those who have 
not studied the nature of our government sufliciently 
to see the radical error on which it rests. 

" The people of the United States formed the con- 
stitution, acting through the state legislatures in ma- 
King the compact, to meet and discuss its provisions, 



and acting in separate conventions when they ratified 
those provisions ; but the terms used in its construc- 
tion, show it to be a government in which the people 
of all the states collectively are represented. We are 
ONE PEOPLE in the choice of the president and vice 
president. Here the states have no other agency 
than to direct the mode in which the votes shall be 
given. The candidates having the majority of all 
the votes are chosen. The electors of a majority of 
states may have given their votes for one candidate, 
and yet another may be chosen. The people, then, 
and not the states, are represented in the executive 
branch. 

" In the house of representatives there is this dif- 
ference, that the people of one state do not, as in the 
case of president and vice president, all vote for the 
same officers. The people of all the states do not 
vote for all the members, each state electing only its 
own I'epresentatives. But this creates no material 
distinction. When chosen, they are all representa- 
tives of the United States, not representatives of the 
particular state from which they come. They are 
paid by the United States, not by the state ; nor are 
they accountable to it for any act done in the per- 
formance of their legislative functions : and however 
they may in practice, as it is their duty to do, consult 
and prefer the interests of their particular constitu- 
ents when they come in conflict with any other par- 
tial or local interests, yet it is their'tirst and highest 
duty, as representatives of the United States, to pro- 
mote the general good. 

" The constitution of the United States, then, forms 
a government, not a league ; and whether it be form- 
ed by compact between the states, or in any other 
manner, its character is the same. It is a govern- 
ment in which all the people are represented, which 
operates directly on the people individually, not upon 
the states ; they retained all the power they did not 
grant. But each state having expressly parted with 
so many powers as to constitute jointly with the other 
states, a single nation, cannot from that period pos- 
sess any right to secede, because such secession does 
not break a league, but destroys the unity of a nation ; 
and any injury to that unity is not only a breach, 
which would result from the contravention of a com- 
pact, but it is an offence against the whole union. 
To say that any state may at pleasure secede from 
the union, is to say that the United States are not a 
nation ; because it would be a solecism to contend 
that any part of a nation might dissolve its connexion 
with the other parts, to their injury or ruin, without 
committing any offence. Secession, like anjr other re- 
volutionary act, may be morally justified by the ex- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



423 



tremity of oppression ; but to call it a constitutional 
right is confounding the meaning of terms ; and can 
only be done through gross error, or to deceive those 
who are willing to assert a right, but would pause 
before they made a revolution, or incur the penalties 
consequent on a failure. 

" Because the union was formed by compact, it is 
said the parties to that compact may, when they feel 
themselves aggrieved, depart from it : but it is pre- 
cisely because it is a compact that they cannot. A 
compact is an agreement or binding obligation. It 
may, by its terms, have a sanction or penalty for its 
breach, or it may not. If it contains no sanction, it 
may be broken with no other consequence llian mo- 
ral guilt : if it have a sanction, then the breach in- 
curs the designated or implied penalty. A league 
between independent nations, generally has no sanc- 
tion other than a moral one ; or, if it should contain 
a penalty, as there is no common superior, it cannot 
be enforced. A government, on the contrary, always 
has a sanction, express or implied ; and, in our case, 
it is both necessarily implied and expressly given. 
An attempt by force of arms to destroy a government, 
is an offence, by whatever means the constitutional 
compact may have been formed ; and such govern- 
ment has the right, by the law of self-defence, to pass 
acts for punishing the offender, unless that right is 
modified, restrained, or resumed, by the constitutional 
act. — In our sj^stem, although it is modified in the 
case of treason, yet authority is expressly given to 
pass all laws necessary to carry its powers into effect, 
and under this grant provision has been made for 
punishing acts which obstruct the due administration 
of the laws. 

" It would seem superfluous to add any thing to 
show the nature of that union which connects us ; 
but as erroneous opinions on this subject are the 
foundation of doctrines the most destructive to our 
peace, I must give some further development to my 
views on this subject. No one, fellow-citizens, has a 
higher reverence for the reserved rights of the states, 
than the magistrate who now addresses you. No one 
would make greater personal sacrifices, or official 
exertions, to defend them from violation ; but equal 
care must be taken to prevent on their part an im- 
proper interference with, or resumption of, the rights 
they have vested in the nation. The line has not 
been so distinctly drawn as to avoid doubts in some 
cases of the exercise of power. Men of the best in- 
tentions and soundest views may differ in their con- 
struction of some parts of the constitution : but there 
are others on which dispassionate reflection can leave 
no doubt. Of this nature appears to be the assumed 

54 



right of secession. It rests, as we have seen, on the 
alleged undivided sovereignty of the states, and on 
their having formed in this sovereign capacity a com- 
pact whicli is called the constitution, from which, be- 
cause they made it, they have the right to secede. 
Both of these positions are erroneous, and some of 
the arguments to prove them so have been anticipated. 
The states severally have not retained their entire 
sovereignty. It has been shoMm that in becoming 
parts of a nation, not members of a league, they sur- 
rendered many of their essential parts of sovereignty. 
The right to make treaties — declare war — levy taxes — 
exercise exclusive judicial and legislative powers, were 
all of them functions of sovereign power. The states 
then, for all these important purposes, were no longer 
sovereign. The allegiance of their citizens was trans- 
ferred, in the first instance, to the government of the 
United States — they became American citizens, and 
owed obedience to the constitution of the United States, 
and to the laws made in conformity with the powers it 
vested in congress. This last position has not been, and 
can not be denied. How then can that state be said 
to be sovereign and independent, whose citizens owe 
obedience to laws not made by it, and whose magis- 
j trates are sworn to disregard those laws, when they 
come in conflict with those passed by another ? What 
' shows conclusively that the states can not be said to 
have reserved an undivided sovereignty, is, that 
they expressly ceded the right to punish treason — not 
treason against their separate power — but treason 
against the United States. Treason is an offence 
against sovereignty, and sovereignty must reside with 
' the power to punish it. But the reserved rights of 
the states are not less sacred, because they have for 
I their common interest made the general government 
' the depository of these powers. The unity of our 
political character (as has been shown for another 
; purpose) commenced with its very existence. Under 
1 the royal government we had no separate character 
i — our opposition to its oppression began as United 
Colonies. We were the United States under the 
I confederation, and the name was perpetuated, and 
! the union rendered more perfect, by the federal con- 
stitution. In none of these stages did we consider 
ourselves in any other light than as forming one na- 
; tion. Treaties and alliances were made in the name 
of all. Troops were raised for the joint defence. 
How, then, with all these proofs, that under all 
changes of our position we had, for designated pur- 
poses and with defined powers, created national go- 
vernments — how is it, that the most perfect of those 
several modes of union should n^^-w be considered as 
a mere league, that may be dissolved at pleasure ? It 



424 



HISTORY OF THE UiMTED STATES. 



is from an abuse of terms. Compact is used as sy- 
nonymous witli league, although tlie true term is not 
employed, because it would at once show the fallacy 
of the reasoning. It would not do to say that our 
constitution was only a league ; but, it is laboured 
to prove it a compact, (which in one sense it is,) and 
then to argue that as a league is a compact, every 
compact between nations must of course be a league, 
and from such an engagement every sovereign power 
has a right to secede. But it has been shown, that 
in this sense the states are not sovereign, and that 
even if they were, and the national constitution had 
been formed by compact, there would be no right in 
any one state to exonerate itself from its obligations. 

" So obvious are the reasons which forbid this 
secession, that it is necessary only to allude to them. 
The union was formed for the benefit of all. It 
was produced by mutual sacrifices of interests and 
opinions. Can those sacrifices be recalled ? Can the 
states who magnanimously surrendered their title to 
the territories of the west, recall the grant ? Will 
the inhabitants of the inland states agree to pay the 
duties that may be imposed without their assent by 
those on the Atlantic or the Gulf, for their own bene- 
fits ? Shall there be a free port in one state, and on- 
erous duties in another 7 No one believes that any 
right exists in a single state to involve all the others 
in these and countless other evils, contrary to the 
engagements solemnly made. Every one must see 
that the other states, in self-defence, must oppose at 
all hazards. 

" These are the alternatives that are presented by 
the convention — a repeal of all the acts for raising 
revenue, leavinsf the orovernment without the means 
of support ; or an acquiescence in the dissolution of 
our union by the secession of one of its members. 
When the first was proposed, it was known that it 
could not be listened to for a' moment. It was 
known if force was applied to oppose the execution 
of the laws, that it must be repelled by force — that 
congress could not, without involving itself in dis- 
grace, and the country in ruin, accede to the propo- 
sition ; and yet, if this is not done in a given day, 
or if any attempt is made to execute the laws, the 
state is, by the ordinance, declared to be out of the 
union. The majority of a convention assembled 
for the purpose have dictated these terms, or rather 
this rejection of all terms, in the name of the people 
of South Carolina. It is true that the governor of 
the state speaks of the submission of their grievan- 
ces to a convention of all the states ; which, he 
says, they ' sincerely and anxiously seek and desire.' 
Yet this obvious and constitutional mode of ob- 



taining the sense of the other states on the construc- 
tion of the federal compact, and amending it, if ne- 
cessary, has never been attempted by those who 
have urged the state on to this destructive measure. 
The state might have proposed the call for a gene- 
ral convention to the other states ; and congress, 
if a sufficient number of them concurred, must have 
called it. But the first magistrate of South Caroli- 
na, when he expressed a hope that, ' on a review by 
congress and the functionaries of the general go- 
vernment of the merits of the controversy,' such a 
convention will be accorded to them, must have 
known that neither congress nor any functionary of 
the general government has authority to call such a 
convention, unless it be demanded by two thirds of 
the states. This suggestion, then, is another in- 
stance of the reckless inattention to the provisions of 
the constitution with which this crisis has been 
madly hurried on, or of the attempt to persuade the 
people that a constitutional remedy had been sought 
and refused. If the legislature of South Carolina 
' anxiously desire' a general convention 'to con- 
sider their complaints, why have they not made ap- 
plication for it in the way the constitution points 
out ? The assertion that they ' earnestly seek' it is 
completely negatived by the omission. 

" This, then, is the position in which we stand. 
A small majority of the citizens of one state in the 
union have elected delegates to a stale convention : 
that convention has ordained that all the revenue 
laws of the United States must be repealed, or that 
they are no longer a member of the union. The 
governor of the state has recommended to the le- 
gislature the raising of an army to carry the seces- 
sion into effect, and that he may be empowered 
to give clearances to vessels in the name of the 
state. No act of violent opposition to the laws has 
yet been committed, but such a state of things is 
hourly apprehended, and it is the intent of this in- 
strument to PROCLAIM, not only that the duty impo- 
sed on me by the constitution, ' to take care that 
the laws be faithfully executed,' shall be performed 
to the extent of the powers already invested in me 
by law, or of such others as the wisdom of congress 
shall devise, and entrust to me for the purpose ; but 
to warn the citizens of South Carolina, who have 
been deluded into an opposition to the laws, of the 
danger they incur by obedience to the illegal and 
disorganizing ordinance of the convention — to exhort 
those who liave refused to support it to persevere in 
their determination to uphold the constitution and 
laws of their country, and to point out to all, the 
perilous situation into which the good people of tliaJ 



HIsfoRY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



425 



state have been led^ — and that the course that they 
are urged to pursue is one of ruin and disgrace to 
the very state whose rights they affect to support. 

" Fellow-citizens of my native state ! — Let me not 
only admonish you, as the first magistrate of our 
common country, not to incur the penalties of its 
laws, but use the influence that a father would 
over his children whom he saw rushing to a certain 
ruin. In that paternal feeling, let me tell you, my 
countrymen, that you are deluded by men who are 
either deceived themselves, or wish to deceive you. 
Mark under what pretences you have been led on 
to the brink of insurrection and treason, on which 
you stand ! First a diminution of the value of your 
staple commodity, lowered by over production in 
other quarters, and the consequent diminution in the 
value of your lands, were the sole effect of the 
tariff laws. The effect of those laws are confessed- 
ly injurious, but the evil was greatly exaggerated by 
the unfounded theory yoii were taught to believe, 
that its burdens were in proportion to your exports, 
not to your consumption of imported articles. Your 
pride was roused by the assertion that a submission 
to those laws was a state of vassalage, and that re- 
sistance to them was eqtial, in patriotic merit, to the 
opposition our fathers offered to the oppressive laws 
of Great Britain. You were told that this opposi- 
tion might be peaceably — might be constitutionally 
made— that you might enjoy all the advantages of 
the union, and bear none of its burdens. 

" Eloquent appeals to your passions, to your state 
pride, to your native courage, to your sense of real 
injury, were used to prepare you for the period when 
the mask which concealed the hideous features of 
DISUNION should be taken ofl". It fell, and you 
were made to look with complacency on objects 
which, not long since, you would have regarded with 
horror. Look back at the arts which have brought 
you to this state— look forward to the consequences 
to which it must inevitably lead ! Look back to what 
was first told you as an inducement to enter into this 
dangerous course. The great political truth was 
repeated to you, that you had the revolutionary 
right of resisting all laws that were palpably uncon- 
stitutional and intolerably oppressive ; it was added, 
that the right to nullify a law rested on the same 
principle, but that it was a peaceable remedy 1 This 
character which was given to it, made you receive, 
with too much confidence, the assertions that were 
made of the unconstitutionality of the law, and its 
oppressive effects. Mark, my fellow-citizens, that by 
the admission of your leaders, the unconstitutionality 
must be palpable, or it will not justify either resist- 



ance or nullification ! What is the meaning of the 
word palpable, in the sense in which it is here used? 
that which is apparent to every one ; that which no 
man of ordinary intellect will fail to perceive. Is 
the unconstitutionality of these laws of that descrip- 
tion ? let those among your leaders who once ap' 
proved and advocated the principle of protective du- 
ties, answer the question ; and let them choose 
whether they will be considered as incapable, then, 
of perceiving that which must have been apparent to 
every man of common understanding, or as imposing 
upon your confidence, and endeavouring to mislead 
you now. In either case, they are unsafe guides in 
the perilous path they urge you to tread. Ponder 
well on this circumstance, and you will know how 
to appreciate the exaggerated language they address 
to you. They are not champions of liberty, emula- 
ting the fame of our revolutionary fathers ; nor are 
you an oppressed people, contending, as they repeat 
to you, against worse than colonial vassalage. You 
are free members of a flourishing and happy union. 
There is no settled design to oppress you. You 
have indeed felt the unequal operation of laws which 
may have been unwisely, not unconstitutionally 
passed ; but that inequality must necessarily be re- 
moved. At the very moment when you were madly 
urged on to the unfortunate course you have begun, 
a change in public opinion had commenced. The 
nearly approaching payment of the public debt, and 
the consequent necessity of a diminution of duties, 
had already produced a considerable reduction, and 
that too on some articles of general consumption in 
your state. The importance of this change was un- 
derrated, and you were authoritatively told, that no 
further alleviation of your burdens was to be expected, 
at the very time when the condition of the country 
imperiously demanded such a modification of the 
duties as should reduce them to a just and equitable 
scale. But, as if apprehensive of the effect of this 
change in allaying your discontents, you were preci- 
pitated into the fearful state in which you now find 
yourselves. 

" I have urged you to look back to the means that 
were used to hurry you on to the position you have 
now assumed, and forward to the consequences it 
will produce. Something more is necessary. Con- 
template tlie condition of that country of which you 
still form an important part ! Consider its govern- 
ment, uniting in one bond of common interest and 
general protection so many difl'erent states, giving to 
all their inhabitants the proud title of American 
Citizens, protecting their commerce, securing their 
literature and the arts, facilitating their intercoinmu- 



426 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



tiication, defending their frontiers, and making their 
name respected in the remotest parts of tiie earth ! 
Consider the extent of its territory, its increasing and 
happy population, its advance in arts, which render 
life agreeable, and the sciences which elevate the 
mind ! See education spreading the lights of religion, 
morality, and general information, into every cottage 
in this wide extent of our territories and states ! Be- 
hold it as the asylum where the wretched and the 
oppressed find a refuge and support ! Look on this 
picture of happiness and honour, and say — we too, 
AKK CITIZENS OF AMERICA I Carolina is one of these 
proud states : her arms have defended, her best blood 
has cemented this happy union ! And then add, if 
you can, without horror and remorse, this happy 
union we will dissolve — this picture of peace and pros- 
perity we will deface — this free intercourse we will 
interrupt — these fertile fields we will deluge with 
blood — the protection of that glorious flag we re- 
nounce — the very name of Americans we discard — 
And for what, mistaken men ! — for what do you throw 
away these inestimable blessings — for what would 
you exchange your share in the advantages and 
honour of the union 1 For the dream of a sepa- 
rate independence — a dream interrupted by bloody 
conflicts with your neighbours, and a vile depen- 
dence on a foreign power. If your leaders could 
succeed in establishing a separation, what would be 
your situation '.' Are you united at home — are you 
free from the apprehension of civil discord, with all 
its fearful consequences? Do our neighbouring re- 
publics, every day suffering some new revolution, or 
contending with some new insurrection — do they ex- 
cite your envy ? But the dictates of a high duty oblige 
me solemnly to announce that you can not succeed. 
" The laws of the United States must be executed. 
I have no discretionary power on the subject — my 
duty is emphatically pronounced in the constitution. 
Those who told you that you might peaceably pre- 
vent their execution, deceived you ; they could not 
have been deceived themselves. They know that a 
forcible opposition could alone prevent the execution 
of the laws, and they know that such opposition 
must be repelled. Their object is disunion ; but be 
not deceived by names ; disunion by armed force is 
TREASON. Are you really ready to incur its guilt '.' 
If you are, on the heads of the instigators of the act 
be the dreadful consequence, — on their heads be the 
dishonour, but on yours may fall the punishment — 
on your unhappy state will inevitably fall all the 
evils of the conflict you force upon the government 
of your country. It can not accede to the mad pro- 
iect of disunion, of which you would be the first vic- 



tims — its first magistrate can not, if he would, avoid 
the performance of his duty — the consequence must 
be fearful for you, distressing to your fellow-citizens 
here, and to the friends of good government through- 
out the world. Its enemies have beheld our pros- 
perity, with a vexation they could not conceal — it 
was a standing refutation of their slavish doctrines, 
and they will point to our discord with a triumph of 
malignant joy. It is yet in your power to disap- 
point them. There is yet time to show that the 
descendants of the Pinckneys, the Sumpters, the 
Rutledges, and of the thousand other names which 
adorn the pages of your revolutionary history, will 
not abandon that union, to support which, so many 
of them fousfht, and bled, and died. I adjure you, 
as you honour their memory — as you love the cause 
of freedom, to which they dedicated their lives — as 
you prize the peace of your country, the lives of its 
best citizens, and your own fair fame, to retrace your 
steps. Snatch from the archives of your state the 
disoro-anizing- edict of its convention — bid its mem- 
bers to re-assemble and promulgate the decided ex- 
pressions of your will to remain in the path which 
alone can conduct you to safety, prosperity, and ho- 
nour — tell them that compared to disunion, all other 
evils are light, because that brings with it an accu- 
mulation of all — declare that you will never take the 
field unless the star spangled banner of your country 
shall float over you : that you will not be stigmatized 
when dead, and dishonoured and scorned, while 
you live, as the authors of the first attack on the 
constitution of your country ! — its destroyers you can 
not be. You may disturb its peace — you may in- 
terrupt the course of its prosperity — you may cloud 
its reputation for stability — but its tranquillity will 
be restored, its prosperity will return, and the stain 
upon its national character will be transferred, and 
remain an eternal blot on the memory of those who 
caused the disorder. 

" Fellow-citizens of the United States ! The threat 
of unhallowed disunion — the names of those once 
respected, by whom it is uttered — the array of mili- 
tary force to support it — denote the approach of a 
crisis in our afl^iirs on which the continuance of our 
unexampled prosperity, our political existence, and 
perhaps that of all free governments, may depend. 
The conjunction demanded a free, a full, and expli- 
cit enunciation, not only of my intentions, but of my 
principles of action ; and as the claim was asserted 
of a right by a state to annul the laws of the union, 
and even to secede from it at pleasure, a frank expo- 
sition of my opinions in relation to the origin and 
form of our government, and the construction I give 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



427 



to the instrument by which it was created, seemed to 
be proper. Having the fullest confidence in the just- 
ness of the legal and constitutional opinion of my 
duties which has been expressed, I rely with equal 
confidence on your undivided support in my deter- 
mination to execute the laws — to preserve the union 
by all constitutional means — to arrest, if possible, by 
moderate but firm measures, the necessity of a re- 
course to force ; and, if it be the will of heaven that 
tiie recurrence of its primeval curee on man for the 
shedding of a brother's blood should fall upon our 
land, that it be not called down by any ciffensive act 
on the part of the United States. 

" Fellow-citizens 1 The momentous case is before 
you. On your undivided support of your govern- 
ment depends the decision of the great question it 
involves, whether your sacred union will be pre- 
served, and the blessings it secures to us as one peo- 
ple, shall be perpetuated. No one can doubt that the 
unanimity with which that decision will be expressed, 
will be such as to inspire new confidence in republi- 
can institutions, and that the prudence, the wisdom, 
and the courage which it will bring to their defence, 
will transmit them unimpaired and invigorated to our 
children. 



" May the great ruler of nations grant that the 
signal blessings with which he has favoured ours, 
may not, by the madness of party, or personal ambi- 
tion, be disregarded and lost : and may his wise 
providence bring those who have produced this crisis 
to see the folly, before they feel the misery of civil 
strife : and inspire a returning veneration for that 
union which, if we may dare to penetrate his de- 
signs, he has chosen as the only means of attaining 
the high destinies to which we may reasonably 
aspire.'' 

The language of the proclamation is too precious 
to be forgotten. The second election of General 
Jackson was of a decided character. The opposition 
was overwhelming. After this event, he made a tour 
to the eastern and northern states. Every where he 
was received with enthusiasm. Party feelings were 
forgotten, and the president alone was considered. 
A brave and generous people received a gallant com- 
mander, with every demonstration of respect and ad- 
miration. The most ancient university in the country 
made him a Doctor of Laws. He visited Bunker 
Hill, saw the plains of Lexington, ground sacred to 
the descendants of the Pilgrims, and returned with 
their warmest wishes for his prosperity. 




Several events which occurred during the first 
term of the presidency of General Jackson, may with 
propriety be referred to, before we proceed to consider 
the measures of his second administration. His ele- 
vation to the chief magistracy is regarded as the 
period from which is to be dated the introduction of 
several new doctrines and practices in the adminis- 
tration of the national government. These were 
adopted and pursued also by his successor, and consti- 
tuted the chief ground for the nomination and elec- 
tion of General Harrison. President Jackson claimed 
powers which had never been assumed by any of his 
predecessors. Soon after his inauguration, he dis- 
solved his cabinet because they ditfered upon points 
of etiquette quite unconnected with public affairs. 
He appointed Mr. Moore minister to Colombia, thus 
recalling General William Henry Harrison, who had 
been residing at Bogota a short time in that capacity, 
having received his appointment from Mr. Adams. 
The contest between Bolivar and the friends of liber- 
ty in the republic of Colombia was, at that time, 
warm and violent. The great champion of national 
independence had become the leader of a powerful 
party opposed to constitutional republicanism, and had 
proposed to establish over the Hispano-South-Ameri- 
can countries a vast hereditary monarchical and aristo- 
cratical government, with himself at its head. His 
splendid project for a strong government first received 
the support of the auxiliary army which he com- 
manded in Peru, and afterwards of many of the peo- 
ple of Colombia. Certain foreign agents at Bogota 
cherished this anti-American project, and the presses, 
writers, and orators, enlisted in the interest of the new 
party, advocated principles far better suited to the old, 
than to the new world. The vice-president of Co- 
lombia, General Francisco de Paila Santander took the 
front rank in opposition to these attempts; and he, 
»ith his friends, turned with confidence for sympathy 



to the United States. But they found their object and 
motives generally misunderstood in the country whicli 
they had made their political model. 

General Harrison's presence at Bogota was very 
opportune, and his sound principles, frankness, and 
honesty, boldness and decision, soon conciliated the 
confidence and encouraged the hopes of the friends of 
freedom. One of the earliest acts of General Jackson 
was the recall of our minister, and the transmission 
of a letter to General Bolivar, which was thought to 
hold language of rather doubtful import, if not decid- 
edly favourable to the ambitious project which he was 
pursuing; and a contrast was drawn between it and 
the frank and glowing terms of an appeal which 
General Harrison had made to the same distinguished 
South American. On his landing in New York, he 
received marked tokens of respect from the citizens, 
on account of the course which he had adopted. 

General Jackson was in favour of a course of policy 
towards the Indian nations residing within the bounds 
of some of the Southern States, which had been pro- 
posed, and recommended for some time before his 
accession to office. The Cherokees had claimed 
the protection of the United States against the en- 
croachments of Georgia, showing fourteen treaties in 
which their right in perpetuity to their lands in that 
state had been acknowledged by the government ; 
several of these treaties bore the signature of Andrew 
Jackson as agent for the United States. The presi- 
dent, however, recommended to them the abandon- 
ment of their lands for a reasonable consideration, that 
they might remove beyond the Misjissippi ; and at the 
same time he declined to interfere for their protection, 
on the ground that it would be an unwarrantable 
encroachment on the jurisdiction of a sovereign state. 
A large territory was designated, by act of congress, 
west of the Mississippi, which was divided into suit- 
able portions for several different nations, and a title 



41 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



429 



\\ as promised, upon a nation's faith, that should be 
secure forever. It is hardly to be wondered at that 
the Cherokees generally rejected the offer, expressing 
a strong attachment to their native land ; and pe- 
titions were sent to congress in their behalf from the 
northern parts of the Union, but in vain. The legis- 
lature of Georgia passed acts calculated to force the 
Indians into emigration, and forbidding any white 
man to reside in their territory without taking an oath 
to support the constitution and laws of the state. 

There were at that time three gentlemen, mission- 
aries of the American Board of Commissioners for 
Foreign Missions, residing in the Cherokee country, 
who had established schools and churches, and were 
fast bringing the people into a more civilized state. 
Having declined the oath prescribed, on the ground 
that the acts of the legislature were opposed to the 
constitution of the United States, they were arrested, 
tried, condemned, and imprisoned in the Penitentiary 
of Georgia, (September, 1831,) where they remained 
at hard labour, until the United States Supreme Court 
declared the law under which they had been sen- 
tenced " unconstitutional, null, and void ; " soon after 
which they were released, but were left without re- 
dress. Georgia prosecuted her plans for the removal 
of the Indians, and, by dividing their valuable lands 
among the inhabitants, enlisted the population warmly 
in its favour. Two parties were formed among the 
Cherokees, one in favour of removal, and the other 
opposed to it, and each claiming the power of holding 
or disposing of the lands. The claims of the party in 
favour of removal were acknowledged by our govern- 
ment, and the Indians gradually emigrated to the new 
territory, though with loud complaints of broken faith, 
national injustice, and cruel oppression. The Choc- 
taws, Chickasaws, &c., were also induced to remove ; 
but some large bodies of these reluctant emigrants suf- 
fered severely fiom privations, fatigue, and change of 
climate, on their way, and hundreds of lives were lost 
before they reached the place of their destination. 

General Jackson, soon after his inauguration, dis- 
tinctly avowed the intention of putting his own inter- 
pretation on the terms of the constitution, and of 
acting as his own judgment might dictate. As it 
was understood that he thought himself at liberty, or 
rather bound in duty, to disregard and to set aside all 
previous interpretations, by whomsoever made and 
sanctioned, whenever they might appear to him in- 
correct, this declaration created some alarm. Before 
President Jackson's election, the veto power had been 



but very rarely used, and it was generally regarded as 
a power intrusted with the chief magistrate only foi 
a few extraordinary possible emergencies. He first in- 
troduced the practice of resorting to it with frequency ; 
at the same time, he claimed powers which had never 
been before allowed to the president, viz., of being "a 
coordinate branch of the government," meaning that a 
part of the legislation was intrusted to him. On this 
principle he acted in a number of instances, chiefly by 
putting his veto on bills which had been passed by 
congress. In some cases, however, he withheld bills 
so long that they could not become laws ; and this 
was complained of as being a still greater stretch of 
power. A striking instance occurred in the case of a 
bill making appropriations for coast surveys, which it 
was thought would have received the votes of two 
thirds of each house; he did not return it with his 
reasons for withholding his signature, but retained it 
until the term when the existing congress had ex- 
pired, so that it never could be brought up again, 
except as a new bill. General Jackson had repeat- 
edly expressed a wish for an amendment of the con- 
stitution, to limit the election of president to one term 
of four or six years ; and his acceptance of a nomi- 
nation for a second term was therefore regarded as 
being an act in opposition to his avowed opinions. 

With Great Britain there was still pending the 
question of the unsettled north-eastern boundary. 
It had been referred for arbitration to the king of the 
Netherlands ; but his award was not accepted by the 
United States, because m it he had proposed the 
cession to Great Britain of a large tract of land de- 
scribed in the treaty of 1783, and allowed in that of 
Ghent, in 1815, as belonging to us. The question 
was therefore left unsettled, and has continued to give 
rise to disturbances and difficulty to the present time. 

In the year 1832, a new apportionment was made 
of representation, founded on the results of the census 
taken in 1831. In 1791, it was enacted that one 
representative in congress should be chosen for every 
thirty thousand persons ; in 1801, for thirty-three 
thousand; in 1811, for forty thousand: in 1831_. 
the number was raised to forty-seven thousand. In 
1832, a new pension law was passed, which made a 
provision for all surviving soldiers of the revolution, 
who had served six months or more ; they were 
granted a sum of money annually, equal to the pay at 
that time in the army. The same year congress 
adopted a new tariff, by which the former high duties 
on high-priced woollen goods were contmued with 



430 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



I 



little diminution, but those on low-priced ones were 
greatly reduced. Those valued below thirty-five 
cents per yard had previously been subject to a duty 
of more than one hundred per cent. Wool had been 
subject to a duty of four cents per pound, and an 
ad valorem, duty of fifty per cent. Now, that which 
cost under eight cents per pound was free from duty, 
while that above eight cents was subject to a duty of 
four cents, and an ad valorem duty of forty per cent. 
The duties on silk, teas, and wines, were greatly 
reduced, and those on cotton cloths and iron in a 
less proportion. All duties whatever were taken ofi" 
from common teas imported directly from beyond the 
Cape of Good Hope. The new tariff, however, was 
not satisfactory to the Southern States; they had 
strongly urged the repeal of that adopted in 1828, 
because it was still regarded as founded upon the 
principle of protecting domestic manufactures, or the 
American system, as the plan of fostering native in- 
dustry was denominated. In 1831, the difficulties 
which had for some time existed between the United 
States and Mexico were brought to a favourable ter- 
mination, by a treaty of boundaries, and one of 
commerce and navigation. A convention was also 
concluded with France, by which were allowed most 
of the claims of American citizens for depredations 
on commerce in the periods of the directory, the 
first consulship, and the empire. The French, in 
previous negotiations on this subject, had presented 
a claim founded on the failure of the United States 
to fulfil an engagement to assist them in the defence 
of the West Indies against Great Britain : a reply had 
been made that the course of events subsequent to 
that engagement fully excused the United States 
from performing it ; but with this explanation the 
French commissioners had never been satisfied. The 
justice of our claim and the futility of the opposing 
one were admitted, and a promise was given that the 
amount due should be paid, excepting a certain sum 
which was to be retained on Eiccount of claims on the 
United States ; at the same time, the French agreed 
to waive certain important commercial privileges, 
which they claimed under their construction of the 
treaty for the cession of Louisiana; and it was also 
arranged that the duties on French wines imported 
into the United States, and those on cotton imported 
into France, should be reduced. When the time of 
payment arrived, however, the money was not sent; 
and a long delay led to a threatening state of things 
between the two countries, three years afterwards. 



The French government, at the latter period, showing 
a disposition still longer to avoid the fulfilment of 
their stipulation. General Jackson made an impe- 
rative demand, in terms which were at first retorted 
by the French. Some time after, the chamber of 
deputies voted the supply of the amount due, which 
was received in successive instalments, and distri- 
buted among the holders of claims through the Union. 

The contest cost the French on one occasion a 
change of ministry : a more particular account of the 
matter will be found in its proper place. Much time 
was occupied by congress in discussing the question 
respecting the disposition of the public lands. As 
these lay in the new states, some of the western 
members proposed that they should be given up to 
those states within whose boundaries they were com- 
prehended. But there were other plans presented by 
other members, such as the sale of them at low prices 
and on long credit, for the purpose of encouraging 
rapid settlement. At length a bill upon the subject 
passed both houses, in 1833, and was sent to the 
president for his signature ; but he refused to sign it, 
and it was lost for want of a majority of two thirds 
in both houses. The vote in the senate was twenty- 
four to twenty, and that of the house of represen- 
tatives, ninety-six to forty. 

Among the most remarkable events which tran- 
spired in the course of the few preceding years, we 
may mention the following : In June, 1831, the 
greater part of the capital of the state of North Caro- 
lina was accidentally destroyed by fire, with the 
much admired statue of Washington, which had been 
sculptured in Italy by the celebrated Canova, and 
purchased at great expense. James Monroe, ex-presi- 
dent of the United States, died in New York on 
the 4th of July of the same year, being the third 
ex-president who deceased on the anniversary of our 
national independence. In consequence of the mas- 
sacre of the crew of an American trading vessel at 
Qualloh Battoo, in the Island of Sumatra, the United 
States frigate Potomac had been ordered to stop at 
that place on her voyage round the world, with in- 
structions to destroy the town, if satisfaction should 
be refused. On the 3d of February, 1831, after an 
unsuccessful attempt to negotiate, the forts were sur- 
prised in the night, the town was burnt, and about 
one hundred and fifty of the natives killed, including 
several women. This severe measure against a tribe 
of ignorant savages was condemned by many as 
useless, inhuman, and disgraceful to an enlightened 



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HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



431 



and Christian nation. In April, a treaty was formed 
with the Greek Indians, by which they suirendered 
all their land east of the Mississippi River. The build- 
ing occupied by the treasury department in Wash- 
ington, wEis destroyed by fire on the 31st of March, 
1833, with most of the contents. 

Andrew Jackson was inaugurated a second time 
president of the United Stales on the 4th of March, 
1833, and Mart»n Van Buren, of the state of New 
York, vice-president ; this gentleman was his decided 
personal and political friend. Mr. Van Bnren had 
been a senator of the United States, and governor of 
New York; he had been nominated by General Jack- 
son minister to England, but the senate had rejected 
the nomination on the 25th of January, 1831. This 
measure, on the part of the senate, was regarded by 
his friends as an indignity, and formed one of the 
grounds for his nomination and election to the vice- 
presidency. The message which President Jack- 
son presented contained the following expressions ; 
" There are two objects relating to the domestic 
policy of the government, which especially deserve 
both the attention of the people and of the represen- 
tatives, which have lately been, and will probably con- 
tinue to be, subjects of deep solicitude ; and these are, 
the preservation of the rights of the states and the 
integrity of the Union. These great objects are 
necessarily connected, and can only be attained by an 
enlightened exercise of the powers of each, within its 
appropriate sphere, in conformity with the public will 
constitutionally expressed. It becomes the duty of 
all, therefore, to yield a ready submission to laws 
constitutionally enacted, and thereby promote and 
stiengthen a proper confidence in those institutions of 
^e several states, and of the United States, which 
tlie people have ordained for their own government." 
On the subject of foreign relations, the president de- 
clared the policy pursued by the government of the 
country had been " crowned with almost complete 
success, and has elevated the American character 
among the nations of the earth. So happy have been 
its results, that we are at peace with all the world, 
and have few causes of controversy, and those of 
minor importance, remaining unadjusted." He added 
that it was his "fixed and solemn purpose to exert all 
his best faculties to maintain the just powers of the 
constitution, and to transmit unimpaired to posterity 
the blessings of the Federal Union." 

One of the leading features of the policy of General 
Jackson was opposition to the Bank of the United 
65 



States. The charter of that institution was to expire 
in 1836, and he proposed in several of his messages 
that it should not be renewed. He even went so far 
as to pronounce it an unsafe depository of the public 
money, although a committee of congress had a short 
time before made a report on it as safe, after an mves- 
tigation of its condition. The president, on different 
occasions, recommended substitutes of several different 
kinds, on various principles, but all resembling each 
other in this respect, that they would place the public 
money more under the control of the government. 
The course which he pursued had the effect to injure 
and embarrass the bank to some extent, as well as 
to bring into vogue a doctrine in political economy 
which has generally been considered unsound, viz., 
that a hard money currency is preferable to paper 
under all forms and circumstances. It became com- 
mon to hear that, under a new system, which remained 
to be developed, gold and silver would take the place 
of bank paper, and become abundant throughout the 
country. On the 23d of September, 1833, it was 
announced by the "Globe," the official paper, that the 
president of the United States, having, after a very full 
and careful examination, come to the conclusion that 
the public deposits ought to be changed to the state 
banks, "had read a communication to his cabinet con- 
taining his reasons in favour of removing the deposits 
from the Bank of the United States." He begs his 
cabinet to consider the proposed measure his own, 
"in support of which he shall require no one of them 
to make a sacrifice of opinion or principle. Its re- 
sponsibility has been assumed after the most mature 
deliberation and reflection, as necessary to preserve 
the morals of the people, the freedom of the press, 
and the purity of the elective franchise." It was an- 
nounced, a few days afterwards, that William Duane, 
secretary of the treasury, having declined to sign the 
order for the removal of the deposits from the Bank 
of the United States, was removed from office, and 
Roger B. Taney appointed in his place. The step 
on which the president had decided was then taken 
without further delay, and, on the 1st of October, the 
new secretary removed the collection of the public 
money to certain selected banks in different parts of 
the country. At the opening of congress, a multitude 
of petitions were presented from different parts of the 
country, representing business of all kinds as greatly 
injured by the state of the currency, and want of con- 
fidence arising out of the measures of the president in 
relation to the public money, praying that the deposits 



432 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



might be restored to the keeping of that institution, 
to which they had been confided by the laws. This 
subject became< the leading topic with both houses 
through the session. Mr. Taney, who had been ap- 
pointed secretary of the treasury in the recess of con- 
gress, made a report to both houses on the 4th of 
December, relating to the removal of the public de- 
posits from the Bank of the United States, giving the 
reasons for that measure, and on the 4th of February, 
1834 a message was sent by the president in relation 
to the conduct of the bank. It stated that, when the 
secretary of the treasury had demanded the delivery 
of some of the public money, in their keeping, it was 
refused, on the ground that he was not authorized by 
law to make the demand. The president, in that 
document, censured " the conduct of the Bank of the 
United States in refusing to deliver the books, papers, 
and funds, relating to the execution of the act of 
congress of June 7, 1832, entitled ' An Act supple- 
mentary to the act for the relief of certain surviving 
officers of the revolution.' " The report of Mr. Taney 
was referred to a committee of the senate, of which 
Mr. Webster made a report on the 5th of December, 
which was adopted on the 28th of March, and im- 
bodied in a resolution which declared that " the 
reasons assigned by the secretary of the treasury for 
the removal of the money of the United States de- 
posited in the Bank of the United States and its 
branches, communicated to congress on the 4th of 
December, 1833, are unsatisfactory and insufficient." 
This resolution pcissed by a vote of twenty-six to 
twenty ; but it was laid on the table by the house of 
representatives, by a vote of one hundred and fourteen 
to one hundred and one. The following resolution, 
also, was adopted the same day by the senate, twenty- 
eight to eighteen: "Resolved, that the president, 
in the late executive proceedings in relation to the 
public revenue, has assumed upon himself authority 
and power not conferred by the constitution and 
laws, and in derogation of both." The house of 
representatives, in April, adopted these resolutions : 
1st, " That the Bank of the United States ought not to 
be rechartered ; " and, 2d, " That the public deposits 
ought not to be restored to the Bank of the United 
States." The former resolution was passed by a vote of 
one hundred and thirty-five to eighty-two, and the lat- 
ter by one hundred and nineteen to one hundred and 
four. On the 17th, the president communicated to 
the senate a message and a protest against the reso- 
lution adopted by them on his proceedings respecting 



the deposits, with a request " that the message and 
protest might be entered at length on the journal of 
the senate." To this they replied, by a resolution, 
adopted on the 7th of May, " That the protest com- 
municated to the senate, on the 17th, by the president 
of the United States, asserts power as belonging to the 
president, which is inconsistent with the just authority 
of the two houses of congress, and inconsistent with 
the constitution of the United States, and that tliere- 
fore the aforesaid protest is a breach of the privileges 
of the senate, and that it be not entered on the 
journal." About this time, numerous petitions were 
presented from different parts of the country, for and 
against the restoration of the deposits to the Bank of 
the United States; eight thousand seven hundred and 
twenty-one signatures only were against the resto- 
ration, while one himdred and fourteen thousand nine 
hundred and eighteen were in favour of it. Long de- 
bates arose on this question, which occupied most of 
the session. 

The Indians in Florida, who had shown much 
unwillingness to emigrate, were at length supposed 
to have agreed to accept the offers made to them, for 
a treaty was contracted between General Jesup and 
a chief who professed to have sufficient authority 
for that purpose. It was agreed, in that treaty, that 
the Indians should receive certain sums for tlieir lands 
and other property, and leave by a certain time, to 
occupy a portion of the new Western Indian Terri- 
tory. The nation, however, refused to acknowledge 
the treaty and the authority under which it v/as con- 
tracted, and soon began to make aggressions upon the 
troops in the territory, retreating to regions extremely 
difficult of access when pursued. The lamcaitable 
contest which has been continued till the preseii^ 
time was commenced on the 18th of November, 1833, 
by an attack on Fort Crum, by a body of Seminoles, 
who killed nearly the whole garrison, consisting of 
thirty or forty Americans. A much more disastrous 
affair took place on the 2Sth of the same month, when 
two companies of United States troops, under the com- 
mand of Major Dade, were ambushed and cut off almost 
to a man. A great part of the standing army was 
soon ordered to Florida, and enlistments were made, 
in successive years, to supply the mortality among 
the troops, caused chiefly by the unhealthiness of the 
climate, and the severe labours cuid exposures neces- 
sary in such an enterprise. The expense of money 
was complained of in congress, as well as some of 
the measures adopted at different stages of the war; 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



432 



but the natural obstacles presented by the territory to 
tlie operations of an invading army, with protection 
offered to the savage defenders, and abundance of 
food, to which they had access in regions in the in- 
terior in their possession, have rendered the war one 
of the most harassing and costly, especially in the 
sacrifice of valuable officers. If the people of the 
United States, in any future case of a similar cha- 
racter, shall be inclined to learn wisdom from expe- 
rience, they will prefer to observe peace, and avoid the 
charge of injustice and inhumanity in the view of 
mankind, by allowing to their uncivilized neighbours 
something nearer to the value of the lands of which 
they may wish to become the possessors. Both the 
whites and the Indians accuse each other of faith- 
lessness and perfidy, of cruelty and falsehoods ; and 
on both sides acts have been apologized for, on the 
ground that they have been provoked. From the 
complicated aspect of this war, and the fact that the 
Americans were the aggressors, and their enemies 
were fighting for their country and homes, there is 
reason to apprehend that future historians will find it 
difficult to present our national honour in unsullied 
purity. 

In January, 1835, President Jackson sent a message 
to the senate on the pending negotiations with France, 
respecting the claims for indemnity. After remarking 
on the justice of the claim, he mentioned that nearly 
two years had elapsed since, on the 2d day of Feb- 
ruary, 1833, the first instalment promised had become 
due, and yet no provision had been made for its pay- 
ment. " The idea," said he, " of acquiescing in the 
refusal of the e.xecution of the treaty, will not for a 
moment be entertained by any branch of the American 
government." He expressed his conviction that " the 
United States ought to insist upon a prompt execution 
of the treaty, and, in case it is refused, to take redress 
into their own hands." He therefore recommended 
that " a law be passed authorizing reprisals upon 
French property, in case provision shall not be made 
for the payment of the debt at the approaching ses- 
sions of the French chambers." He thought that 
" the American government would not give any just 
cause of war ; for if France should, in violation of the 
laws of nations, make reprisals, on our part, the occasion 
of hostilities against the United States, she would add 
violeuce to injustice, and could not fail to expose her- 
self to the just censure of civilized nations, and to the 
retributive judgments of Heaven." Mr. Clay made 
a long and able report on the subject thus introduced 



to the senate. As the president had suggested two 
courses to be adopted towards France in the existing 
juncture, he considered them both at large. They 
were, first, to make reprisals, as above stated, and, se- 
cond, to take no immediate steps, but wait for the result, 
in reliance on the good faith and justice of the nation. 
Although the president had expressed a preference for 
the former, Mr. Clay approved of the latter; and his 
report closed with a resolution offered by the com- 
mittee, and adopted by the senate, in these terms : 
" That it is inexpedient to grant power to the presi- 
dent to make reprisals of French property." The 
proposal of the president to take so violent, unusual, 
and hostile a step as the seizure of the property of 
citizens of France residing in this country, or visiting 
it for commercial or other purposes, was not received 
with much approbation by the people, while it threw 
confiding and unoffending foreigners into a state of 
great alarm. They were soon relieved for a time 
from their apprehensions ; but the extraordinary con- 
duct of the French government soon after threatened 
to involve them in circumstances equally distressing. 
On the 6th of December, 1836, General Jackson de- 
livered his last annual message to congress, in which, 
after speaking of the state of the country as pros- 
perous, and the foreign relations as on the whole 
amicable, he adverted to the treasury in terms like 
the following : " Under our present revenue system, 
there is every probability that there will continue 
to be a surplus beyond the wants of the govern- 
ment." * * * " This must be retained in the trea- 
sury as it now is, or distributed among the people, 
or the states. To retain it in the treasury as it now is, 
is impracticable. It is, besides, contrary to the genius 
of our free institutions to lock up in vaults the trea- 
sury of the nation.. To collect merely for distribution 
among the states will seem to be highly impolitic, if 
not as dangerous as the proposition to retain it in the 
treasury." * * * "About three fifths of the duties 
on imports are paid in the city of New York ; but it 
is obvious that the means to pay these dut.es are 
drawn from every quarter of the Union." * * • 
" The safest and simplest mode of obviating all these 
difficulties is, to collect only revenue enough to meet 
the wants of the government." With respect to 
the currency, he remarked that, "although various 
dangers to our institutions were obviated by the 
failure of the Bank of the United States to obtain the 
renewal of its charter, little more had yet been done 
towards, the securing of a better currency (meaning 



434 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



gold and silver) than a salutary change in public 
opinion." 

The president communicated a message to congress 
on the 21st of January, 1836, informing them that our 
minister in France having, according to his instruc- 
tions, asked for the final determination of the French 
government respecting the payment of the indem- 
nification secured by the treaty of July 4, 1831, 
a reply had been received from the French minister. 
This reply, however, stated that explanations would 
bo required from the American government, of such 
a nature as could never be given, and an answer, the 
president declared, had already been returned with 
this assurance. The following extract shows the 
spirit of the communication of the French minister : 
" The payment will be made when the government 
of the United States is ready, on its part, to declare to 
us, by addressing its claim to us officially in writing, 
that it regrets the misunderstanding that has arisen 
between the two countries; that this misunderstanding 
is formed on a mistake ; that it never entered into its 
intention to call in question the good faith of the 
French government, nor to take a menacing attitude 
towards France." Another expression was the fol- 
lowing : "If the government of the United States 
does not give these assurances, we shall be obliged to 
think that this misunderstanding is not the result of 
an error." After quoting this language, the president, 
in his address, asked, " Does France want a degrading, 
servile petition, in terms which she will dictate, and 
which will involve an assumed right to interfere in 
our domestic councils ? She will never obtain them. 
The spirit of the American people, the dignity of the 
legislature, and the firm resolve of their executive 
government, forbid it." After remarking that France 
had acknowledged the justice of- our claim, he pro- 
posed "the prohibition of the introduction of French 
imports, and the entry of French vessels in our ports." 
As our charge d'affaires had returned, in conse- 
quence of the unfriendly state of the negotiations, 
and, according to the latest accounts, the French go- 
vernment had given orders for active preparations for 
war in the navy-yards of the kingdom, serious appre- 
hensions were entertained of the result. The steady 
firmness of the president was generally approved, and 
the rmiversal opinion was, that the extraordinary de- 
mand made through the French minister ought to be 
utterly rejected. The two countries were relieved 
from their threatening danger, and happily delivered 
from an embarrassing position, by a prompt and 



friendly offer of mediation, made by the king of Eng 
land, through Charles Bankhead, his charge d'affaires 
at Washington. This offer, having first been made to 
the king of the French, was instantly accepted by him ; 
and General Jackson, in his reply, through -Mr. For- 
syth, made on the 16th of February, 1836, showed an 
equal readiness to avoid a war, and to acknowledge 
the kindness shown by the king of England. The 
following is an extract : " By the fulfilment of the 
obligations of the convention between the two govern- 
ments, the first cause of difference will be removed ; 
and the president anticipates that the benevolent and 
magnanimous wishes of his Britannic majesty's go- 
vernment will be speedily realized, as, the temporary 
estrangement between the two nations, who have so 
many common interests, will, no doubt, be followed by 
the -restoration of their ancient ties of friendship and 
esteem." The secretary was further instructed to 
express to his Britannic majesty's government how 
sensible the president is of the anxious desire " it has 
displayed to preserve the relations of peace between 
the United States and France, and the exertions it has 
prepared to make to effect that object, essential to the 
prosperity, and congenial to the wishes, of the two 
nations, and the applause of the world." 

The specie circular was issued by the secretary of 
the treasury on the 11th of July, 1836. It was ad- 
dressed to the receivers of public money and the 
deposit banks ; and it directed them to receive only 
specie in payment for public lands sold, from the en- 
suing 15th of August, with an exception in favour of 
actual settlers, or inhabitants of the states in which the 
lands should be situated. This measure produced gene- 
ral surprise and consternation among men of business, 
the state of the country being such, that the derange- 
ment of the currency, already very great, was likely to 
be much increased by it. Soon after the meeting of 
congress, two resolutions were introduced into tlie se- 
nate, of the following purport : The first repealed the 
treasury order or circular, and the second declared " that 
it shall not be lawful for the secretary of the treasury 
to delegate to any person, or to any corporation, the 
power of directing what funds shall be receivable for 
customs or for the public lands ; nor shall he make any 
discriminations in the funds as receivable between 
different individuals, or between the different branches 
of the public revenue." Mr. Webster spoke in favour 
of these resolutions at length, and the discussions 
occupied much attention during the session. Several 
other measures were brought before congress ; but 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



435 



most of them failed, in consequence of want of har- 
mony between the different branches of the govern- 
ment. Among them were the fortification bill, (with a 
clause, which had been appended to it, for the dis- 
tribution of the surplus revenue,) the land bill, the 
army bill, and the bill for the reduction of the 
revenue. A bill to regulate the currency, which had 
passed both houses, and had been sent to the presi- 
dent for his signature, he retained until it expired in 
his hands by t)ie lapse of time. In fact, none of the 
most important bills of the session became laws, ex- 
cept the appropriation bills, which were indispensably 
necessary to the operation of the government. 

Majtin Van Buren was inaugm'ated president of the 
United States on the 4th of March, 1837. He deliv- 
ered his inaugural address on the eastern portico of 
the Capitol, in the presence of the senate, the heads 
of the departments, the foreign ministers, many of 
the officers of the government, and a large assemblage 
of citizens, the oath of office having been adminis- 
tered by Chief Justice Taney. After speaking in 
terms of the highest respect of his predecessor, and 
giving an extensive view of the progress made by the 
United States in numbers, power, and wealth, he ex- 
pressed his feelings respecting the abolition of slavery 
in the following terms : " I go into the presidential 
chair the inflexible and uncompromising opponent of 
every attempt on the part of congress to abolish 
slavery in the District of Columbia, against the wishes 
of the slaveholding states, and also with a determina- 
tion equally decided to resist the slightest interference 
with it in the states where it exists." * * * "No bill 
conflicting with those views can ever receive my con- 
stitutional sanction." The election of Mr. Van Buren 
was efi'ected by one hundred and sixty-seven votes, 
against fourteen for Daniel Webster, seventy-three for 
General Harrison, twenty-six for Hugh L. White, and 
eleven for W. P. Mangum. Richard M. Johnson was 
elected vice-president by one hundred and forty-four 
votes. Mr. Van Buren's cabinet consisted of the fol- 
lowing members : John Forsyth, secretary of state ; 
Levi Woodbury, secretary of the treasury ; J. R. Poin- 
sett, secretary of war ; Mahlon Dickerson, secretary of 
the navy ; and Benjamin F. Butler, attorney-general. 

The great and general commercial embarrassments 
which prevailed in 1837 were attributed, by most 
men of business, to the interference of the government 
with the credit of the national bank and the currency 
of the country. Numerous petitions were laid before 
congress, at their extra session that year, praying for 



measures to restore public credit, and avert the exten- 
sive and alarming evils, which already threatened a 
general bankruptcy. A very large meeting was held 
by the merchants of New York, who appointed a 
numerous committee to bear their resolutions to 
Washington ; but their efforts, combined with those 
made in other places, had no cff'ect on the president, 
who, in his message, affirmed that congress had no 
power to do any thing in the case, any measure that 
might be advised for the relief of commerce being 
beyond the constitutional sphere of their duties. On 
this subject his views were regarded as quite new, 
when they were expressed in his message to congress 
on its assembling. He said, " That the government 
and the people were in a great degree independeiit, 
and unconnected in interest and spheres of action ; 
and that each was properly bound to care and provide 
for itself, without regard to the business of the other." 
This doctrine appeared to be in opposition to the 
common opinion, that the government was created 
and supported expressly for the good of the people, 
and of no value for any other purpose. The presi- 
dent, with these views, declined all exertion for the 
improvement of commerce or the relief of existing 
embarrassments ; but the congress devoted their chief 
attention to the aid and relief of the government, for 
which they authorized the issue of ten millions of 
dollars in treasury notes, and gave the secretary of the 
treasury power to borrow money, if he should find it 
necessary. As the notes were made negotiable, they 
became, in fact, mere paper money. In the year 1838, 
the issue of a similar amount of treasury notes was 
again authorized, and once more in 1839, after a part 
of the former notes had been redeemed. In October 
1837, the law was suspended which had been passed 
the year previous, providing for the distribution of the 
surplus funds of the government to the several states, 
after three quarters of the amount had been distri- 
buted. It soon proved that some portions of the 
national funds, which had been withdrawn from the 
Bank of the United States, had been deposited in 
other banks at a disadvantage, as losses occurred 
through their mismanagement or misfortune. As the 
places of deposit were left entirely at the discretion of 
the secretary of the treasury, and, according to the 
new doctrines, he was under the control of the presi- 
dent, he was regarded as responsible for the conse- 
quences. Soon after the opening of the session, a 
resolution was oflTered in the senate for the expunging 
from the journal of the resolution, passed in 1834, 



430 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



censuring General Jackson. After a long debate, it 
was adopted, on the 16th of January, 1837, by a vote 
of twenty-four to nineteen ; and, in obedience to it, the 
clerk drew black lines around it, to signify its repeal 
with disapprobation. This extraordinary mutilation 
of the records of the senate is regarded to this day 
with astonishment, and some of the senators, whose 
votes produced the result, have keenly regretted the 
precedent which they so rashly afforded. In the 
course of the debate, Mr. Clay made a speech, from 
which the following are extracts: "Our British an- 
cestors understood perfectly well the importance of 
the money power in a representative government. It 
is the great lever by which the crown had been made 
to conform the administration to the interests of the 
kingdom and the will of the people. * * * Our im- 
mediate ancestors, profiting by the lessons on civil 
liberty which had been taught in the country from 
which we spring, endeavoured to place around the 
public purse, in the hands of congress, every possible 
security against the intrusion of the executive. With 
this view, congress alone is invested by the consti- 
tution with the power to lay and collect the taxes. 
When collected, not a cent is to be drawn from the 
public treasury but in virtue of an act of congress. 
And among the first acts of this government was the 
passage of a law establishing a treasury department, 
for the safe keeping and the legal and regular dis- 
bursement of the money so collected. By that act, a 
secretary of the treasury is placed at the head of that 
department; and, varying in that respect from the 
other departments, he is to report, not to the presi- 
dent, hut directly to congress, and is liable to be 
called to give information in person before congress. 
It is impossible to examine dispassionately that act, 
without coming to the conclusion that it is implicitly 
the agent of congress in performing the duties assigned 
by the constitution to congress. The act further pro- 
vides that a treasurer shall be appointed to receive 
and keep the public money; and none can be drawn 
from his custody but under the authority of law, and 
ill virtue of the warrant drawn by the secretary of the 
treasury, countersigned by the comptroller, and re- 
corded by the register. Only when such a warrant is 
presented can the treasurer lawfully pay a dollar from 
the public purse. Why was the concurrence of these 
four officers required in disbursements of the public 
money ? VVas it not for further security ? Was it 
not intended that each, exercising a separate and in- 
dependent will, should be a check upon every other ? 



* * * Thus stood the treasury from 1789 to 1816. 
During that long period, no president ever attempted 
to interfere with the custody of the public purse. It 
remained where the laws placed it, undisturbed ; and 
every chief magistrate, including the father of his 
country, respected the law. In 1816, an act passed 
to establish the late Bank of the United States, for 
the terrh of twenty years ; and by the 16th section of 
the act, it is enacted ' that the deposits of the money 
of the United States, in places in which the said Bank 
of the United States, and the branches thereof, may 
be established, shall be made in said bank, and 
branches thereof, unless the secretary shall at any 
time otherwise order and direct ; and the secretary 
of the treasury shall immediately lay before congress, 
if in session, and, if not, immediately after the 
commencement of the next session, the reasons for 
such order or direction.' Thus it is perfectly mani- 
fest, from the express words of the law, that the 
power to make any order or direction for the removal 
of the public deposits is confided to the secretary 
alone, to the absolute exclusion of the president, and 
all the world besides. And the law, proceeding upon 
the established principle that the secretary of the 
treasury, in all that concerns the public purse, acts as 
the direct agent of congress, requires, in the event of 
his ordering a removal of deposits, that he shall im- 
mediately lay the reasons therefor — before whom? 
The president ? No — before congress. So stood the 
public treasury, and the public deposits, from the year 
1816 to September, 1833. In the session of congress 
of 1832 and 1833, an inquiry had been instituted by 
the house of representatives into the condition of the 
Bank of the United States. It resulted in a convic- 
tion of its entire safety, and a declaration of the 
house, made only a short time before the adjournment 
of congress, on the 4th of March, 1833, that the pub- 
lic deposits were perfectly secure. This declaration 
was probably made in consequence of suspicions then 
afloat of a design, on the part of the executive, to 
remove the deposits. Those suspicions were denied 
by the press friendly to the administration. Never- 
theless the members had scarcely reached their homes, 
before measures were commenced by the executive 
for the removal of the deposits from that very place 
of safety which it was among the last acts of the 
house to declare existed in the Bank of the United 
States ! In the prosecution of the design, Mr. Mc- 
Lean, the secretary of the treasury, who was decidedly 
opposed to the measure, was advanced io the depart- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



437 



ment of state, and Mr. Duane was appointed to suc- 
ceed liira. BlU Mr. Duane was equally convinced 
with his predecessor that he was forbidden by every 
consideration of duty to execute the power with 
which the law had invested the secretary of the treas- 
ury, and refused to remove the deposits ; whereupon 
he was dismissed from office, a new secretary of the 
treasury was appointed, and in September, 1833, by 
the command of the president, the measure was 
finally accnmplished. 

In December, 1837, an attempt was made, by per- 
sons calling themselves patriots, to effect a revolution 
in Canada. A body of about one thousand occupied 
Navy Island, in Niagara River. Most of them were 
Canadians ; but there were many who went from the 
state of New York, and other parts of the frontier. 
They were under the command of a Mr. Van Rens- 
salaer. of Albany, who assumed the title of general. 
They threw up fortifications, and mounted cannon 
which they had taken by force from a state arsenal, 
showing a determination to hold the position which 
commanded Chippewa, until an opportunity should 
offer to land on the British side. A British colonel, 
who had collected a force of two or three thousand 
men on the main land, despatched five boats, on the 
evening of December 29th, to capture or destroy the 
American steamboat Caroline, which, he said, had been 
employed that day in transporting the patriots from 
the American side to that island. They found the 
vessel lying near the shore at Fort Schlosser, in our 
waters, with thirty or forty men in her; and, in board- 
ing her, killed one of them. They then towed her 
into the stream, set her on fire, and destroyed her. 
This act produced some excitement in the United 
States, where it was regarded by many as an unjus- 
tifiable violation of our territory, with the destruction 
of American property, attended with murder. The 
government of Upper Canada, however, justified it on 
the ground that the men in whose service the boat 
was employed, were pirates. Major-General Winfield 
Scott was officially ordered by Mr. Poinsett, secretary 
of war, to " repair without delay to the frontier, and 
assume the military command there." Duplicate let- 
ters to the governors of New York and Vermont were 
enclosed to him, in which they were requested to call 
mto the service of the United States such a military 
force as General Scott mi^t deem necessary, and 
which it was recommended should be drawn from 
parts of those states distant from the scene of action. 
* The disposition of the force with regard to the 



points to be occupied," said the letter, " is confided to 
your discretion, military skill, and intimate knowledge 
of the country ; and the amount of that force must de- 
pend upon the character and duration of that contest 
now going on in Canada, and the disposition mani- 
fested by the people and the public authorities of that 
colony." The following letter was addressed to the 
governor of New York : — 



lRtment of State, ) 
TON, DccLTtibtr 7, 1837. 5 



** Department of State, 
Washin-gto 



"Sir: A contest having commenced in a territory 
of Great Britain, adjoining the United States, between 
portions of the population and the government, during 
which attempts have been made to violate the laws of 
the United States, passed to preserve the relations of ami- 
ty with foreign powers, and to fulfil the obligations of 
our treaties with them, — by the directions of the presi- 
dent, I have the honour to request the attention of your 
excellency to any movements of that character that 
may be contemplated in the state of New York, and 
your prompt interference to arrest the parties concern- 
ed, if any preparations are made of a hostile nature 
against any foreign power in amity with the United 
States. — I have the honour to be, sir, your obedient 
servant, John Forsyth. 

"To His Excellency William L. Marcy, 7 
Governor of JVew York,^' 5 

Similar letters were addressed on the same day to 
the governors of Vermont and Michigan ; and the dis- 
trict attorneys yf those states were " earnestly en- 
joined," in letters addressed to them, " to prosecute, 
without discrimination, all violators of laws and trea- 
ties," &c. The confidence placed by the secretary 
in the skill, energy, and faithfulness, of General Scott, 
was fully justified by his exertions and success;, for, 
without resorting to any violent measures, the insin- 
gents were compelled to abandon their enterprise. 
They evacuated Navy Island on the 13th of January, 
1838; crossed to Grand Island; there they sui rendered 
their arms; and then, landing on the opposite American 
shore, where the New York militia, who had been called 
out by the governor, were assembled, the insurgent 
leader. Van Renssalaer, was there arrested by the mar- 
shal, and taken to Bufl!alo, where he obtained bail to 
answer for his appearance at the next term of the Su- 
preme Court. The whole number of persons who were 
found on the island was about six hundred and fifty. 

About the same time, a considerable body of men 
appeared in the neighbourhood of Detroit, with the 
design of acting in concert with those of Navy Island, 



43S 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



by invading the adjoining part of Canada. The city 
arsenal was broken open in the night, and robbed of 
all the state arms it contained ; the jail was entered 
for the same purpose; and four hundred stands, of 
arms were openly seized by force at Monroe. Sev- 
eral hundred men were enlisted in the neighbouring 
counties, and a body of insurgents set the civil 
cvuthorities at defiance. General Scott, however, soon 
succeeded in dispersing the force, and thus relieved 
the country from all apprehension. 

Within the period embraced by the presidential 
terms of General Jackson and Mr. Van Buren, events 
are to be noticed which indicated changes in the 
opinions, practices, or circumstances, of society. On 
the one hand, there was a greater external show of 
respect for the founders of the states, by centennial and 
other celebrations. On the other, there were alarm- 
ing evidences of a departure from old principles 
and habits, and an extensive deterioration of public 
morals. Evil symptoms were seen in the abusive 
language of the periodical press, and the virulence of 
party spirit, and the false principles too often avowed, 
and even made a subject of open profession. What 
chiefly alarmed the apprehensions of reflecting men, 
however, was the frequency and extravagance of 
mobs, which prevailed at intervals, for several years, 
in a number of the cities and towns in different parts 
of the Union. A society for the abolition of slavery 
in the Union had been in existence several years, 
composed chiefly of persons residing in the Northern 
and Eastern States. Discussions soon arose between 
them and the Colonization Society, which gave room 
for public meetings and publications, in which warm 
expressions were used, and the subjects in debate 
between them soon attracted general attention. The 
southerners objected to the discussion of the question 
of slavery, and still more to the existence of societies 
for emancipation out of the slave states, as a virtual 
violation of their constitutional rights, claiming that 
the sole management of their slaves was left with 
them, and that otherwise the Southern States would 
never have consented to join the Union. They re- 
monstrated against the agitation of the question, as 
dangerous to the tranquil use and enjoyment of their 
property, and even to the safety of their lives. On 
the other hand, the abolitionists claimed, as the right 
of freemen, the liberty of discussing the question of 
slavery in all its relations, as well as every other 
question, whatever ; and pronounced the j)retensions 
of the slaveholders unfounded, unconstitutional, and 



arrogant. Acrimonious language was used on both 
sides, mingled with expressions which were easily con- 
strued as threats; and acts were performed inconsistent 
with the rules of propriety and the laws of the land. 
Most of the mobs which, at different periods, disturbed 
the public peace, owed their origin to the excitement 
thus produced ; though many unoflending persons by 
them lost their property, and sometimes their lives. 
In a number of instances, men were seized and beaten, 
or otherwise ill treated, on suspicion of being agents 
or members of abolition societies, witliout trial, or after 
a mock process, in which some of the forms of law 
were gone through in mockery, before a self-consti- 
tuted court. This lawless manner of proceeding was 
for a time quite common in some parts of the country, 
under the name of Lynch law ; and it was too often 
justified or excused by a corrupt and time-servmg 
press. One of the first mobs which occurred was 
excited in the city of New York, by an unfounded 
inflammatory charge, made in a daily paper, against a 
respectable clergyman. Unfortunately, neither the 
rioters were punished as they should have been, nor 
was the oflfending editor called to account for the 
public injury he had caused; and their impunity 
encouraged many ill-designing and more inconsiderate 
men to imitate their examples. In Philadelphia, on 
the 12th of August, 1833, about forty houses were 
destroyed, chiefly the habitations of colored people, 
and several lives were lost. On another occasion, a 
large and expensive building in the same city, erected 
for public lectures, &c., and called Pennsylvania Hall, 
was deliberately burnt by a numerous mob. In Bos- 
ton, the assembling of abolition societies was, for a 
time, prevented by riotous crowds of men threatening 
to interfere with force. 

It may not be improper to notice, in this connection, 
that, in the year 1840, the sloop Amistad, from Cuba, 
was seized by a United States vessel at the entrance 
of Long Island Sound, on suspicion of piracy. It was 
found to contain about forty Africans, who had been 
recently brought as slaves from Africa, sold to Span- 
iards, and embarked in that vessel, to be transported 
to another part of the island. They had seized the 
vessel by force, and killed some of the white men. 
The Africans were transferred to Connecticut, and 
imprisoned for some time at New Haven. They 
were claimed by the reputed owners in Cuba ; but, 
after the delay of many months, the Supreme Court 
of the United States decided that they should not be 
surrendered lo them, but set at iberty. Among other 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



439 



counsel retained for the Africans, they enjoyed the able 
services of the venerable Ex-president Adams, who 
volunteered his efforts, and highly distinguished him- 
self by an eloquent plea. A committee of the Aboli- 
tion Society, who had them in charge after their 
release, and provided them with subsistence and in- 
struction, sent them to Africa in 1841. with a mis- 
sionary, who, at their desire, was to undertake to 
introduce Christianity and learning into their country. 

The session of the Pennsylvania legislature was 
interrupted by a mob on the 4th of December, 1S38, 
so that the governor sent to Philadelphia for a detach- 
ment of militia. That very extraordinary occurrence 
took place in consequence of high political excitement. 
The election of the Philadelphia members was con- 
tested, on the opening of the session that morning, 
in the chamber of representatives ; and two speakers 
were chosen, and two bodies organized by the oppo- 
site parties. In the afternoon, the senate were pre- 
vented from opening their session by a body of riotous 
men, who assembled about the door, and, when the 
senators had withdrawn, entered and occupied it. On 
the 8th, the troops of the first division of militia ar- 
rived from Philadelphia, and restored order. The two 
bodies in the house, however, continued to hold sepa- 
rate meetings, until the senate recognized one of them 
by a majority of one vote ; and thus the disturbance 
ended. 

The session of congress of 1839 and 1840 was 
greatly agitated in consequence of the early refusal 
of seats to the representatives from New Jersey. 
Congress met on the 26th of December, and the clerk 
of the house, after calling the names of 4he represen- 
tatives from the New England states and New York, 
named only one of those from New Jersey, remarking 
that the seats of the other five were to be contested, and 
proposing to omit them. As they liad brought certifi- 
cates of their election, this proposition was opposed, 
and a prolonged and disorderly debate ensued. On 
the 4th of January, the Honourable John Q.uincy 
Adams was chosen chairman, and the subject was 
debated until the 16th. Mr. Hunter was then elected 
speaker^ but without allowing the five members liber- 
ty to vote. On the fcJlowing day, the other members 
took the oath, and the right of the five New Jersey 
members was denied by the rejection of a resolution 
offered to assert their claim. This measure produced 
great dissatisfaction, partly because it was effected by 
a vote of one hundred and sixteen to one hundred and 
twelve, the numbers being such that the five reiected 
5& 



members would have placed the majority on the other 
side, if they had been permitted to vote. The de- 
livery of the president's message was thus delayed 
three weeks. 

The sect called Mormons, who had assembled in 
large numbers in the west, and were marching about 
in search of a settlement about this time, caused much 
difficulty in Missouri. Imagining themselves to be 
under the express guidance of the Almighty, they 
moved about for a time without any fixed plan, until 
they found themselves in want of provisions as well 
as habitations; and on the 28th of October, 1828, they 
surrendered to General Atkinson, who was at the head 
of three thousand Missouri militia. Their whole 
number was said to amount to five thousand, and 
among them were seven hundred armed men. On 
the borders of Ray county, in that state, a body of 
three hundred or four hundred Mormons destroyed a 
party of about fifty men, of which only three or four 
made their escape. — At Charlestown, near Boston, an 
Ursiiline convent had been erected, which received 
young ladies as pupils from different parts of the 
country. Two of them, who had escaped, at different 
periods, by eluding the vigilance of their foreign guar- 
dians, made such representations of the severe treat- 
ment they had received, and cast such grave sus- 
picions on the moral character of the priests and 
nuns, that a mob proceeded against the institution on 
the night of August 11, 1833, and burned it to the 
ground. Repeated attempts were made to recover 
damages for the property destroyed ; but neither the 
courts nor the legislature would grant any redress. 
— On the 7th of November, 1835, the New York and 
Lake Erie Railroad was commenced, which is to pass 
through the southern counties of that state, and open 
a communication with the Hudson River and the city 
of New York. The same year, Samuel Smithson, of 
London, left a legacy of one hundred thousand pounds 
sterling, to be devoted to an institution in the United 
States, for the intellectual improvement of mankind, 
under the direction of congress. — A vast amount of 
property was destroyed by fire, principally in a few 
of the chief cities. By far the most remarkable case 
of this kind was the great fire in New York. It 
broke out in the evening of December 16, 1835, and 
continued to burn until one o'clock on the following 
day. The destruction of property, in those few hours, 
was far greater than by any other fire on this side of ■ 
the Atlantic. A great part of that portion of the 
city was consumed which was the principal seat of 



440 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



business ; and, according to the official estimate, the 
loss amounted to seventeen million one hundred and 
fifteen thousand six hundred and ninety-two dollars: of 
this, thirteen million one hundred and fifteen thousand 
six hundred and ninety-two dollars was merchandise, 
and four million dollars in buildings, of which no less 
than five hundred and twenty-nine were consumed. 
On the 15th of December, 1836, the United States gen- 
eral post-office at Washington was burned, with the 
patent office, and the Washington post-office. The 
contents of all these were also consumed, excepting 
only a portion of those of the first. Among the val- 
uable articles which fell a prey to the flames, were 
seven thousand models of patent machines, instru- 
ments, &c. ; one hundred and sixty-three large folio 
volumes of records; twenty-six large portfolios, con- 
taining nine thousand drawings, many of which were 
very valuable, and of fine execution ; ten thousand 
original descriptions of inventions, (fcc. A report 
made by a committee of congress stated that about 
three thousand of the most valuable might be replaced 
at an expense of thirty-three dollars each, or one hun- 
dred thousand dollars for that number. 

The disputed territory in Maine became the scene 
of much disorder in the winter of 1839. The land 
agent of that state, Mr. Mclntyre, having led a 
party of men against individuals who were cutting 
wood in the disputed territory, was captured and im- 
prisoned at Frederickton, N. B., but was soon released 
by the governor, who issued a proclamation, declaring 
the Americans guilty of an invasion of the possessions 
of her majesty. The British warden of the disputed 
territory was in turn captured by a party of Ameri- 
cans, and taken to Bangor. Much excitement pre- 
vailed on this subject, until the ■ following terms were 
agreed upon between Mr. Fox, the minister plenipo- 
tentiary of Great Britain, and Mr. Forsyth, the Ameri- 
can secretary of state : " Her majesty's officers will 
not seek to expel by military force the armed party 
which has been sent by Maine into the district bor- 
dering on the Aroostook River ; but the government 
of Maine will voluntarily, and without needless delay, 
withdraw beyond the bounds of the disputed terri- 
tory any armed force now within them ; and, if future 
necessity should arise for dispersing notorious tres- 
passers, or protecting public property from depreda- 
tions, by armed force, the operation shall be conducted 
by concert, jointly or separately, according to agree- 
ments between the governments of Maine and New 
Brunswick." About the close of March, a proposition 



was made by Major-General Scott, of the United 
States army, to Sir John Harvey, lieutenant-governor 
o{ New Brunswick, and his Excellency Jolm Fair- 
field, governor of Maine, to leave the question at rest 
until further instruction should be received -by the 
former fi-om his government ; and the troops of Maine 
were disbanded. This important service was highly 
creditable to the skill and disposition of the distin- 
guished officer to whom it had been intrusted, and 
whose talents were now as signally displayed in the 
field of diplomacy, as they had formerly been in that 
of his own proper profession. — The independence 
of the republic of Texas was acknowledged by the 
United States on the 1st of March, 1837, by a resolu- 
tion of the senate. The vote was twenty-three to 
nineteen. On the 31st of the same month, the Mexi- 
can minister protested in the most solemn manner, 
before all civilized nations, against the acknowl- 
edgment of the pretended republic of Texas, made 
by the United States. On the 17th of April, the 
United States sloop of war Natchez captured a Mexi- 
can brig of war off the Brazos de St. Jago, after 
making a formal demand upon the Mexican authori- 
ties to release six American vessels illegally captured 
— An exploring expedition, which had been sent out 
for the discovery of unknown countries in the South 
Pacific Ocean, to explore and survey certain coasts 
and islands, &c., discovered the Antarctic continent, 
on the 19th of January, in the year 1840. The ex- 
pedition consisted of.the Vincennes, Peacock, and Por- 
poise, with a smaller vessel, atid was under the com- 
mand of Lieutenant Wilkes, of the United States 
navy. The 4and was discovered by the Vincennes, 
though, it is said, it had been seen a few days be- 
fore on board the Porpoise. The Vincennes fell in 
with it in south latitude 66° 20', east longitude 15° 
40' IS", and ran along the coast to 97° 45' east, 
a distance of about seventeen hundred miles. 
The weather was cold and stormy, and the coast so 
guarded by ice, that it was impossible to effect a land- 
ing. The new continent presents a long chain of 
mountains, apparently destitute of vegetation and 
human inhabitants. The French exploring expe- 
dition, under the command of Commodore D'Urville, 
discovered the same continent in latitude 66° 8'. on 
the same day as the Vincennes, but could not prose- 
cute the discovery on account of the ice. — An address 
to the senate, signed by fifty-six distinguished British 
authors, was presented by Mr. Clay on the 1st of Feb- 
ruary, 1837, petitioning for a copy-right law, to secure 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



441 



to them and other foreign writers some benefit from 
the sale of their books. The following is an extract : 
"That they have long been exposed to injury, in 
their reputation and property, from the want of a law, 
by which the exclusive right to their respective writ- 
ings may be secured to them in the United States; 
that, for the want of such a law, deep and extensive 
injuries have been inflicted on their reputation and 
property, and on the interests of liberty and science, 
which ought 'to constitute a bond of union and friend- 
ship between the United States and Great Britain ; 
and that, deeply impressed with the conviction that 
the only firm ground of friendship between nations is 
a strict regard to simple justice, they earnestly request 
the senate of the United States, in congress assembled, 
speedily to use, in behalf of the authors of Great Brit- 
ain, their power of securing to the authors the exclu- 
sive right of their writings." The address goes on to 
state "that their property is injured by the American 
publishers, who appropriate the money received, from 
the sale of their works, contrary to their wishes ; and 
that their reputation is exposed to injury by the imita- 
tion or alteration of their works, while their names 
are retained as the authors, and are thus made re- 
sponsible for works which they no longer recognize 
as their own. From all these evils they have now 
no redress ; while American authors are injured by 
this free competition, and the American public de- 
ceived with imperfect and mutilated editions." This 
address was referred to a committee; and a petition 
was afterwards presented in the same spirit, from a 
number of American authors. 

Railroads have been constructed in great numbers 
in different parts of the country, in so many directions, 
and of such extent, that it is unnecessary to attempt 
an enumeration of them. Their united length has 
been estimated at four thousand miles. Travelling 
and transportation have been facilitated and extended 
to a wonderful degree, and the rapidity, cheapness, 
and comfort, of travelling on the principal routes, and 
on many branches, have caused a great increase in 
commuuication and intercourse throughout the Union. 
Although railroads have in a great measure super- 
seded canals, some of the latter are still very useful, 
being employed chiefly for the transportation of more 
bulky ai-ticles. The construction of canals, however, 
has ceased, and there is little probability that any 
more will ever be made in this country. 

The country was at this period in a state of great 
depression, and many of the people attributed the 



extensive and alarming embarrassments of trade to the 
measures of the government. General William Henry 
Harrison, of Ohio, was proposed as a candidate for the 
presidency, and a convention from all the states was 
invited to meet at Harrisburgh, Pennsylvania, on the 
4th of December, to consist of persons opposed to the 
administration of Mr. Van Buren. Mr. Webster and 
Mr. Clay had, ere this, been nominated by their 
friends as candidates ; but they both publicly requested 
that their names might be withdrawn in case any 
other person should be found, on whom the opposition 
party (who had assumed the title of Whigs) might be 
expected to unite. General Harrison had been a can- 
didate at the preceding election, having been nomi- 
nated by the anti-masonic party for president, and he 
received seventy-two electoral votes. But the time 
had arrived when he was to see his popularity rapidly 
increase, and to enjoy a greater degree of public fa- 
vour than had. been expressed to any man in the 
country, with the single exception of him who had 
so justly borne the title of its father. The Harrisburgh 
convention contained delegates from twenty-two of 
the states; and the first vote given showed there were 
for Mr. Clay, one hundred and three; for General Har- 
rison, ninety-four ; and for General Scott, fifty-seven. 
The second was as follows: Harrison, one hundred 
and forty-eight ; Clay, ninety ; and Scott, sixteen. It 
was agreed, with perfect unanimity and much enthu- 
siasm, that General Harrison should be nominated to 
the people for president, and John Tyler, of Virginia, 
for vice-president. Meetings were now held in great 
numbers in all parts of the Union, friendly to these 
candidates, and the new practice soon prevailed of 
"7nass meetings," as they were called, at which the 
people assembled in much greater numbers than ever 
before. An air of gayety also began to prevail ; and 
the customary gravity and too frequent asperity of 
political meetings generally gave place to addresses of 
a conciliatory character, alternating with songs. The 
hope of better times was encouraged, and the evils 
sufiered by the country were attributed to the ill- 
placed confidence of a large and honest party in self- 
ish, ignorant, or unfaithful leaders. General Harri- 
son's life and character became the topic of general 
eulogium, and in a generous outbreak of national 
enthusiasm, the simplicity, industry, and economy, of 
a new country received their merited praise, as well 
as the hardihood, bravery, and self-denial, of the patri- 
otic soldier. As an emblem of unsophisticated society 
in the west, log-houses were erected at the places oi 



442 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



political meetings, and equipped with the furniture 
and decorations of the rudest frontier habitations ; 
miniature log-cabins were borne in procession, and 
worn about the person, as insignia of political parti- 
sanship, while their praises were the burden of many 
a popular song. 

General William Henry Harrison, of Ohio, was in- 
augurated president of the United States, for the en- 
suing four years, on the 4th of March, 1841, and John 
Tyler, of Virginia, vice-president, for the same term. 
Each had been elected by a vote of two hundred and 
thirty-four. The only other votes given for president, 
were sixty for Mr. Van Bureri. General Harrison 
was son of the distinguished man of that name who 
sigued the Declaration of Independence iu 1776, as a 
member of the continental congress from Virginia. 
Having received his education at Hampden-Sidney 
College, he began to study medicine ; but at the 
age of nineteen, he received a commission from 
Washington, and in 1792 entered actual service as 
■an aid of General Wayne, against the Indians. He 
appeared in congress at the age of twenty-six, as a 
delegate from the North- Western Territory, and the 
next year was appointed governor of Indiana, which 
then comprehended all the western territory, except 
Oliio. Continuing in that office in 1811, he com- 
manded at the victory of Tippecanoe, and at the 
battle of the Thames, in 1813, as a general of the 
regular army. By treaties with the Indians, which 
are believed to have been fairly and honestly made, 
he purchased for the country fifty-one millions of 
acres of the richest land, and he introduced the plan 
for the sale of the public domain in sections of six 
hundred and forty, and three hundred and twenty 
acres, instead of four thousand, so that poor settlers 
could purchase farms. He was appointed Indian 
commissioner again in 1814, a representative in con- 
gress in 1816, and a senator in the Ohio legislature, 
and in congress, and iu 1828 minister to Colombia. 
His pure character, however, his sound judgment, 
active devotion to his country, and high sense of 
honour, which had always kept him in a sphere far 
above the polluting suspicion of selfishness, were not 
forgotten ; and he was sought out in his retirement, 
like Cincinnatus at the plough, by those who wished 
to find a man possessing substantial qualifications for 
die chief magistracy. His simple manners and frank- 
ness of address, but above all his stern virtue and 
decided example in favor of religion, and moral and 
political integrity, rendered him one of the most 



popular men the country has ever produced. The 
following passages are extracts from the address he 
delivered, after his inauguration : " However strong 
may be my present purpose to realize the expec- 
tations of a magnanimous and confiding people, I 
too well understand the infirmities of human nature, 
and the dangerous temptations to which I shall be 
exposed from the magnitude of the power which it 
has been the pleasure of the people to commit to my 
hand, not to place my chief confidence in the aid of 
that Almighty Power which has hitherto protected 
me, and enabled me to bring to favorable issues other 
important but still inferior trusts, heretofore confided to 
me by my countrymen." * * * " The great danger 
to our institutions does not appear to me to be iu a 
usurpation by the government of power not granted 
by the people, but the accumulation in one of the 
departments of that which was assigned to others." 
Some of the sources of the evils complained of he 
thought to be the defects of the constitution, and a 
misconstruction of some of its provisions. The re- 
eligibility of the president, he said, was an evil which 
any president might correct in his own case. " Until 
an amendment of the constitution can be effected," 
said he, "public opinion may secure the desired ob- 
ject. I give my aid to it, by renewing the pledge 
heretofore given, that under no circumstances will I 
consent to serve a second term." With respect to the 
veto power, the president said that the constitution 
had given that power to the judiciary as well as to 
the executive ; yet the judiciary had never exercised it. 
On the subject of setting aside precedents, he remarked, 
" I believe, with Mr. Madison, that repeated recognitions, 
under varied circumstances, in the acts of the legis- 
lative, executive, and judicisd branches of the govern- 
ment, accompanied by indications, in different modes, 
of the concurrence of the general will of the nation, 
as affording to the president sufficient authority for his 
considering such disputed points as settled." After a 
full consideration of the evil effects of encouraging 
public officers to take an active part in electioneering, 
he added, "Never, with my consent, shall an officer 
of the people, compensated for his services out of 
their pockets, become the pliant instrument of execu- 
tive will." The freedom of the press, he declared, "is 
one of the most precious legacies they (our ancestors) 
have left us." AVith respect to the public funds, he 
thus expressed himself: "The mode of keeping the 
public treasure should be prescribed by them, (the 
people ;) and the farther removed it may he from the 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



443 



control of the executive, the more wholesome the ar- 
rangement, and the more in accordance with repub- 
lican principle." " la relation to the adoption of gold 
and silver, instead of paper money," he declared 
" that an exclusive metallic currency would favour the 
necessary toleration of usury, and be in danger of 
breaking down the character of the country for gen- 
erosity and nobleness of feeling." He enforced at 
length the general duty of kindness and conciliation 
among the inhabitants of all the states; and especially 
at that juncture when party spirit prevailed in so 
great a degree. 

On account of the deranged state of the commercial 
affairs of the coimtry. General Harrison convoked an 
extra session of congress for May 13. But that day 
he was neveY permitted to see. After a short illness, 
General Harrison died on the 4th of April, of pneumonia, 
with congestion of the liver, only one month after 
his inauguration. The following official announce- 
ment was made by the members of his cabinet : — 

"City of Washington, Jlpril 4, 1841. 

" An all-wise Providence having suddenly removed 
from this life William Henry Harrison, late president 
of the United States, we have thought it our duty, in 
the recess of congress, and in the absence of the vice- 
president from the seat of government, to make this 
afflicting bereavement known to the country, by this 
declaration, under our hands. 

'• He died at the president's house, in this city, this 
4th day of April, Anno Domini 1841, at thirty min- 
utes before one o'clock in the morning. 

" The people of the United States, overwhelmed, 
like ourselves, by an event so unexpected and so mel- 
ancholy, will derive consolation from knowing that 
his death was calm and resigned, as his life has been 
patriotic, and useful, and distinguished ; and that the 
last utterance of his lips expressed a fervent desire for 
the perpetuity of the constitution, and the preser- 
vation of its true principles. In death, as in life, 
the happiness of his country was uppermost in his 
thought. 

" Daniel Webster, Secretary of State. 

" Thomas Ewing, Secretary of the Treasury. 

" John Bell, Secretary of War. 

"J. J. Crittenden, Attorney -General. 

"Francis Granger, Postmaster -General." 

Mr. Badger, the secretary of the navy, was absent 
at the time. 



The funeral of the president took place on the 7th 
of April. Minute guns were fired in the morning at 
the military stations near the city ; and the burial 
service was read in the east room of the president's 
house about noon, where the coffin was placed, in the 
centre. Near it, in a semicircle, stood about forty 
clergymen, opposite whom sat the members of the 
cabinet round the head of the coffin, while behind 
them were the foreign ministers ; beyond them were 
the mourners, the physicians, pall-bearers, and officers 
of the army and navy, while a great number of other 
persons occupied the other parts of the spacious room. 
The coffin was carried on a car drawn by six white 
horses, attended by the pall-bearers, who represented 
the different states and territories of the Union. A 
military escort preceded the car, consisting of officers 
of the army and navy, and of different corps in the 
District, and of the city of Baltimore. The civic oro- 
cession, which followed the military, was led by the 
United States marshal for the District, clerk of the 
Supreme Court, the mayors of the neighbouring cities, 
and clergy, before the car ; and after it, the family of 
the deceased, the vice-president and heads of depart- 
ments, ex-presidents, &c., foreign ministers, judges, 
senators, representatives, governors, officers of de- 
partment, soldiers, societies, citizens, ice. (fcc. The 
houses were crowded with spectators, and bore en- 
signs of mourning, as the procession moved to the 
congressional burying-ground, where the coffin was de- 
posited in solemn silence. It was afterwards removed 
to the banks of the Ohio, and placed in a new tomb, 
erected for the purpose by public subscriptions. 

On the 6th of April, the vice-president, having ar- 
rived in Washington, was waited on by the heads of 
the departments, to pay him their personal and official 
respects. He signified to them his wish that they 
would continue to fill the station they held, and ex- 
pressed his confidence that they would afford him 
their aid in the administration of the government. 
He then took and subscribed the following oath, that 
no room might remain for doubts of his legal quali- 
fications for the discharge of the duties of president, 
which the death of General Harrison had devolved 
upon him. 

"I do solemnly swear, that I will faithfully execute 
the office of president of the United States, and will, 
to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend, 
the constitution of the United States. 

"John Tyleb 

"April 6, 184]." 



444 



HISTORY OF THE UINITED STATES. 



This oath was administered to Mr. Tyler by the 
Honourable William Cranch, chief justice of the 
District of Columbia. On the 13th of April, the 
president issued the following proclamation for a na- 
tional fast : — 

" To the People of the United States. — A Recommendation. 

" When a Christian people feel themselves to be 
overtaken by a great public calamity, it becomes them 
to humble themselves under the dispensation of divine 
Providence, to recognize His righteous government 
over the children of men, to acknowledge His good- 
ness in time past, as well as their own unworthi- 
ness, and to supplicate His merciful protection for the 
future. 

" The death of William Henry Harrison, late presi- 
dent of the United States, so soon after his elevation to 
that high office, is a bereavement peculiarly calculated 
to be regarded as a heavy affliction, and to impress 
all minds with a sense of the uncertainty of human 



things, and of the dependence of nations, as well as 
individuals, upon our heavenly Parent. 

" I have thought, therefore, that 1 should be acting 
in conformity with the general expectation and feel- 
ings of the community, in recommending, as I now 
do, to the people of the United States, of every re- 
ligious denomination, that, according to their several 
modes and forms of worship, they observe a day of 
fasting and prayer, by such religious services as may 
be suitable on the occasion ; and I recommend Friday, 
the 14th day of May next, for that purpose ; to the 
end that, on that day, we may all, with one accord, 
join in humble and reverential approach to Him in 
whose hands we are, invoking Him to inspire us with 
a proper spirit, and temper of heart and mind, under 
those frowns of his Providence, and still to bestow 
His precious benedictions upon our gover:mient and 
our country. 

"John Ttler. 
" Washhiotom, .Spra 13, 1841." 




No president, since Washington, had commenced 
his administration under such favourable auspices as 
Mr. Tyler. Though elevated, by the suffrages and 
exertions of the Whig party, to that position from 
which, under the provisions of the constitution, he 
stepped into the vacant presidency, he was not 
personally pledged to any specific measures, or any 
course of policy, for whicli that party contended. 
With a high-minded and honourable regard for the 
supreme will of the people, as indicated in his elec- 
tion, he might have blended a noble independence of 
sectional and party shackles, and, steering a middle 
course between tlie factions, have disarmed the vio- 
lence of the conflict, and given to the country a season 
of political repose. By many of the wise and moder- 
ate, on both sides, this was desired and expected. 

In accordance with these just and patriotic senti- 
ments, Mr. Tyler courteously requested the entire 
cabinet of his lamented predecessor to retain their re- 
spective places, and announced his determination to 
make no immediate changes in the administrative 
policy of the government. But matters of graver im- 
port than the distribution of executive favours soon 
arose. The qumstiones vexatce. of political strife began 
to be revived. The bank, which, it was supposed, had 
received its quietus in the sub-treasury, — the tariff, 
internal improvements, and the distribution of the pub- 
lic lands, — were all to be taken up de novo, as problems 
not yet solved. 

On all these questions, Mr. Tyler's cabinet was dia- 
metrically opposed to that of the Van Buren adminis- 
tration ; and measures were soon in progress to effect a 
radical change, as soon as congress could be brought 
to act upon the subject. 

The extra session of congress, which had been 
called by proclamation from General Harrison, com- 
menced at the time appointed, on the 31st of May. 
This was not an.event of rare occurrence, having been 



resorted to five times before, since the adoption of the 
constitution. The house of representatives was organ- 
ized by the election of the Whig candidate for speaker, 
Mr. John White, of Kentucky. Mr. Mangum, of North 
Carolina, president j9ro tem. of the senate, presided over 
that body, becoming, de facto, vice-president of the 
United States, and receiving the full salary of that 
office. 

The message of President Tyler was brief and ap- 
propriate. Alluding to his peculiar position, and the 
occasion which called for a message from him at that 
time, he gave a succinct view of the relations of the 
country with foreign powers, and the domestic crisis 
which made it expedient to call an extra session. He 
commended to the notice of congress the deranged 
condition of the currency and the monetary affairs of 
the country; condemned the sub-treasury, as wholly 
incompetent to the duty assigned it, and recommended 
the establishment of some fiscal agent, which might 
come within the range of the constitution, and har- 
monize the conflicting views of the different schools 
of political economists. In planning, and putting into 
active operation, such an agent, he promised his hearty 
cooperation, reserving the right of interfering only to 
prevent an actual infringement of the constitution. 

The measures of relief proposed by the new admin- 
istration were, a repeal of the sub-treasury, a modifi- 
cation of the tariff, and a general bankrupt law. The 
former, it was contended, was paralyzing the energies 
of the business community, by withdrawing from ac- 
tive circulation a large portion of the currency, and 
holding it, in terrorem, over the banks, to prevent 
them from accommodating the merchants. It was, 
moreover, unsafe to the public, since these large ac- 
cumulations of money were now intrusted to a few 
individuals, and protected by individual responsibility ; 
whereas, under the banking system, the safety of the 
deposits was guaranteed hy the joint responsibility of 



445 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



many stockholders. 



It was argued, also, that, as ex- 
perience is always a safer guide than theory, the histo- 
ry of the past afforded a strong argument in favour of 
the safety of the bank over tliat of the sub-treasury. 
Of all the millions upon millions which had been re- 
ceived and disbursed by two national banks, each 
having a charter of twenty years, the government had 
not lost a dollar. It was always at her command, in 
any amount, at any place, and in any kind of funds, 
she might demand. By the state banks she had lost 
a million and a half, and by defaulting officers several 
millions more. 

On these and other points, however, there were 
many conflicting opinions and views ; and it was only 
by a strict drawing of party lines, that any measure, 
connected with this subject, could be carried. By this 
means alone, the last bank had been destroyed, and all 
plans to renew and improve it defeated. By this 
means the tariff and the land bills had been arranged. 
And by this means only were those great questions yet 
to be disposed of. The general sense of the people 
was in favour of a change, or rather of a return to the 
"good old way." The eclat of General Jackson's 
name no longer overshadowed all other considerations. 
What he had been fully sustained in doing would not 
have been tolerated in any other man. This the people 
began to see and to feel. Tii'ed of mere political strife, 
which resulted in no good to the people, but only in 
perpetuating office to a few of the more ambitious 
leaders, they wished for repose. They resolved on a 
change; though it was more than probable that it 
would only be a change in name. 

This change was made. A new administration was 
invested with the powers of government. But the 
stroke of Providence had taken away its head. The 
cxQcutive will, which had recently been allowed to 
assert a personality and supremacy unknown to the 
early days of the constitution, was yet undeveloped. 
The whole country looked eagerly for the first fore- 
shadowings of its purpose. In this, however, all were 
disappointed. As Mr. Tyler had not openly and di- 
rectly committed himself, in the recent contest, on the 
details of the great leading questions of national policy, 
so, probably, he had not, at this time, distinctly marked 
out to himself the precise course he should pursue. 

He was soon brought to a stand. One of the first 
matters taken up by congress, in its extra session, was 
the bank question. The secretary of the treasury, to 
whose department it more properly belonged, presented, 
in his report, the outline of a national bank, to the 



main features of which Mr. Tyler was understood to 
have given his full assent. It was vehemently opposed 
iu both houses of congress, but passed into a bill not- 
withstanding. The sub-treasury was already repealed, 
to make way for the establishment of the new institu- 
tion. To the latter measure the president had freely 
given his official sanction, and the Whigs, with ap- 
parent good reason, expected his approval of this b'U. 
To their utter disappointment and dismay, however, 
he returned it with objections. 

This veto was the signal for a vigorous renewal of 
the strife of party. Defeated where they least expect- 
ed it, and by the exercise of a power of which they 
were always extremely jealous, as savouring too much 
of absolutism, the Whigs were confounded and dis- 
heartened, not knowing on whom to depend. 

Mr. Tyler, like his " illustrious predecessor," Gen- 
eral Jackson, had disclaimed hostility to the bank on 
constitutional grounds, by averring that ho had a plan 
of his own for a fiscal agent, which would meet the 
exigencies of the case, and harmonize the conflicting 
views of all the real friends of the bank. Upon this 
encouragement, a new bill was prepared, every feature 
of which was supposed to be so guarded and adjusted 
as to meet the executive scruple. This, however, 
though sanctioned by a majority of both houses of con- 
gress, met the same fate, at the hand of the president, 
as the former one. 

Congress did not renew the subject, but the execu- 
tive did. At the opening of the next session, the sec- 
retary of the treasury presented the plan for an ex- 
chequer, which was recommended by the president. 
It was rejected by the house of representatives, by a 
vote of 193 to 18. 

The exercise of the veto power had always been 
regarded with extreme jealousy by congress and the 
people. It had been very rarely used in the early ad- 
ministration of the government. Washington vetoed 
two bills ; Madison, four ; Monroe, one ; Jackson, ten. 
It is, perhaps, a necessary constitutional provision, but 
confers an absolute prerogative, which is somewhat 
anomalous in a democratic constitution — a preroga- 
tive so absolute that few, if any, of the constitutional 
monarchs of Europe would venture to exercise it in 
the face of a decided majority. It is odious to the 
people, as " the one-man power," and would probably 
be somewhat restrained, if submitted now to a popu- 
lar vote. 

In the measures thus defeated by executive interpo- 
sition, the cabinet were agreed and deeply interested. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



447 



Feeling that the president had already virtually taken 
other couns3lIors, and indicated a course of policy in 
which they could never harmonize, they resolved to 
retire. Accordingly, with the exception of Mr. Web- 
ster, they all sent in their resignations. Never did this 
great man appear more truly independent than in 
retaining office against the expressed wishes of many 
of his friends. He knew the crtsis which existed, and 
felt that duty to his country demanded his services. 

The cabinet was recomposed in the following manner : 
Daniel Webster, of Mass., (continuing) Sec'y of State. 
Walter Forward, of Penn., . . Sec'y of the Treasury. 
Abel P. Upshur, of Virginia, . " " Navy. 

John C. Spencer, of New York, " " War. 

Hugh S. Legare, of S. Carolina, . . Attorney-General. 
Charles A. Wickliffe, of Ky., . . Postmaster-General. 

The boundary line between the United States, in its 
north-eastern section, and the province of Nova Scotia, 
had been long in dispute. Several earnest attempts 
had been made to settle it. Much bad feeling, and 
some powder, had been expended upon it ; and the 
amicable relations which had so long subsisted between 
the two great branches of the Anglo-Saxon family 
were in some danger of being seriously disturbed. 
With a commendable disposition to adjust the diffi- 
culty, the British government had appointed Lord 
Ashburton, an intelligent, liberal-minded statesman, 
having large American interests and relations, to repre- 
sent them at Washington. The correspondence be- 
tween this distinguished iftan and Mr. Webster was of 
the highest order of diplomatic merit, worthy of the 
men and of the nations they represented. The result 
was a treaty, definitively and forever adjusting the 
north-eastern boundary. It was ratified by the United 
States on the 20th of August, and by Great Britain on 
the 14th of October. The treaty of Washington will 
remain forever a monument to the talent and patriotism 
of the great American statesman. 

The " exploring expedition," which had been sent 
out, in 1838, under command of Lieutenant Wilkes, 
returned on the 10th of June, 1842, having success- 
fully accomplished the object for which it was de- 
signed. On the 16th of January, 1840, land was dis- 
covered far south of New Holland, in latitude 66°. 
This was the first discovery of the Antarctic continent. 
Unable to effect a landing, on account of the ice. Cap- 
tain Wilkes coasted along the shore for many leagues 
in imminent danger of being crushed among the ice- 
bergs ; they bore away for the western coast of Amer- 
ica, whence, having surveyed the Columbia and Sac- 

57 



ramento Rivers, he returned home by way of the Capa 
of Good Hope. 

This year (1842) was further signalized by the out- 
breaking of domestic troubles in Rhode Island, which, 
for a time, wore a most threatening aspect. Tliis 
state, instead of adopting a new constitution, on com- 
ing into the Union, retained, as the fundamental law, 
its old colonial charter, derived from the British crown 
in 16G3, with only such modifications as were neces- 
sary to adapt it to its new relations. Various amend- 
ments and improvements had been enacted from time 
to time ; but that peculiarly British feature, which lim- 
ited the right of suffrage to landholders, remained un- 
changed. As the manufacturing interest increased, and 
with it a movable population seldom acquiring a right in 
the soil, this provision began to be felt as a grievance, and 
many unavailing efforts had been made, to induce the 
legislature to call a convention of the people, in due 
form, to revise the charter. Two parties were strongly 
arrayed on this point — the charter party, holding tena- 
ciously to their ancient privileges, and the suffrage 
party, demanding a share in the great prerogative of 
freemen. 

At length, in January, 1841, the legislature, upon 
the petition of the suffrage party, consented to call a 
convention for the purpose of forming a new constitu- 
tion. The time of meeting was fixed for the follow- 
ing November. This did not satisfy the suffrage party. 
They accordingly held a general caucus on the 17th 
of April, and another on the 5th of July, at Provi- 
dence, which assumed the right to call for a delegate 
convention, to meet in October, thus hoping to forestall, 
and perhaps annul, the action of a regular constitutional 
convention. 

The two conventions met at the times appointed for 
each respectively. Each formed a constitution, and 
submitted it to the people for ratification. The suf- 
frage party, deeming it necessary to secure the votes 
of a majority of all those to whom their constitution 
accorded the right, kept the polls open six days, and 
received proxies. In this manner they obtained four- 
teen thousand votes. The whole number of adult 
citizens being only twenty-three thousand, they claimed 
to have established their constitution by the voice of 
the people. They accordingly proceeded to choose 
state officers, and representatives to the legislature. 

Through the zealous efforts of the suffrage party, 
the constitution submitted by the legal convention was 
rejected by a majority of six hundred and seventy- 
seven votes. This event threw them back upon the 



448 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



charter, and they proceeded to their annual elections, 
as usual. 

For so small a state as Rhode Island, two govern- 
ors, two legislatures assembled at the same time, was 
rather an imposing and startling spectacle. Samuel 
W. King was the regular governor under the charter. 
Thomas W. Dorr was the governor elect of the suf- 
frage party. Serious difficulties were apprehended. 
Governor King made .application to President Tyler 
for a military force to sustain him, if necessary, in sup- 
porting the constitution of the state, and received 
assurances of aid whenever it should be necessary. 

On the 16th of May, 1842, Mr. Dorr entered Prov- 
idence, under the escort of about thirteen hundred of 
his supporters, of whom three hundred were in arms. 
Arriving at his quarters, he issued a proclamation, de- 
fying the power of the regular government, and de- 
claring his determination to maintain, to the last 
extremity, the position to which he had been called. 
Very early in the morning of the 18th, he proceeded 
to the state arsenal, at the head of his adherents, and 
having drawn up his troops in battle array, and planted 
his icannon, sent in a flag and demanded a surrender. 
Colonel Blodget, who was in command, inquired, 
" For whom, and in whose name ? " The answer was, 
" For Governor Dorr, and in the name of Colonel 
Wheeler." Blodget replied, that he knew no such 
menj and that the arsenal would be defended, in case 
of attack. 

When the flag returned, Mr. Dorr gave orders to 
fire ; but his gun flashed three times. It is said that 
there was dissatisfaction in his ranks, and that some 
of his men had dampened the powder. However that 
may be, no other demonstration was made. Mr. Dorr 
returned to his quarters. 

The state military were now called out, with orders 
to arrest Mr. Dorr, in the name of Governor King. 
Conscious of wrong, and intimidated by this array, the 
insurgents were soon dispersed, without resort to vio- 
lence. Their governor made his escape into Connec- 
ticut. Most of the officers chosen by the party re- 
signed, and thus this precocious rebellion seemed to be 
sabdued without bloodshed. 

But the spirit of discontent was not wholly quieted. 
The state was still under the old charter, and the right 
of suS"rage was restricted to the few who were free- 
holders. The discussion of this vital question was 
maintained with greater eagerness than ever, and 
words, as is often the case, soon led to blows. On the 
28th of June, Mr. Dorr again appeared, and, with about 



seven hundred of his adherents, took possession of a 
hill in Chepachet. Here he intrenched himself, ju due 
order, with five pieces of cannon, and called upon the 
people to rally for their rights. Upon this, Governor 
King ordered out three thousand of the militia, to sup- 
port the cause of " law and order," and proclaimed 
martial law throughout the state. These decisive 
measures had the desired efi"ect. Seeing the utter 
hopelessness of their position, the insurgents again dis- 
persed, without resistance, leaving their general, as be- 
fore, to provide for his own safety by flight. Return- 
ing a few months after to the state, Mr. Dorr was 
arrested, tried for treason, convicted, and sentenced to 
imprisonment and hard labor for life. In the mean 
time, a new constitution had been adopted, according 
to the prescribed forms of law. Mr. Dorr remained in 
ignoble confinement for one year, when he was released 
by an act of amnesty from the legislature. 

A very serious incident occurred, near the close of 
this year, on board of one of the national vessels of 
the United States. The brig Somers, commander 
McKenzie, had been cruising on the African coast, and 
was about returning home, when a mutiny, just ripe 
for execution, was discovered among the crew. Some 
of the officers were concerned in it. The leader was 
Philip Spencer, a son of Hon. John C. Spencer, of 
New York, at that time secretary of war. He had 
drawn around him a considerable number of the rest- 
less, daring spirits of that little community, and ar- 
ranged a plot for murdering the captain and his officers, 
and getting possession of the ship for piratical purposes. 
The plot was fully arranged and matured, and about 
to be put into execution, \vhen it was revealed to Cap- 
tain McKenzie by one of the supposed confederates. 
He had been made a confidant, in the hope of secur- 
ing him in the plot, and threatened with instant death 
if he breathed a word of it to any one. He feigned 
assent to the scheme, but sought opportunity to reveal 
it. With difficulty he found such an opportunity, and 
so the fearful tragedy was prevented ; not, however, 
without another much to be lamented, and only less 
fearful than that which the mutineers had plotted. A 
summary trial of the ringleaders was had, which 
resulted in the decision to put three of them to death. 
Accordingly, on the 1st of December, Philip Spencer, 
midshipman, Samuel Cromwell, boatswain's mate, and 
Elisha H. Small, common seaman, were hung at the 
yard arm, in presence of the assembled crew of the 
ship. This sad example of the severity of naval dis- 
cipline produced intense excitement throughout the 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



449 



length and breadth of the land. •Th^matter was thor- 
oughly investigated by a court-martial, the result of 
which was a full vindicatio7i of Captain McKenzie 
and his council of advisers in the course they had 
pursued. 

In May, 1844, a very serious disturbance, of a polit- 
ical character, occurred in Philadelphia, between the 
Native American party and the Irish Catholics. A 
meeting of the " Native Americans " was held in the 
quarter where many of the " adopted citizens " resided. 
The meeting was interrupted and broken up by a riot- 
ous attack from a large body of Irish. This was on 
Friday, the 3d of May. On the following Monday, 
the Americans reassembled at the same place, in great 
numbers, for the avowed purpose of vindicating their 
right to meet, when and where they pleased, without 
molestation. 

The American flag was raised over the platform, 
and two or three addresses were delivered without in- 
terruption. The meeting was then dispersed by a 
sudden shower of rain, but was immediately reorgan- 
ized in a market-house, not far from the place of their 
first assembling. The speaker had scarcely taken his 
stand, when a disturbance commenced in the crowd. 
A pistol was fired, which became the signal for a 
general melee. The Irish rushed out of their houses 
to join in the fray. They were fired upon by the 
Americans, and several of their number wounded, some 
of them mortally. The Native Americans were driven 
from the ground, but soon rallied around the remnants 
of their flag, which had been torn in shreds by their 
infuriated assailants. After a contest of nearly an 
hour, the Irish were driven to take shelter in their 
houses, and the Americans remained masters of the 
ground. 

By this time, the police of the city had mustered. 
The sheriff" arrived on the ground, and order was par- 
tially restored. In the evening, the riot was renewed. 
In this the Americans were the assailants. They 
attempted to demolish a Catholic seminary in the vicin- 
ity, but were met by a volley of musketry from within, 
and repulsed. Five persons were shot, one of whom 
was killed on the spot. 

The next day. May 7, at three o'clock, a great 
meeting of the American party was held in Independ- 
ence Square, about one and a half miles from the scene 
of the former outrages. The addresses made on this 
occasion were, for the most part, of a conciliatory char- 
acter, and designed to prevent a further resort to vio- 
lence. In this spirit, the assembly broke up ; but a 



large portion, smarting imder the indignities of the 
preceding day, resolved to go in procession to Ken- 
sington. They displayed, as they went, the tattered 
ensign of American independence, bearing, by the side 
of it, a banner with this inscription : " This is the 
flag which was trampled under foot by the Irish Pa- 
pists. ^^ 

On reaching the scene of the former outrages, they 
attempted to organize a meeting. They had scarcely 
commenced, however, when one of their number was 
shot down, and instantly killed, by a ball from the 
window of a house opposite the market. This was 
followed by continued volleys from most of the sur- 
rounding houses. The Americans were unarmed. 
Many of them, however, ran for their muskets, and, 
in a short time, a band of about forty presented them- 
selves in front of the market. Exposed m the open 
street, while their assailants were protected within the 
walls of their houses, they fought with desperation 
nearly an hour, during which some of the number 
were killed, and several more wounded. 

At length the Americans set fire to one of the build- 
ings from which the firing proceeded. The flames 
spread with great rapidity. In a short time, between 
twenty and thirty houses were on fire. The market- 
house, where the meeting had been held, took fire by 
accident. 

About nine o'clock, a detachment of soldiers, undej 
the command of General Cadwallader, arrived on the 
ground, having been ordered out to quell the riot. 

Planting his cannon so as to sweep the streets, 
where the principal disturbance had occurred, the gen- 
eral ordered the mob to disperse. His force was too 
formidable to be trifled with. The murderous firing 
ceased, and the exasperated multitude withdrew from 
the scene of conflict. Protected by the military, the 
firemen, who had been prevented by the mob from 
making any eff'ort to arrest the conflagration, succeed- 
ed in bringing it under. Some of the Irish were shot 
down, while attempting to escape from their houses. 
Others, it was thought, were consumed in their dwell- 
ings. 

The next day a gang of desperadoes, not recognized 
by any party, commenced searching the houses of the 
Irish ; and wherever they found arms secreted, they 
demolished the building, or set it on fii-e. The Irish, 
completely overawed, otfered little resistance! The 
church of St. Michael, the priest's house adjoining^ 
and the nunnery, were fired and consumed. This oc- 
cupied the forenoon. Late in the afternoon, the mob 



460 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



moved off toward the church of St. Augustine. A 
large force was drawn out to protect it. The mayor 
of the city was there in person. But, unfortunately, 
he did not understand his position. Mistaking weak- 
ness for clemency, he attempted to subdue the enraged 
populace with words ; to arrest, like the courtiers of 
Canute, the swelling of the tide by a mere show of 
authority. The rabble laughed him to scorn, and 
hurled defiance at his semblance of power. The po- 
lice were driven back. The windows of the church 
were broken, a match was applied to the drapery, the 
gas pipes were cut, and in a moment the building was 
in flames. The firemen were forcibly prevented from 
interfering, and the church was soon a ruin. 

On the following morning, an immense meeting of 
citizens was held in Independence Square, to devise 
measures for the restoration of peace, and the main- 
tenance of the majesty of law. Volunteer patrols 
were organized. A proclamation was issued by the 
mayor and the sheriif, declaring martial law. This had 
the desired effect. A mob, assembled in front of the 
principal cathedral, was instantly dispersed by the an- 
nouncement of General Cadwallader that he should 
comply with the very letter of the proclamation. Or- 
der was soon perfectly restored, and, a few days after 
the enactment of these fearful scenes, the Native 
American party held a meeting in Kensington without 
molestation. 

An act to establish a uniform system of bankruptcy 
throughout the United States, to take eflect on the 
2d day of February, 1842, was passed by congress 
in August, 1841, and was approved by the presi- 
dent on the 19th of the month. The act provided 
for two kinds of bankruptcy ; namely, voluntary, 
where the proceedings were commenced by the bank- 
rupt, for his own relief; mrd compulsory, where they 
were commenced by one or more of the creditors, to 
enforce the settlement of the affaks of a delinquent 
debtor, for the benefit of all concerned. 

This law was cautiously and wisely framed, with a 
true utilitarian view to the greatest good of the great- 
est number. It was in accordance with a fundamental 
provision of the constitution, specifically vesting in 
congress the power to enact such a law. A similar 
law had been passed by congress in 1800, which re- 
mained in operation three years. 

It was a salutary enactment. A tremendous crisis 
in the monetary affairs of the country had just passed. 
A season of unparalleled inflation and all-pervading 
speculation had been followed by a universal prostra- 



tion, a complete collapse in the fiscal system of the 
nation. Not only the wild and reckless, but thousands 
of the most cautious and experienced, in all depart- 
ments of trade, had fallen into hopeless embarrassment. 
Those who were regarded as substantially rich, and 
entitled to the highest grade of mercantile confidence 
and credit, were whelmed in the same indiscriminate 
ruin with those whom the unwholesome agitation 
of the moment had thrown up, like bubbles, to float 
in the sunshine of a seeming prosperity. Banks 
had suspended, failed, and ceased to be ; individual 
and associated enterprise had been paralyzed ; and 
hundreds of thousands of competent, honest, industri- 
ous men were suddenly plunged into a state of inex- 
tricable embanassment, from which it was impossible 
they should recover by the ordinary operation of the 
common law, and the established customs and princi- 
ples of trade. It was an unusual disease, and demand- 
ed an unusual remedy. The operation of the law was, 
doubtless, in some cases severe and oppressive. Dis- 
honest men took advantage of its provisions to rob the 
innocent and helpless of their just dues. It was as 
carefully guarded, in all respects, as the nature of the 
case admitted. But imperfection is incident to all hu- 
man legislation, its operation, on the whole, was 
eminently happy, and conducive to the general good. 
Enterprise was resuscitated. Business revived, and 
soon recovered its wonted elasticity. The avenues of 
trade were reopened, and the marts of commerce, 
which seemed like a populous city just swept by a- 
tornado, were repeopled, and replenished with more 
than their former stability and fulness. 

An incident of some importance occurred in the lat- 
ter part of the year 1841, which brought into powerful 
contrast the differing policies of the United States and 
Great Britain, on the subject of slavery, and gave rise 
to animated discussions in both countries, as well as to 
some able diplomatic communications between the two 
governments. The brig Creole sailed from Richmond, 
in the latter part of October, with a cargo of merchan- 
dise, and about one hundred and thirty-five slaves, 
bound to New Orleans. On the evening of the 7th of 
November, some of the slaves rose upon the crew, 
killed a passenger, and wounded the captain and three 
of his men. Under the direction of the mutineers, the 
brig was then taken to Nassau, in the island of New 
Providence, belonging to Great Britain. At the request 
of the American consul, a guard was placed on board 
the Creole, to prevent the escape of the mutineers. 
The case was formally investigated by the magistrates 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



451 



of the place, and nineteen slaves, who were implicated 
in the mutiny, weie committed to prison. The re- 
mainder, one hundred and fourteen in number, were 
liberated, and, being on British ground, were free. 
The American consul claimed that, being American 
property, they should be sent to the United States. 
This the British authorities refused, on the ground 
that their law, repudiating the right of property in 
man, gave them no power to restrain their personal 
liberty, except for crime. They had committed no 
offence against English law. There was no power to 
arraign or arrest them. They were absolutely and 
irrecoverably free, ex virtute loci. 

The nineteen slaves .implicated in the mutiny were 
demanded by the American consul, to be sent for trial 
to the United States. This was refused on the ground 
that the consul had no proper authority to make the 
demand. The demand was not pressed from any 
other source ; and, as no one appeared against them, 
they were all ultimately discharged. 

The project of annexing Texas to the United States 
had been entertained by many, from the very out- 
break of the revolution which separated it from Mex- 
ico. It found favour with a considerable portion of 
the people, both of Texas and the United States, 
The interest of the slaveholding section was to be 
greatly extended by the measure. This drew to its 
support nearly all the political influence of the South- 
ern States. To this was added the influence of that 
portion of the political parties of the Northern and 
Western States who are moved by any scheme of na- 
tional aggrandizement, and who saw in this enlargement 
of territory only "an extension of the area of free- 
dom " ! The merits of the question were widely dis- 
cussed. ■ The prevailing sentiment, in the whole 
country, was adverse to annexation. The action of 
congress had indicated this, when, in the early part of 
the discussion, Texas came and asked admission to the 
Union, and was refused. But Mr. Tyler was in favour 
of the measure, and resolved to carry it. He accord- 
ingly entered into diplomatic negotiations with the 
" lone star," and arranged the whole matter in the usual 
form of a treaty. This mode of action had many ad- 
vantages. It was carried on secretly, until it was fully 
matured, and ripe for execution. When so ripe, it was 
laid before the senate only, and that in secret session. 
Thus the popular branch of the national legislature 
could not interfere. In this manner the measure was 
carried, and Texas became an integral part of the 
United States. It was the last act of Mr. Tyler's ad- 



ministration, and was scarcely consummated, when his 
term of service expired. To him belongs the credit 
of the scheme, and the peculiar mode of legislation by 
which it was effected. The details of its execution 
he bequeathed to his successor, entailing upon the 
country, at the same time, the settlement of uU the 
difficulties involved m the yet unfinished conflict be- 
tween Texas and Mexico. It proved a golden apple, 
in more than one sense. 

The republic of Texas had no sooner asserted her 
independence, than she began to look to the United 
States to receive her into the great confederacy. She 
first asked for the recognition of her independence, as 
a preparatory step to this end. The subject was intro- 
duced by President Jackson into his message of De- 
cember 21, 1836, in the following terms: "It be- 
comes us to beware of too early a moVement, as it 
might subject us, however unjustly, to the imputation 
of seeking to establish the claim of ouir neighbours to 
territory, with the view to its subsequent acquisition 
by ourselves. Prudence, therefore, seems to dictate 
that we should stand aloof, and maintain our present 
position, if not until Mexico herself, or one of the great 
foreign powers, shall recognize the independence of 
the new government, at least until the lapse of time, 
or the course of events, shall have proved, beyond a 
cavil or dispute, the ability of the people of that coun- 
try to maintain the separate sovereignty, and to uphold 
the government constituted by them." 

The independence of Texas was acknowledged by 
a resolution of the American senate, passed on the 1st 
day of March, 1837. This act, together with the 
strong sympathy felt by the American people for 
Texas, and the avowed desire of Texas for admission 
to the Union, greatly disturbed the equanimity of Mex- 
ico, and produced several severe diplomatic menaces, 
and intimations of hostile resistance, which were en- 
tirely harmless and inefficient under the cool and dig- 
nified diplomacy of Mr. Webster. 

On the 6th of October, 1843, Mr. Upshur, having 
succeeded Mr. Webster as secretary of state, proposed 
a renewal of negotiations with Texas, which was imme- 
diately accepted. The threats of Mexico, which were 
now most vehemently repeated, were met by the dec- 
laration that, as Texas was now acknowledged an 
independent nation, they were under no obligation to 
consult any foreign power \n their mtercourse with 
her. 

The negotiation of the treaty for annexation pro- 
ceeded silently and slowly. A sudden impulse wag 



452 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



given to it by the following bold and startling note ad- 
dressed to Mr. Upshur, by Mr. Van Zandt, the Texan 
minister, at Washington, on the 17th January, 1844 :. — 

" Sir : It is known to you that an armistice has been 
proclaimed between Mexico and Texas ; that an ar- 
mistice has been obtained through the intervention of 
several great powers, mutually friendly, and that nego- 
tiations are now pending, having for their object a 
settlement of the difficulties heretofore existing between 
the two countries. A proposition having been like- 
wise submitted by the president of the United States, 
through you, for the annexation of Texas to this coun- 
try, therefore (without indicating the nature of the 
reply which the president of Texas may direct to be 
made to this.proposition) I beg leave to suggest that 
it may be apprehended, should a treaty of annexation 
be concluded, Mexico may think proper to at once ter- 
minate the armistice, break off all negotiation for peace, 
and again threaten or commence hostilities against 
Texas ; and that some of the other governments who 
have been instrumental in obtaining their cession, if 
they do not throw their influence into the Mexican 
scale, may altogether withdraw their good offices of 
mediation, thus losing to Texas their friendship, and 
exposing her to the unrestrained menaces of Mexico. 
In view, then, of these things, I desire to submit, 
through you, to his excellency, the president of the 
United States, this inquiry : Should the president of 
Texas accede to the proposition of annexation, would 
the president of the United States, after the signing of 
the treaty, and before it shall be ratified and receive 
the final action of the other branches of both govern- 
ments, in case Texas should desire it, or with her con- 
sent, order such number of the military and naval 
forces of the United States to such necessary points or 
places upon the territory or borders of Texas or the 
Gulf of Mexico, as shall be sufficient to protect her 
against foreign aggression ? " 

This note was never satisfactorily answered. Mr. 
Henderson, the newly-appointed Texan minister, re- 
fusing to renew the negotiations on any other terms, 
Mr. Tyler, on the 11th of April, 1844, acceded to 
them, in the following note from the secretary of state, 
Mr. Calhoun, who had succeeded Mr. Upshur : — 

" Gentlemen : The letter addressed by Mr. Van 
Zandt to the late secretary of state, Mr. Upshm-, to 
\ihich you have called my attention, dated Washing- 



ton, 17th January, 1844, has been laid before the 
president of the United States. ' 

" In reply to it, I am directed by the president to 
say, that the secretary of the navy has been instructed I 
to order a strong iraval force to concentrate in the 
Gulf of Mexico, to meet any emergency ; and that | 
similar orders have been issued by the secretary of 
war, to move the disposable military forces on our 
south-western frontier, for the same purpose. Should 
the exigency arise to which you refer in your note to 
Mr. Upshur, 1 am further directed by the president to 
say, that, during the pendency of the treaty of annexa- 
tion, he would deem it his duty to use all the means 
placed within his power by the constitution, to protect 
Texas from all foreign uivasion. I have the honour 
to be, &c." 

On the following day, April 12, the treaty of an- 
nexation was signed by Mr. Calhoun, on the one part, 
and by Messrs. Van Zandt and Henderson, the Texan 
commissioners, on the other part. It was immediately 
submitted to the American senarte, in the full confi- 
dence that it would be eagerly confirmed by that body. 
It was, however, decidedly rejected ; some of the 
friends of the measure uniting with its enemies to de- 
feat it, on the ground, secret if not avowed, that too 
much eclat would result to the retiring administration 
from having privately and peaceably eflected so bril- 
liant a negotiation. There was too much political 
capital embarked in the enterprise, to be withdrawn 
at once. It was therefore defeated in that form, to be 
brought up in another. 

Meanwhile, the correspondence between the great 
functionaries of Mexico and the United States grew 
daily more unfriendly and portentous. Threats on one 
side were followed by demands on the other. The 
armistice which had, for some time, existed between 
Mexico and Texas, was abruptly terminated, and 
preparations made to renew the war with the utmost 
vigour and an unheard-of severity. No quarter was to 
be given to any foreigner, who might be taken fight- 
ing against the troops of Mexico. It was, in fact, to 
be a war of extermination. 

The American envoy at Mexico was hereupon in- 
structed to inform the Mexican government, that a 
renewal of the war with Texas, while the question of 
annexation was pending, would not be look<^d upon 
with indifference by the United States. He was also 
advised to protest against the war, and the manner in 
which it was proposed to carry it on. 



II 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



453 



The Mexican government, on the other hand, had 
already openly committed itself on this point. In the 
official note from Mr. Bocanegra, minister of foreign 
relations, in reply to one from Mr. Green, American 
charge d'affaires ad interim, informing him that the 
treaty of annexation had been signed ; the position 
was unequivocally taken and reiterated, that Mexico 
would consider the ratification of the treaty as a dec- 
laration of war. The treaty was rejected in the senate, 
and the Mexican government had the temporary satis- 
faction of making the people believe it had carried the 
point, by the bold and determined tone it had as- 
sumed. 

On the 28th of February, 1844, an event transpired 
at the seat of government, which, by its awful and sud- 
den character, agitated the whole country. The Uni- 
ted States steamship Princeton, then on the Potomac, 
commanded by Captain Stockton, had a very large 
party on board, invited by the secretary of the navy 
to partake of a collation and witness experiments with 
the celebrated Paixhan gun, which had been called the 
Peacemaker. Among the company were the presi- 
dent, his cabinet, a large number of members of con- 
gress, and distinguished citizens, with their families. 
The party amounted to nearly three hundred persons. 
The day was spring-like, and all that conduced to the 
happiness of the guests had been provided by Captain 
Stockton and Mr. Secretary Gilmer. 

The gun was loaded with a ball of over two hundred 
pounds, and charged with between thirty and forty 
pounds of powder, and had been fired several times. 
As the steamer was returning, and near to Mount Ver- 
non, it was again discharged with a ball, and exploded. 
A cluster of persons stood around, and they were all 
either killed or badly wounded. Mr. Upshur, the sec- 
retary of state, Mr. Gilmer, secretary of the navy, Mr. 
Virgil Maxcy, formerly minister at the Hague, Commo- 
dore Kennon, and Mr. Gardner, of New York, were 
killed on the spot, and fifteen other persons badly 
wounded, and several of them mortally. 

In the earlier days of the republic, it had become an 
established precedent, which nothing but party spirit 
had interfered with, that the president should be al- 
lowed to serve two terms. As the aspirants for ofiice 
became more numerous and eager, and party spirit be- 
came paramount in the selection, this custom was 
found often to stand in the way of the cherished de- 
signs of the defeated party. It was therefore de- 
noimced as selfish, unpatriotic, and at variance with 
the spirit of the constitution. The objection weis a 



popular one, and easily wrought up into ammunition 
for the small arms of noisy demagogues. It was adopt- 
ed, as a watchword, by both of the leading parties. 
General Harrison, in accepting the nomination to the 
chief magistracy, had declared himself in favor of the 
principle, and pledged himself, in any case, not to 
stand as a candidate for reelection. 

Mr. Tyler, having reached the presidency without 
the ordeal of a canvass for that office, had not been 
called upon to give a similar pledge. Nor, in assum- 
ing the mantle of his fallen chief, did he hold himself 
bound to carry his pledges, or fulfil his promises. He 
looked to a reelection. And some of his friends urged 
the point, with the apparent hope of securing a nom- 
ination. 

Mr. Clay and Mr. Van Buren, who were put forth 
as the opposing candidates, by the two great parties, 
both took strong ground against this last favourite 
measure of Mr. Tyler, the annexation of Texas. Mr. 
Clay stated his objections thus, in a letter dated-May 
9, 1844: "I consider the annexation of Texas, at this 
time, without the assent of Mexico, as a measure com- 
promising the national character, involving us certain- 
ly in a war with Mexico, probably with other foreign 
powers, dangerous to the integrity of the Union, inex- 
pedient in the present financial condition of the coun- 
try, and not called for by any general expression of 
public opinion." This may be taken as a fair indica- 
tion of the general sentiment of the Whig party, who 
favoured the election of Mr. Clay. 

Mr. Van Buren, in terms nearly as explicit as the 
above, set forth his objections to the measure, and 
arrayed himself, and the party of which he was the 
exponent, in direct hostility to the system of measures 
it was designed to promote. By mutual consent, it 
was made a sectional question. It had two aspects, a 
northern and a southern. It was originated and sus- 
tained for the purpose of extending the area of slavery, 
and preserving, to the peculiar institutions of the south, 
their preponderant influence in the councils of the 
nation. But "to extend the area of freedom" was 
the ostensible motive, the motto on the banner of 
all its supporters, both at the north and at the 
south. 

In the elections of 1844, the parties were unusually 
divided. So many candidates claimed the support of 
the people, that it became very difficult to make a se- 
lection, without disturbing the party organization on 
which the whole depended. In the Democratic party, 
Mr. Van Buren, of New York, Mr. Cass, of Michigan, 



454 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Mr. Johnson, of Kentucky, Mr. Buchanan, of Pennsyl- 
vania, Mr. Woodbury, of New Hampshire, and several 
other less prominent names, took part in the compe- 
tition. The convention assembled at Baltimore. Great 
difficulties were apprehended in coming at a nomina- 
tion that should unite the strength of the party. But, 
acting upon the principle that in union only there is 
strength, they resolved to yield all personal and sec- 
tional considerations to the one paramount pm-pose of 
securing a triumph in the coming contest. Accord- 
ingly, after much caucusing and contriving, they con- 
cluded to abandon all their candidates, and take up a 
new one, who had not yet entered the course. Backed 
by the commendation of General Jackson, then about 
to take his departure from the conflicts and honours of 
life, James K. Polk, of Tennessee, received the nom- 
ination and pledges of the Baltimore convention for 
president, while George M. Dallas, of Pennsylvania, 
was honoured with the office of the vice-presidency. 

The Whig party, at the same time, and with great 
unanimity, nominated their old champion, Henry Clay, 
of Kentucky, for president, and Theodore Frelinghuy- 
sen, of New Jersey, then chancellor of the university 
of New York, for vice-president. The prominent 
questions at issue were, the currency, the tariff, the 
annexation of Texas, the veto power, and the distri- 
bution of the proceeds of the public lands. 

The canvass was the most exciting since the organi- 
zation of the government. It was most fiercely con- 
tested on both sides, and almost every expedient was 
resorted to for the purpose of winning votes. Both 
parties were confident of success, and were animated 
by the greatest ardour and enthusiasm. The result 
was a complete triumph of the Democratic party, in 
the election of James K. Polk to the presidency, and 
of George M. Dallas to the vice-presidency, by a ma- 
jority of sixty-five electoral votes. 

James Knox Polk, the eleventh president of the 
United States, was born in Mecklenburgh county. 
North Carolina, on the 2d of November, 179.5. He 
was the eldest of ten children. His ancestors emi- 
■ grated from Ireland during the first part of the eigh- 
teenth century, and settled in the state of Maryland. 
A portion of the family removed, first to Pennsylvania, 
and about the year 1750 they located in North Caro- 
lina. In 1806, Major Samuel Polk, the father of James 
K. Polk, emigrated to Tennesee, and settled upon 
Duck River. It was here that young Polk endured 
the hardships of a border life, until his constitution, 
which was then quite delicate, came near giving way 



under the toil and fatigue to which he was exposed. 
Yielding to the persuasions of his son, Major Polk 
enabled him to enter the college at Chapel Hill. North 
Carolina, in 1815, where he graduated in three years, 
with the highest honours. He was distinguished at 
college for laborious application to his studies, and by 
a strict conformity to the regulations of the institu- 
tion. He was always present at recitations, and inva- 
riably attended morning and evening prayers in the 
chapel. 

When he completed his collegiate education, he en- 
tered the office of the celebrated Felix Grundy to 
prepare himself for the practice of the law. He com- 
menced the arduous duties of his profession in 1820, 
in the county of Maury, and at once assumed a high 
position at the bar. 

\n 1821, he was clerk to the legislature of Tennes- 
see. His political career commenced in 1823, when 
he was elected a member of the legislature of Tennes- 
see. In 1825, he was elevated to a seat in congress. 
He was reelected every succeeding two years, until 
1839. In 1835, he was speaker of the house of repre- 
sentatives, to which position he was reelected in 1837. 
In 1839, he was chosen governor of Tennessee, and in 
1844, president of the United States. 

It is worthy of remark, in this connection, that, while 
Mr. Clay and the Whig party professed stern opposition 
to the annexation of Texas, and the consequent exten- 
sion of the slave interest, protesting that it would in- 
evitably lead to a war with Mexico, and the still 
further enlargement of the area of slavery, the " liberty 
party," so called, holding in several states the balance 
of jiower, and being fully competent to decide the fate 
of the canvass, refused all and every solicitation, on 
the part of the real friends of freedom, adhered to their 
hopeless and suicidal purpose of sustaining their own 
candidates, and thus virtually procured the election of 
a man pledged to go against them on every point of 
their political creed, in preference to one who was 
equally pledged to sustain and carry out its funda- 
mental article. 

Of Mr. Polk's antagonist in this struggle, the fol 
lowing is presented as the voluntary eulogium of his 
political enemies : — 

" Mr. Clay, the unsuccesful candidate of the Whig 
party for the presidency, had for a long period been 
an aspirant for that office. As early as 1824, he was 
supported for that position by many warm admirers. 
Perhaps no man in the Union has won. the attachment 
of so meiny ardent and enthusiastic personal friends as^ 



i 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



45= 



Mr. Clay. No disaster can dampen their zeal, and 
each successive defeat only has the effect of attaching 
them still more closely to his person and his fortunes. 
He is, indeed, a noble leader. His bold and impas- 
sioned eloquence, his affability and fascination of man- 
ner, and his unwavering devotion to his friends, alto- 
gether constitute him one of the most influential 
statesmen which this country has ever produced. 

" His patriotism has been too often put to the test to 
admit of donbt. Upon two occasions he has inter- 
posed his form between the exasperated citizens of the 
north arid south. When the excitement raged with 
frightful violence before the admission of Missouri, 
and threatened to destroy the Union itself, with a 
promptness and sincerity which proved that a patriot's 
heart beat within his bosom, he poured oil upon the 
troubled waters, and assisted to allay tire storm. And 
now, when danger thickens, and a dark and threaten- 
ing cloud hovers over the temple of liberty, his tall and 
venerable form is again seen protecting from sacrilege 
and violence our gloiious constitution, and in tones 
which are tremulous with age, he implores our dis- 
tracted countrymen to pause in their career, and save 
the American confederacy from the frightful horrors 
which must flow from its dissolution." * 

The treaty of April, 1844, had laid open to the 
world the plans and wishes of the two republics. The 
iJuropean powers looked upon the measure with an 
unfavourable eye. Though neither possessing nor 
claiming any right to interfere, they would gladly 
have prevented such an accession to the territory of 
the United States, especially on its southern border. 
Overtures had been made, on the part of Texas, to 
England and to France, but they had not been met. 
The United States, after a season of merely pruden- 
tial delay, had extended the right hand of fellowship, 
and was now negotiating a full matrimonial alliance. 

The representatives of England and France both 
forbade the bans, by a formal protest in the name of 
their respective governments. It was, however, only 
a paper protest, and never intended to be carried any 
further. 

President Tyler brought the subject again before 
congress, in his last message of December, 1844, urg- 
ing it upon their attention as a matter of paramount 
importance. Immediately after the organization of the 
two houses, joint resolutions were introduced for eff"ect- 
ing the measure, and it continued for three months, the 



• History of the Polk Admiiiistiation, by Lucius B. Chase. 

58 



all-absorbing topic of the session. After a spirited but 
unavailing opposition, the resolution passed both 
houses, and on the 3d of March, the very last day of 
his official term, received the signature of the presi- 
dent, and became a law. 

The second of the joint resolutions provided, that if 
the president of the United States shall, in his judg- 
ment and discretion, deem it most advisable, instead 
of proceeding to submit the first resolution to the re- 
public of Te.xas as an overture on the part of the Uni- 
ted States for admission, to negotiate with that repub- 
lic, then, that a state to be formed out of the present 
republic of Texas, with suitable extent and bounda- 
ries, and with two representatives in congress until the 
next aj^portionment of representation, shall be admit- 
ted into the Union by virtue of this act, on an equal 
footing with the existing states, as soon as the terms 
and conditions of such admission, and the cession of 
the remaining Texan territory to the United States, 
shall be agreed upon by the governments of Texas 
and the United States ; and the sum of one hundred 
thousand dollars is hereby appropriated to defray the 
expenses of missions and negotiations to agree upon 
the terms of said admission and cessioir, either by treaty 
to be submitted to the senate, or by articles to be sub- 
mitted to the two houses of congress, as the president 
may direct. 

It is a singular circumstance, that, although he had 
scarcely half a day remaining of his magistracy, Pres- 
ident Tyler availed himself of the proviso here pre- 
sented, which was manifestly intended for his suc- 
cessor, and, withholding the overture made in the first 
resolution, commissioned and despatched a messenger, 
that very night, to proceed to Texas with a new prop- 
osition. He had scarcely passed the boundary of the 
District of Columbia, when Mr. Tyler ceased to be 
president. 

On the 6th of March, Mr. Almonte, the Mexican 
minister, protested against this act of the United States, 
reiterated the right of Mexico still to claim and recover, 
by any means in her power, her revolted province, and 
demanded his passports. 

But annexation was not yet consummated. The 
consent of the people of Texas was required to the 
arrangement. Her governor, who had hoped for more 
liberal terms than the United States had been disposed 
to grant, seemed inclined to reopen negotiations with 
the powers of Europe, which had a twofold purpose to 
achieve ; viz. : curbing the growing power of the 
American confederacy, and checking the growth of 



456 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



slavery. Preliminary conditions were submitted to 
the envoys of England and France, for a treaty of 
peace between Mexico and Texas, providing that Mex- 
ico should acknowledge the independence of Texas, 
and that Texas should bind herself, as the condition 
of such acknowledgment, to refuse all future , projects 
of annexation, and remain forever separate and inde- 
pendent. 

These preliminaries were forwarded to Mexico, and 
laid before the government, Herrera being the presi- 
dent, supported by a strong array of French and Eng- 
lish influence. Under the pressure of the crisis, which 
was felt to be imminent and inevitable, they were 
instantly met by a full assent on the part of the Mex- 
ican congress, and the necessary authority given to 
open negotiations on the subject. 

This looked, for the moment, like a sudden reversal 
of the whole scheme. But, in all this matter, the 
people of Texas had not been consulted. It was now 
submitted to the senate of that state for ratification, 
fortified by an official intimation, that war would be 
the consequence, if it was not immediately accepted. 
It was, nevertheless, unanimously rejected. 

A few weeks after, the existing government of 
Texas gave its consent to the proposal for annexation, 
as set forth in the joint resolutions of the American 
congress, by the unanimous vote of both houses, and 
the official approval of the president. 



THE WAR WITH MEXICO. 

It has been seen that the apprehension of Mexican 
invasion on the part of Texas was so great, that her 
commissioners refused to enter upon the treaty of 1844, 
unless supported by the actual presence of the United 
States army on their frontier, and the United States 
navy on their coast. And the fear of Mr. Tyler was 
so great, that he should lose the glory of having 
achieved so desirable an acquisition, that he overcame 
all the scruples of neutrality, and, without declaration 
of war, or any other intimation of the national pur- 
pose, prepared to plant a hostile force on the borders 
of Mexico. 

It was in this complicated state of its foreign rela- 
tions that Mr. Polk entered upon the administration of 
the government. Strongly committed to the acquisi- 
ion of Texas, and even carrying his views so far as 



to look upon that country cis having already belonged 
to the United States, and now only to be '= rearmexed,' 
he was prepared to follow vigorously in the footsteps 
of his predecessor. 

The rejection of the Tyler treaty rendered unne- 
cessary the immediate presence of the United States 
arms within the borders of Texas. But, as the nego- 
tiations were still going on, under the joint resolutions, 
Mexico continued to maintain the same threatening 
attitude toward Texas, and to refuse the customary 
diplomatic intercourse with the United States. 

In the mean time. General Zachary Taylor, then 
having command in the south-western department, had 
been ordered, by a letter from the adjutant-general, 
bearing date March 21, to hold a portion of the troops 
under his immediate command in readiness to move 
into Texas, at"&ny time, upon further orders from the 
department. The first ostensible motive of this man- 
agement was the suppression of any hostile movement 
on the part of the Indian tribes that infested the Texan 
border. The better to understand his position in this 
respect. General Taylor was directed to put himself 
in immediate correspondence with the authorities of 
Texas, and with any diplomatic agent of the United 
States who might be residing therein. 

On the 28th of May, these orders were recapitulated, 
in a confidential communication from the war depart- 
ment, with the following clause, indicating another 
object besides the protection of Texas against her 
Indian neighbours : — 

" Should the territories of Texas be invaded by a 
foreign power, and you shall receive certain intelligence 
through her functionaries of that fact, after her con- 
vention shall have acceded to the terms of annexation 
contained in the resolutions of the congress of the 
United States, you will at once employ, in the most 
effective manner your judgment may dictate, the forces 
under your command, for the defence of these territo- 
ries, and to expel the invaders." 

On the 23d of June, 1845, the government of Texas 
accepted, on its part, the terms offered for annexation, 
leaving the final action to a convention of the people, 
which had been duly called for that purpose. 

On the 28th of June, Mr. Donelson, the American 
charge d'affaires, wrote to General Taylor, directing 
him, in pursuance of previous orders from Washington, 
to proceed without delay to the western frontier of 
Texas, in order to give that protection against the 
menaced invasion of Mexico, which the president of 
the United States had offered. He accordingly took 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



457 



immediate measures for the removal of his troops. 
Seven companies of the second dragoons, the cavahy 
of his command, marched by land to San Antonio, 
while his infantry, composed of the third and fourth 
regiments, moved to New Orleans, to be transported 
by water to Aransas Bay. At the same time, Commo- 
dore Connor, commanding the ship of war Falmouth, 
being ordered to the Gulf of Mexico, took his station 
off Vera Cruz, the other vessels of the squadron occu- 
pying various positions along the coast. 

On the 4th of July, the Texan convention gave a 
unanimous assent to the terms of annexation, by 
which, though a formal vote of admission was yet to 
be passed by the congress of the United States, the 
act was fully consummated. 

On the 25th of July, General Taylor, with eight 
companies of infantry, arrived at Aransas Bay, and 
formed a temporary encampment on St. Joseph's Island. 
Finding the place wholly unsuitable for a permanent 
post, he soon removed to Corpus Christi, a point imme- 
diately west of the mouth of the Nueces, then the 
farthest limit of Texan population. 

During the progress of these events, great changes 
had taken place in Mexico. The revolution of De- 
cember, 1844, had deposed and banished Santa Anna, 
and placed Herrera at the head of the government, 
through whose agency it was intimated to the United 
States government, that the customary intercourse 
might now be renewed between the two countries. 
The result of this was the appointment of Mr. John 
Slidell as envoy extraordinary and minister plenipo- 
tentiary to Mexico, with full power to negotiate a set- 
tlement of all difficulties then existing between the 
two nations. At the same time, the American squad- 
ron was ordered to retire from Vera Cruz. 

The announcement of this approach to a pacific 
Eirrangement highly exasperated some of the Mexican 
agitators, who immediately declared the purpose of 
overturning the government of Herrera, in favour of 
some one who could better maintain the dignity of the 
republic. This movement was headed by Paredes, 
who had been the instrument of placing Herrera in 
power. He was in command of a considerable force 
at San Luis Potosi. He was ordered to break up his 
cantonments, and distribute his troops to several speci- 
fied posts. Instead of doing this, however, he imme- 
diately, on the 15th of December, pronounced against 
Herrera, and moved his columns upon the capital. On 
the 30th, Herrera resigned the presidency. Paredes, 
a few dnys after, entered the city as military dicta- 



tor, and set about organizing a government for him- 
self 

Mr. Slidell arrived at Mexico about a month before 
the resignation of Herrera. That functionary, per- 
ceiving that his popularity would be jeoparded by 
seeming to yield to the claims of the United States, 
now refused to receive the minister, on the ground that 
he had been appointed and commissioned as a minister 
plenipotentiary, with full powers to settle and adjust 
all disputes and differences between the two republics ; 
while Mexico, m willing, at that time, to go mto other 
questions, coula only receive him as a commissioner 
ad hoc, to settle the Texas question. By admitting 
him as a full envoy, they would be sanctioning the 
complete reestablishment of diplomatic relations : the 
matter of Texas, her revolt and annexation, would be 
complicated with mere pecuniary claims, and commer- 
cial arrangements, and thus the international relations 
become more hopelessly entangled than ever. 

As no such intimation had been given, in connec- 
tion with their consent to receive a minister from the 
United States, this objection on the part of the Mexican 
government, so frivolous in itself, was regarded only 
as another of a long series of insulting and abusive 
equivocations, by which the forbearance of their north- 
ern neighbours had been severely tested, and which it 
would be pusillanimous longer to endure. It was 
therefore resolved to put matters immediately in a train 
to enforce an adjustment of every claim. General 
Taylor was, accordingly, ordered to make instant 
preparation to advance from Corpus Christi to the 
Rio Grande, thus taking forcible possession of territo- 
ry not clearly belonging to Texas, and peremptorily 
and steadily claimed by Mexico, as having never been 
recognized as a part of that province. The squadron 
in the Gulf of Mexico was, at the same time, ordered 
to be considerably increased.* 

Notwithstanding these preparations, Mr. Slidell was 
directed not to leave Mexico without making another 
attempt to obtain a hearing from the new government. 
He had removed to Jalapa. From that place he ad- 
dressed a note to the minister of foreign relations, 



* The Gulf squadron varied at different times. It consisted, how- 
ever, of the following, in part : — 

The Lawrence, 44 guns. The Somers, 16 guns. 

■ The Cumberland, 44 " Steamer Princeton, 10 " 

The Potomac, 44 " " Mississippi, 10 " 

The Raritan, 44 " " Spitfire, 3 " • 

The St. Mary's, 20 " " Vixen, 3 '• 

The Falmouth, 20 " " McLane, 3 « 

And a considerable number of gunboats. 



458 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Mr. Castillo y Lauzas, setting forth his credentials and 
asking to be received. On the 12th of March, 1846, 
an answer was received, refusing the request of the 
minister, and intimating that preparations were making 
for open war. The position was assumed that the 
United States had already taken the aggressive, by 
locating their troops at Corpus Christi, and menacing 
the coast of Mexico with an armed squadron. To this 
Mr. Slidell replied in full, setting forth the views and 
claims of his own government, and, demanding his 
passports, left Mexico on the 1st of April. 

Before proceeding with the detail of affairs on the 
southern border, it will be necessary to take a brief 
notice of another question, whish now arose into con- 
siderable importance, touching the foreign relations of 
the United States. This was the question of bounda- 
ry on her north-western frontier, commonly designated 
the Oregon question. 

The purchase of Louisiana, in 1803, was under- 
stood to include all the territory lying west of the 
Mississippi, and north of the forty-second degree of 
north latitude, with certahi defined boundaries to the 
south of that line. This was fully confirmed and 
established in the treaty of 1819. Previous to this 
transfer, the American title had been secured to all 
the territory lying east of the Rocky Mountains, and 
south of the forty-ninth parallel. It was contended 
that the Spanish claim, now transferred to the Unit- 
ed States, extended, on the west of the mountains, 
to latitude 61° north, but that, by a convention be- 
tween the United States and Russia, the boundary 
between the two powers was fixed at 54° 40'. The 
British, on the other hand, claimed that part lying 
west of the Rocky Mountains, and north of the 
forty-sixth parallel, or the latitude of Columbia River. 
The American claim to the whole of this territory 
(the part in dispute being called Oregon) was based 
upon purchase, and priority of discovery. Captain Gray, 
in the ship Columbia, from Boston, having first dis- 
covered and entered the Columbia River, in May, 
1792. The British claimed the northern portion by 
right of possession, having a few trading stations some- 
where in that direction. The question had been held 
in suspense for several years, under a treaty of joint 
occupancy, which was now about to terminate. 

In connection with this Oregon question, Mr. Polk, 
in the judgment of his political friends, committed a 
fatal error, amounting to what Talleyrand would call 
a "blunder," and which, having the effect of alienat- 
i!ig some of his warmest friends, greatly embarrassed 



his administration throughout. In his first coUimnni- 
catioh to the American people, he proclaimed to the 
world, that our title to the country of the Oregon was 
" clear and unquestionable." " Nor will it become in 
a less degree my duty," said he, in his inaugural ad- 
dress, " to assert and maintain, by all constitutional 
means, the right of the United States to that portion 
of our territory which lies beyond the Rocky Moun- 
tains. Our title to the country of Oregon is cleai- and 
unquestionable, and already are our people preparing 
to perfect that title by occupying it with their wives 
and children." 

This statement was reiterated in language equally 
plain and unequivocal, in his first message to congress, 
in which he stated that a proposition of compromising 
having been offered to Great Britain, and rejected, it 
had been withdrawn, by his direction, and the Ameri- 
can " title to the whole Oregon territory asserted, and, 
as is believed, maintained by irrefragable facts and 
arguments." The proposition, thus offered and reject- 
ed, repeated the offer of the forty-ninth parallel of lati- 
tude as a boundary, which had been made by two 
preceding administrations, but without conceding, as 
they had done, the free navigation of the Columbia 
River. 

In the same message, Mr. Polk reannounced a prin- 
ciple put forth by Mr. Monroe, during his presidency, 
which he thought should control the action of the 
United States. 

"Near a quarter of a century ago," said he, "the 
principle was distinctly announced to the world in the 
annual message of one of my predecessors, that 'the 
American continents, by the free and independent con- 
dition which they have assumed and maintained, are 
henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future 
colonization by any European power.' This principle 
will apply with greatly increased force, should any 
European power attempt to establish any new colony 
in North America. In the existing circumstances of 
the world, the present is deemed a proper occasion to 
reiterate and reaffirm the principle avowed by Mr. 
Monroe, and to state my cordial concurrence in its 
wisdom and sound policy. The reassertion of this 
principle, especially in reference to North America, is 
at this day but the promulgation of a policy which no 
European power should cherish the disposition to 
resist." 

The "blunder," which Mr. Polk is thought to have 
made, in relation to this matter, is well set forth in the 
following pertinent question of his biographer : " If 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



45<; 



it is the unchangeable policy of this country to prevent 
Europeans from colonizing any portion of this conti- 
nent, it applies to territory to which we have no claim, 
as well as to that which belongs to us ; and if we can- 
not suffer them to colonize parts of the American 
continent to which we have no claim, how can we 
surrender territory to which our title is " clear and un- 
questionable " ? 

Whether the action of this administration was a 
political blunder, or, in any sense, an error either of 
judgment or of fact, we shall not stop to consider, but 
proceed with the history of its negotiation and settle- 
ment. 

A determination to enforce the claim of the United 
States to the territory of Oregon had been solemnly 
announced in various forms by the government of the 
United States. The recommendation contained in 
the president's message to congress, to give notice to 
Great Britain that the joint occupancy of the territory 
of Oregon should cease, was discussed at great length 
in congress. A debate, remarkable for its ability and 
the display of varied and extensive acquirements, fol- 
lowed the introduction of resolutions giving the twelve 
months' notice, in pursuance of the convention of 
1827. Masterly inactivity was proclaimed by the dis- 
tinguished senator from South Carolina, as the true 
policy of the United States. Fears were manifested 
that the country would be involved in a war with 
Great Britain, resulting in the destruction of our com- 
merce, and financial embarrassment and ruin. South- 
ern representatives gave indications of a willingness to 
surrender a portion of the territory, to destroy the 
growing ascendency of the north. The characteristics 
of the members from the two great sections of the con- 
federacy seemed to have changed, and impassioned 
eloquence and fiery denunciation breathed through 
every sentence which was uttered by the representa- 
tives from the Northern States ; while a temporizing, 
if not a timid, policy controlled many of the repre- 
sentatives from the south. After a long and protract- 
ed discussion, the following resolutions passed the 
house of representatives on the 9th of February, 
1846: — 

" Resolved, By the senate and house of representa- 
tives of the United States of America in congress 
assembled, that the president of the United States 
cause notice to be given to the government of Great 
Britain, that the convention between the United States 
of America and Great Britain, concerning the territory 
of the north-west coast of America, west of the Stony 



or Rocky Mountains, of the 6th day of August, 1827, 
signed at London, shall be annulled and abrogated 
twelve months after giving said notice. 

" Resolved, That nothing herein contained is in- 
tended to interfere with the right and discretion of the 
proper authorities of the two contracting parties, to 
renew or pursue negotiations for an amicable settle- 
ment of the controversy respecting the Oregon terri- 
tory." 

This was afterwards amended so as to leave it at 
the discretion of the president, whether or not to give 
such a notice, and thus to throw upon his administra- 
tion all the responsibility of the measure and its con- 
sequences. In this form it passed both houses of con- 
gress. 

This responsibility Mr. Polk immediately assumed, 
and, by an official communication through his minis- 
ter at London, dated April 28, 1846, announced that, 
"at the end of twelve months from and after the de- 
livery of these presents by the envoy extraordinary 
and minister plenipotentiary of the United States at 
London to her Britannic majesty, or her majesty's prin- 
cipal secretary of state for foreign affairs, the said con- 
vention shall be entirely annulled and abrogated." 

This was soon followed by an offer, upon the part 
of Mr. Packenham, to settle the question upon the 
basis of the proposition made by Mr. Polk in 1845. 
On the 10th of June, 1846, the executive transmitted 
the proposal to the senate, and solicited the advice of 
that body as to the course he should pursue. He 
stated in his message that the opinions which he had 
expressed in December, 1845, were unchanged ; and 
that if the senate should decline, by the constitutional 
majority, to advise him to accept the proposition, he 
should reject it. If, on the contrary, they should, by 
the majority required to ratify a treaty, advise him to 
accept the off"er of the British government, he would 
do so. 

When Mr. Polk asserted that the title of the United 
States to the whole Oregon territory was " clear and 
unquestionable," and asserted his determination to 
maintain it, he spoke as an American, acting on his 
own convictions, which, as he several times afterwards 
declared, both publicly and privately, were never 
changed. When he passively referred the whole mat- 
ter to congress, waiving his own cherished convictions 
of the " clear and unquestionable " rights of his country, 
and consenting to hold his official responsibility sub- 
ject to the dictation of a partisan majority in congress, 
he spoke as a southern man, more watchful of the 



4oU 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



" peculiar institutions of the south " than of the acknowl- 
edged rights of the nation. We utterly repudiate all 
party and sectional views on this subject. But he 
must be more than blind who does not see a marked 
and uniform difference in the action of the south on 
all questions of territory, graduated by position only. 
Timid to an extreme, and " pliant to the very point of 
cowardice," when a claim of Great Britain is made to 
a portion of northern territory, which would of neces- 
sity be free, — they neither hesitate, nor suffer any one 
else to hesitate, in swallowing up whole empires of 
tropical territory, which, in their view, is entitled to 
the blessings of slavery. 

The question thus referred to congress was soon de- 
cided. Declamation gave way to action, and a resolu- 
tion was immediately passed, advising the president to 
accept the proposition of Mr. Packenham. On that 
basis, a treaty was accordingly entered into between 
the two countries. It was signed by Mr. Buchanan, 
secretary of state, and Sir. Packenham, the British 
minister at Washington, on the 15th of June, 1846, 
and duly ratified by the senate a few days thereafter. 
Thus ended a question of long standing and some 
importance, in the settlement of which Great Britain 
obtained all that she claimed of territory, with the 
additional advantage of the right forever to the free 
navigation of the Columbia River. An effort was 
made by Mr. Niles, of Connecticut, to restrict this right 
to a definite period, to terminate in 1863. But it was 
defeated by a close party vote, the southern interest 
going strongly against it. 

Before resuming the narrative of the Mexican war, 
it will be proper to state briefly the grounds of com- 
plaint against her sister republic, on the part of the 
United States. These consisted of spoliations of our 
commerce, violations of the liberty and rights of indi- 
vidual citizens of the United States, and the refusal, 
or unexplained delay, to pay just and acknowledged 
claims, after they had been duly ascertained and veri- 
fied. In the face of treaties of amity and alliance, 
these outrages and spoliations continued, till, in the 
language of President Jackson, in his message to con- 
gress, on the 8th of February, 1837, "the length of 
time since some of the injuries had been committed, 
the repeated and unavailing applications for redress, the 
wanton character of some of the outrages upon the 
persons and property of our citizens, upon the officers 
and flag of the United States, independent of recent 
insults to this government, by the late extraordinary 



Mexican minister, would justify, in the eyes of all 
nations, immediate war." 

The insult to the nation, specially alluded to in the 
above extract, was in the conduct and correspondence 
of Mr. Gorostiza, who, but a short time before, had 
abruptly terminated his mission, on the refusal of the 
United States government to comply with his peremp- 
tory demands, and published a portion of his official 
correspondence, appealing to the American people 
against the acts of their own government. 

The revolt of Texas, the deep interest felt and man- 
ifested in her success, the part borne in the struggle 
by American citizens who had emigrated thither, and 
the early disposition of the people of the south to look 
to the ultimate adoption of the revolted province, as a 
member of the northern confederacy, greatly exasper- 
ated the feelings of the Mexican people tovv^ards the 
United States, and gave them never-failing pretexts 
for petty insults and indignities, as well as for delays 
and refusals to recognize just and acknowledged 
claims. Or perhaps it would be rendering most exact 
justice to the case, to say, that these circumstances 
furnished excellent material for agitation and excite- 
ment to the endless succession of parties and parti- 
sans, by which that unhappy country was distracted, 
and kept in a state of civil war, for more than a quar- 
ter of a century. This was the true source of the 
evil. Mexico, though independent of Spain during 
that period, has never had an established government. 
The rule has passed in rapid succession from hand to 
hand of her military chieftains, each one in his turn a 
usurper, and no one feeling bound to recognize the act 
of his predecessors, or to acknowledge his own, so long 
as he could successfully win time by quibbling diplo- 
macy. It cannot be denied that the United States had 
borne, with the most commendable patience, a long 
series of injuries and insults, which, with any other 
nation, under the existing international code, and the 
prevailing views of national honor, would have ren- 
dered a resort to arms unavoidable. Whether, in the 
case of so feeble an adversary, a nation so " divided 
against herself" as scarcely to possess the individuality 
requisite for national accountability, some other course 
than open war might not have been wisely resorted to, 
it is too late now to consider. It is to be hoped, how- 
ever, that the time is not far distant, when such mat-^ 
ters will be differently adjusted ; when equals among ' 
the nations, or those in the full possession of their 
faculties, will estimate human life too highly to 



1 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



461 



sacrifice them by thousands in the settlement of 
pecuniary claims, or to fill up their breaches with the 
mangled corpses of their subjects, and magnanimously 
consent to refer to arbitration all the questions which 
cannot be settled by simple negotiation. It may well 
be doubted if any of the wars of the nations have paid 
for themselves. In the case before us, the United 
States have sacrificed more than twenty-five thousand 
lives of their own people, and one hundred and thirty 
millions of money,* to say nothing of the irreparable 
demoralization attendant upon the course of war, not 
only in the camp and the march, the sack of town and 
city, the legalized plunder of the defenceless, the fa- 
miliarity with scenes of cruelty and violence, the vulgar 
and beastly abuse of the mere power of self-indulgence, 
and the long absence from all the hallowed associa- 
tions and wholesome restraints of home, but in those 
long-deserted, and, for the most part, desolated houses, 
the absence of paternal authority and guardianship, 
the sundering of natural ties, the interruption of house- 
hold order, the letting down of domestic discipline, and 
all the long train of moral and social evils which flow 
from tlie dismemberment of the family state, and the 
rude and unnatural putting asunder of what God has 
joined together. Of these and many kindred evils, 
the inseparable accompaniments of a state of war, there 
is no arithmetic, no scale by which to estimate them. 
To offset them with dollars, with' territories — though 
they be richer than Golconda or Ophir — with empires 

• OfficiHl statistics show that the territories of New Mexico and 
California cost the Union $ 124,038,353 65 cts. in the expenses of the 
war and the indemnity paid for the territory acquired. And there 
wHX be not less than $ 6,000,000 in bounties, pensions, and a legion of 
claims yet to come up for adjustment. Besides which, we have the 
following statistics of the loss of human life in the war : The num- 
ber of deaths returned by the officers of the army is 12,878 ; 9,749 
were discharged for disability, of whom at least half have died, say 
4,874 ; 73,260 men were mustered into service during the war, and 
50,573 were mustered out ; of the residue, amounting to 22,687, 
20,072 were returned as dead, discharged, or deserted, and the differ- 
ence, 2,615, are supposed to be dead ; of those mustered out of service 
it is estimated that 10 per cent., or 5,057, have since died, making a 
fearful aggregate, thus : — 

Returned dead, 12,878 

Half the disabled, 4,874 

^lissing, 2,615 

10 per cent, of the remnant of the army, 6,057 

(which is a very small allowance.) 

^ ^ ' 25,424 

To this should be added the unascertained and immeasurable 
amount of domestic misery, pauperism, starvation, and suicide, among 
the thousands of wives made widows, children made orphans, and 
parents mode childless, by the oft-repeated decimations of this re- 
lentless Jloloch. 



— or with that singularly elastic Protean fantasy, na- 
tional honour — how is it wiser, on the part of a states- 
man or a people, than for a man to take " the whole 
world in exchange for his soul " ? 

There was now a casus belli on both sides. Mexi- 
co, by refusing to receive Mr. Slidell, had declined 
negotiation upon the matters in dispute, and virtually 
said, " Seek your remedy in your own way." The 
United States, by the annexation of Texas, and the 
planting of a military force on her border, had provoked 
Mexico to this attitude, and assumed the war then 
existing between Mexico and her revolted province. 
At least, these were the views set forth by the respon- 
sible managers in this great conflict. Without attempt- 
ing to judge between them, or to decide which of them 
was the actual aggressor, we will proceed to narrate 
the leading incidents of the war. 

On the announcement of Mr. Slidell's departure 
from Mexico, General Taylor was ordered to advance 
to the Rio Bravo del Norte, which was the farthest 
limit claimed by any of the extensionists of the United 
States, or Texas. On the Uth of March, 1846, he 
moved from Corpus Christi, having under his imme^ 
diate command about three thousand five hundred men. 
In pursuance of authority, previously vested in him, he 
made immediate requisition upon the governor of Lou- 
isiana for four regiments of infantry, and upon the 
governor of Texas for two regiments of infantry and 
two of cavalry, to be brought into the field as soon as 
practicable. Similar requisitions were also soon after 
made. 

On the 28th of March, the little army, somewhat 
diminished in numbers by the necessity of protecting 
the posts in their rear, arrived on the left bank of the 
Rio del Norte, opposite to Matamoras, where it en- 
camped on a commanding position, and commence i 
the erection of works of defence. 

The Mexican forces at Matamoras assumed a bel- 
ligerent attitude, and, on the 12th of April, General 
Ampudia, then in command, notified General Taylor 
to break up his camp within twenty-four hours, and to 
retire beyond the Nueces River, and, in the event of his 
failure to comply with these demands, announced that 
arms, and arms alone, must decide the question. But 
no open act of hostility was committed until the 24th 
of April. On that day, General Arista, who had suc- 
ceeded to the command of the Mexican forces, com- 
municated to General Taylor that "he considered 
hostilities commenced, and should prosecute them." 
A party of dragoons, of sixty-three men and officer^ 



462 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



under command of Captain Thornton, were, on the 
same day, despatched from the American camp up the 
Rio del Norte, on its left bank, to ascertain whether the 
Mexican troops had crossed, or were preparing to cross, 
the river, and " became engaged with a large body of 
these troops, and, after a short affair, in which some 
sixteen were killed and wounded, were surrounded and 
compelled to surrender." 

In pursuance of the purpose of General Arista to 
prosecute hostilities with vigour, he had ordered Gen- 
eral Torrejon, with two thousand five hundred men, to 
cross the river a {ew miles above the American camp. 
It was in watching the movements of this body that 
Captain Thornton and his company were surprised and 
captured. Preparations were also made to pass over 
another division of the Mexican army, below the 
camp, to form a junction with General Torrejon. 
General Taylor was aware of these movements, and 
supposed that their intention was either to surround 
his position, or to attack his depot at Point Isabel. 

Hastening the completion of his defences, which he 
regarded sufficiently strong to resist any force then 
opposed to him, he left them, with a garrison of three 
hundred men, under the command of Major Brown, 
and marched, with his main force, to Point Isabel. 
Not meeting with any opposition, nor seeing any traces 
of the Mexican detachments, he proposed remaining at 
that post until the arrival of some expected supplies 
and recruits. 

On the morning of the 3d of May, at an early hour. 
General Arista opened his batteries on the American 
position, and was immediately answered by a heavy and 
successful cannonade from Major Brown. The first 
Mexican battery was silenced in thirty minutes. The 
firing was then renewed from other points, and kept 
up during that and several succeeding days, with little 
effect on either side. On the 4th, the main Mexican 
army crossed the Rio Grande, with a view to securing 
a position in the rear of the American fort, and cutting 
off the communication with Point Isabel. Thus sur- 
rounded, and severely cannonaded on every side, for 
several days, the little garrison bravely defended 
itself against all odds, and kept the enemy at bay. 
On the 5tifi, Major Brown was mortally wounded by 
a shell. One other man was killed, and thirteen 
wounded. 

The heavy and constant cannonading at Fort Brown 
was heard at Point Isabel, and induced General Taylor 
to hasten his return. Without any increase of his 
force, beyond what was necessary to complete the 



garrison at Point Isabel, he took up his line of march 
on the 7th. 

General Arista was impressed with the idea that the 
Americans, though skilful skirmishers, and formidable 
in forest warfare, could easily be beaten in open con- 
flict with regular troops. He therefore determined to 
dispute the passage of General Taylor by offering him 
battle. His position was well chosen, at Palo Alto, 
about nine miles from Matamoras. His force was six 
thousand of the best troops in Mexico. Its left wing, 
composed of regular cavalry, occupied the road, and 
rested on a thicket of chapparal, while the infantry in 
line, with twelve pieces of artillery posted at intervals, 
extended a mile and a half across the plain. On the 
right was formed the ranchero cavalry, their rear cov- 
ered by a thicket of chapparal on the south of the 
road. 

On the 8th, about noon, General Taylor came up, 
his forces numbering about two thousand. After a 
few moments' halt for refreshment, he formed his 
column, and, curtained by two squadrons in advance, 
moved forward. As soon as he was within cannon 
range, the Mexican batteries opened upon hjim. The 
column was then formed in line for battle. Colonel 
Twiggs commanded the right, composed of three com- 
panies of infantry and Major Ringgold's artillery. 
Duncan's battalion of light artillery, on foot, and the 
8th regiment of infantry, were on the left, under com- 
mand of Lieutenant-Colonel Belknap. 

At two o'clock, the Americans advanced in line, 
immediately after which the work of death com- 
menced ; the Mexicans opening their batteries as soon 
as they could be made to tell with effect. They were 
answered, promptly and powerfully, by the American 
artillery, still advancing. The cannonade was kept 
up more than an hour ; the light troops, on cither side, 
taking no part in the contest, though some part of the 
Mexican line suffered severely from Ringgold's well- 
directed battery. At length a movement was made to 
turn the American right. A detachment of cavalry 
and infantry, under General Torrejon, supported by 
two guns, turned the lagoon, and, coming up from the 
right and rear, approached within musket range. This 
movement was immediately opposed and driven back 
by Colonel Twiggs. 

Meanwhile, the dry grass of the prairie had taken 
fire, and, fanned by a gentle breeze, the sheet of flame 
rolled away to the American left, partially concealing? 1 
the combatants from each other. This occasioned a 
temporary suspension, during which General Arista 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED "STATES. 



463 



changed the disposition of his forces, so as to avoid 
the galling fire of the American artillery. General 
Taylor, who noticed the movement, made a correspond- 
ing change in his position, so that, on resuming battle, 
after an hour's cessation, Ringgold's and Duncan's 
guns told with greater effect than before on the ene- 
my's ranks. 

Unable to stand still and inactive under so destruc- 
tive a fire, the Mexican troops now demanded to be 
led to the onset, or to be allowed to fall back. Yield- 
ing to their desire. Arista moved his whole right wing 
to turn the American left, under cover of the cloud of 
smoke arising from the burning prairie. At the same 
time, he ordered an attack of the right, by a large body 
of cavalry. A momentary rift in the wavering volume 
of smoke revealed this movement to Duncan, who, 
with the consent of Colonel Belknap, immediately gal- 
loped the two sections of his battery to the left, wheel- 
ing round the cloud of fire, which had curtained his 
movements, with a celerity which astonished the 
enemy. A severe action here took place, Duncan 
maintaining his position, and making fearful havoc in 
the Mexican ranks. The battle now became general. 
But it was of short duration. The fire of the Ameri- 
cans, being deliberate and well-aimed, was exceedingly 
destructive, while that of the Mexicans was hasty, 
wild, and inefl'ective. The grape from the light artil- 
lery, which was movable, and almost ubiquitous, 
literally mowed down the advancing corps, till, squad- 
ron after squadron, they halted, turned, and fled. Re- 
pulsed, in the same masterly manner, on the left, the 
whole line soon after gave way, and retired from the 
field. Night having set in, and it being quite dark, 
their retreat was unmolested. 

In this engagement, the first of a series of uninter- 
rupted and unparalleled successes, the American army 
lost nine killed in battle, and forty-seven wounded, 
several of whom afterward died of their wounds. 
Major Ringgold, distinguished as the leader of the fly- 
ing artillery, to the organization and discipline of 
which he had devoted much time and energy, was 
one of the marked victims of this conflict. Captain 
Page, of the 4th infantry, was another. Made promi- 
nent by their stations as ofiicers, they were honoured 
and mourned by the nation, as well as by a large circle 
of admiring and devoted friends ; while the unnamed 
and unrecorded, who fell by their side, were equally 
lamented in their own bereaved circles of relatives and 
friends. It is the fate of war, that the leaders, if they 
survive the battle, win the laiurels of victory ; and if 

59 



they fall, are honoured with a requiem, a monument, 
and a place on the enduring rolls of history ; while the 
brave hearts and strong arms that obey their com- 
mands, giving and receiving the death-dealing blows, 
and dying almost unnoticed on the fields the^r have 
won, are unknown and unremembered, except in the 
homes that are made desolate by their fall. 

The Mexican loss has been variously stated, from 
two hundred and fifty-two as officially reported by Gen- 
eral Arista, to more than five hundred. As we take 
the official return of General Taylor, in the one case, 
candour compels us to admit that of General Arista, on 
the other ; and our natural repugnance to wholesale 
slaughter comes in strongly in favour of the admission. 
For, in our view, all Central America, to the Isthmus 
of Panama, would not compensate for the ravages of 
this one battle. 

Both armies encamped near the field on the fol- 
lowing night. At eeu-ly dawn, on the morning of 
the 9th, General Arista moved on to Resaca de la 
Palma. Here he placed himself in a strong position, 
having been reenforced by the arrival of two thousand 
infantry and a strong body of cavalry. His forces 
were skilfully arranged on both sides of a ravine, 
which traversed the route of the American army, and 
through which there were only two narrow passes ; 
the road from Point Isabel to Matamoras being one of 
them. A thick growth of chapparal, on both sides of 
the road, and all around the ravine, concealed the po- 
sition and force of the enemy, and made the move- 
ment of General Taylor necessarily a cautious and 
doubtful one. The road pass was protected by a bat- 
tery of three guns at its northern entrance, facing the 
American advance, and four in the rear ; both of them 
strongly flcmked by heavy bodies of infantry. The 
cavalry, unable to act in such a position, was posted in 
strong masses in the rear. 

As a pitched battle was impossible in such a po- 
sition. General Taylor divided his force into small 
parties of skirmishers. A picked corps of two hundred 
and twenty men, under command of Captains McCall 
and Smith, accompanied by Walker's Rangers, and a 
small party of dragoons under Ridgeley, formed the ad- 
vanced guard. Ridgeley's guns, planted on the right 
of the road, within three hundred yards of the pass, 
opened a lively fire, which was briskly returned, bui 
without eff"ect on either side ; the intervening chappa- 
ral preventing even an attempt at an accurate aim. 
McCall and Smith, pressing forward on the left and 
right, dislodged the Mexicans- of the first line from 



464 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



their positions on the' northern side of the ravine. A 
brisk skirmish ensued ; other detatchments pressing 
through the thicket, on the riglit and left, the action 
became general. The nature of the ground prevented 
the use of any other artillery than Ridgeley's battery, 
which, from the intervening chapparal, was of little 
effect. There was no position in which a line could 
be arrayed. Each officer took position, and led his 
command, as he could, battling, in separate independent 
squadrons, with any portion of the enemy that could 
be reached. All was apparent confusion ; yet, as there 
was one spirit of advance and action pervading the 
whole, there was a general harmony in the attack, 
which made it scarcely less effective than a regular 
onset. The thicket was ablaze with the incessant 
discharges of fire-arms. A skirmish here, a hand-to- 
hand encounter there, a series of pele-mele assaults and 
repulses, charges and counter charges, — such was the 
opening of the battle of Resaca de la Palma. 

While the action continued in this manner, the Mex- 
ican artillery kept up a destructive fire from their bat- 
teries on either side of the road pass. That on the 
northern side, though somewhat checked by the quick 
discharges of Ridgeley's guns, was most troublesome, 
and General Taylor resolved to silence it. With this 
view, he ordered Captain May to charge and take it. 
" I will do it," replied May ; and, turning to his men, he 
said, " Remember your regiment, and follow your offi- 
cers." Dashing down the iroad, at full gallop, to exe- 
cute this order, Ridgeley, who saw what he was at, 
called out to him, saying, " Stop, Charley, let me draw 
their fire for you," and instantly poured in a heavy 
charge of canister, to which the Mexican battery made 
full reply. The gallant May put spurs to his horse, 
and, followed by his dragoons, overrode the battery, 
dispersed the artillery-men at the guns, and instantly 
rallying the few men that were left, and seizing Gen- 
eral De la Vega, who was entangled in the melee, 
retired under a severe, fire from the second line of 
Mexican infantry. 

Meanwhile, Ridgeley, who, as May was in front, 
could no longer act from his position, had followed at 
a gallop, and planted his guns at the road pass, by the 
side of those just abandoned by the Mexicans, ready 
to defend it at all hazards. The whole American 
force now pressed forward, and pushing into the chap- 
paral, and beating through the ravine, engaged, in the 
same irregular manner as before, with the entire Mexi- 
can force on the other side. The struggle was severe 
wi well contested, but not of long continuance. 



Disputing, in small parties, the American advance 
till their last gun was captured, the Mexicans finally 
gave way on all sides, and took to flight. They 
were followed in close pursuit, and driven, in broken 
masses, into the chapparal, and over the Rio Grande. 
As the pursuers came up to the bank, the batteries at 
Matamoras opened fire upon them. The guns at Fort 
Brown replied, by heavy discharges upon the upper 
ferry, at which the fugitives were crossing. But, night 
coming on, the cannonading ceased, and, under favour 
of the darkness, the vanquished fled unmolested, and 
the conquerors sought repose in their tents. 

The loss, in this battle, was about fifty slain, and 
more than a hundred wounded, on the American side. 
That of the Mexicans is unknown, but is supposed to 
have been very great. It is estimated by some at a 
thousand men. The estimate is not extravagant, if 
we include those lost in attempting to cross the river. 
A Mexican narrative of the battle says, " The defeat 
having taken place, the dispersion became general. 
The soldiers sought the river in all directions, not be- 
lieving themselves safe while they were on the other 
side. A large part of the army having reached the 
crossing at Auacuitas, the confusion and trampling on 
each other were astonishing. They began to dispute 
for the preference in being ferried over in the only two 
boats that were found. The obstinacy of every one 
increased the difficulty. The boats Avere detained, in 
pushing ofi" from the bank, by the efforts of the men 
in them to get rid of those who rushed in to take their 
places. Fright spread the idea that the pursuing ene- 
my approached. The disorder increased. The want 
of transports rendered desperate the miserable fugitives, 
who, to escape from one danger, rushed into another. 
They sought some ford which saved them, or threw 
themselves into the river with their clothes and arms, 
and almost all were drowned. A very limited num- 
ber, if in fact any, safely reached the other shore. The 
army was diminished to one fifth of its original 
strength." Beside this heavy loss in their effective 
force of men, their entire artillery, consisting of eight 
pieces, with its equipment and ammunition, their camp 
and camp furniture, and five hundred pack mules and 
saddles, fell into the hands of the victors. General 
Arista lost his personal baggage, a valuable service of 
plate, and all his public correspondence. 

Reenforcements having commenced arriv ng at Point • 
Isabel, General Taylor made immediate preparations 
for crossing the river, and carrying the war into Mexi- 
co. Being informed of these preparations, Genera] 



It 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



4Cc 



Arista sent, on the 17th, to propose an armistice. This 
•was promptly refused by General Taylor, and the im- 
mediate possession of Matamoras made a si7ie qua tion. 
No answer having been received on the morning of the 
18th, General Taylor commenced the passage at an 
early hour. The usual precautions were taken to 
meet any elfective opposition. But it was soon ascer- 
tained that the town had been evacuated, during the 
night, by the remnant of the army, about three hun- 
dred of the sick and wounded only being left behind. 
The arms and public stores had been, to a large extent, 
concealed, or thrown into the river. By the diligence 
of the Americans, a great portion of it was recovered. 

It was now determined to push the war vigorously 
into the heart of the country, with a direct aim at the 
capital. 

By the act of the 13th of May, 1846, the president 
was authorized to call into the field fifty thousand vol- 
unteers, to serve for one year, or during the war ; and 
an appropriation was made for the purpose of carrying 
it into effect. Here arose a serious political difficulty. 
The preamble to that act declared that, " whereas, by 
the act of the republic of Mexico, war exists," &c. 
The opposition members of congress distinctly charged 
that the war was brought on by the unconstitutional 
order given by Mr. Polk for the concentration of our 
troops upon the Rio Grande. It was nevertheless en- 
tertained ; and although the whigs were disposed to 
vote for an appropriation of money, and the raising of 
men for the purpose of relieving General Taylor, still 
they made strenuous exertions to strike the preamble 
from the bill. This they were unable to do, and upon 
its passage, they all voted for it, with the exception of 
fourteen members of the house and two or three sena- 
tors. The position which they occupied was an ex- 
ceedingly delicate one. They had to adopt one of two 
alternatives ; either to vote for the preamble, which 
they declared was untrue, or to vote against the bill. 

This they were most reluctant to do, as that was to 
refuse supplies to a gallant and victorious army, situat- 
ed, by no fault of theirs, in the heart of an enemy's 
country. The wording of the preamble was one of 
those political juggles, by which, without reference to 
truth, honour, or patriotism, a faction seeks to make 
capital out of the exigencies of the nation. Its whole 
purpose was to compel the opposers of the war to take 
an unpopular position, by voting against supplies which 
they were as ready to furnish as their opponents, and 
which the whole coutiiry demanded, or consent to the 
false declaration of the preamble, and thereby admit 



the justice of the war. The fairness and honourable- 
ness of the manoeuvre can easily be seen, by supposing 
that a majority of either house had been opposed to 
the administration, and yet anxious to furnish General 
Taylor with all the requisites of actual warfare ; and 
that, in framing a bill for that purpose, they had harsh- 
ly and severely censured the action of the president. in 
the premises. Would his friends have felt themselves 
treated fairly and honourably, to be compelled to meet 
such a dilemma ? The result has shown, emphatically 
and instructively, that "to manoeuvre is not always 
to win ; " and that, even in politics, " honesty is the 
best policy." 

The call for volunteers was promptly responded to 
on every side. Where fifty thousand were wanted, 
five hundred thousand were offered, and the difficulty 
was to keep back the eager thousands that were press- 
ing into the service. 

The dismemberment of the Mexican territory now 
became the palpable object of the war party. Com- 
modore Sloat, with a sufficient squadron, had been 
stationed on the Pacific coast, a year before the first 
outbreak on the Rio Grande, with orders, in case of 
war, to possess himself at once of California. "The 
Mexican ports on the Pacific are said to be open and 
defenceless," said the secretary of the navy, in a latter, 
dated June 24, 1845. " If you ascertain with cer- 
tainty that Mexico has declared war against the United 
States, you will at once possess yourself of the port of 
San Francisco, and blockade or occupy such other 
ports as your force will permit." And this notwith- 
standing the repeated declarations of the president, 
that the war was not waged with a view to conquest, 
but to obtain, with an honourable peace, " indemnity 
for the past, and security for the future." 

Under the act of May 13, requisitions were imme- 
diately made upon the governors of the states of Ar- 
kansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, 
Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Texas, 
for a volunteer force amounting to twenty-six regi- 
ments, which, with a battalion from the District of 
Columbia and the state of Maryland, numbered in all 
about twenty-three thousand effective men, to serve 
for the period of twelve months, or to the end of the 
war. A large portion of this force was placed under 
the command of General Taylor, who had made the 
Rio Grande the base of his operation. The plan of 
operations, designed by the administration, was to 
attack Mexico in several directions. Taylor was to 
advance in the direction of Monterey ; General Wool 



•IfiG 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



was to march from Antonio de Bexar, in the direction 
of Chihuahua ; and General Kearney was to assemble 
the volunteers from the state of Missouri, and a few 
hundred regular troops at Fort Leavenworth, and make 
a descent upon Santa Fe, and from thence, with a por- 
tion of his command, was to advance rapidly upon 
California. At the same time, a more direct attack was 
to be made upon the capital, by way of its principal, 
and, in tlie view of the Mexicans, impregnable fortress 
at Vera Cruz. Any one, by glancing at a map, will at 
once discover the comprehensiveness of this plan. 
The advance of General Taylor and General Wool 
into that portion of the Mexican territory would be 
calculated to convince the Mexicans of the importance 
of reopening negotiations ; whilst the expedition under 
General Kearney would obtain possession of that por- 
tion of Mexico which it was desirable to retain. 

Meanwhile, as the reenforcements began to arrive, 
and General Taylor's force was augmented to some 
eight thousand men, he commenced his movement 
into the interior. On the 1st of August, he left Mata- 
moras with a column of six thousand regular and vol- 
vuiteer troops, and, on the 8th, entered Camargo, where 
General Worth, with his division, had arrived on the 
24th of July previous. No opposition was made to 
his progress, the entire Mexican army having fallen 
back on the road to Monterey. 

Monterey * was the first point now aimed at by 
General Taylor, and Camargo was an important depot 
pending his operations in that quarter. It is on a bend 
of the Rio Grande, above Matamoras, and is the near- 
est point of access to Monterey. Having made the 
necessary dispositions here, and left competent garri- 
sons at all the intervening towns on the river. General 
Taylor sent forward two divisions, under the command 
of Generals Twiggs and Worth, who took up their 



• Monterey, the capital of the state of Nueva Leon, lies in a valley 
at the eastern base of the Sierra Madre. The valley, though not 
large, is of great fertility, and supports a considerable population. 
On its east rises the single elevation of the Saddle Mountain ; and the 
main chain of the Sierra, and its spurs, are the boundaries on the 
Bouthern, western, and parts of the northern limits. The main road 
from the Kio Grande to the capital of Mc^lIco leads from the east, 
through a cultivated country, some distance to the north of the Saddle 
Mountain, and, passing through the city, continues on by a pass, 
varying from one to three miles in width, through the Sierra, and on 
to the desert country, between the latter place and San Louis de 
Potosi. A rivulet — the Kio San Juan de Monterey — rises in this 
pass, and, running eastward, traverses the valley. 

Monterey stands on the northern bank of this rivulet, and extends, 
in its length, near a mile and a half along the stream. It contains or- 
dinarily about ten thousand inhabitants 



line of march on the 19th of August. General Butler's 
brigade followed on the 24th, and General Taylor on ' 
the 5th September. On the 13th, the whole column 
was in motion for Monterey. ) 

Generals Arista and Ampudia had both been sum- 
moned to Mexico, to answer for the disasters of Palo i 
Alto and Resaca de la Palma. The command in the 
north devolved upon Meija. His force at Monterey 
was somewhat over four thousand men. On the 28th * 

of August, General Ampudia arrived, with large reen- 
forcements, and assumed the command. 

General Taylor arrived before Monterey on the 19th 
of September, with six thousand six hundred and 
forty-five men, and nineteen pieces of cannon. After . 
reconnoitering the city, he encamped at Walnut 
Springs, three miles distant. On the 20th, General * 
Worth's division was ordered, by a circuitous route, to 
gain the Saltillo road, to the west of the city, and to ' 
storm the heights above the Bishop's Palace. On the 
21st, he met a large body of Mexican cavalry and 
infantry, supported by artillery from the heights. Hav- 
ing repulsed them, he encamped, covering the passage 
to the Saltillo road. Two forts on the opposite side 
of the San Juan River were then stormed and carried ; 
and the guns of the fort last taken were immediately i 
turned on the Bishop's Palace. 

To favour the movements of General Worth, the first 
division of regular troops, and a division of volunteers, 
under General Butler, were ordered to make a diversion 
on the left of the town. Lieutenant-Colonel Garland 
was ordered forward, to carry, if possible, the advance 
battery on the extreme left of the city. A heavy and 
destructive fire opened upon the advance of the Ameri- 
cans ; but, passing through two batteries, an incessant 
cross-fire from the citadel, and the thousand musketeers 
on the housetops and behind barricades, they entered 
the city, and engaged with the enemy in the streets. 
The rear of the first battery was soon turned, and the 
reverse fire of the troops, through the gorge of the 
works, killed or dislodged the artillery in its rear. The 
first division was followed and supported by the Mis- 
sissippi, Tennessee, and First Ohio regiments. The 
two former were the first to scale and occupy the fort. 
The loss of the Americans in killed and wounded, 
during the day, was three hundred and ninety-four. 

On the 22d, at dawn, the second division, under , j- 
General Worth, carried the height above the Bishop's 1 1 
Palace ; and soon after noon the Palace itself was 
taken. In the lower part of the city, the Mexicans 
continued their fire during the day , but at night they 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



467 



evacuated nearly all their defences. On the 23d, Gen- 
eral Q.uitman was ordered to advance into the city, 
assisted by Captain Bragg's battery and the dismounted 
Texan vohuiteers. This advance was conducted vig- 
orously, but with due caution, till the troops arrived 
within one square of the principal plaza, near which 
the enemy's troops were concentrated. 

On the morning of the 24th, General Ampudia made 
an otfer of capitulation. The terms accepted were, 
that the Mexican troops should march out of the city 
W"ith their arms and accoutrements, and should be al- 
lowed seven days to evacuate. The American troops 
were not to occupy the city till that time. The cita- 
del, hov,rever, was to be evacuated on the 25th, and an 
American garrison marched in. An armistice of eight 
weeks was also agreed upon. 

The American loss, in capturing the city, was one 
hundred and twenty killed, and three hundred and 
sixty-eight wounded. Forty-two pieces of cannon, 
and a large supply of ammunition, fell into the hands 
of the victors. 

Tiie terms of this capitulation created much dissat- 
isfaction air^png the advocates of the war in the United 
States. It was a subject of much regret that General 
Taylor did not exact more rigorous terms. He was 
informed, by the secretary of war, that the president 
regretted that he had not insisted upon the terms he 
had first proposed. It was stated that the object of 
this urgency was, by the stringency of our measures, 
to compel the Mexican government to come at once to 
terms. To this General Taylor replied as follows : — 

" The force with which I advanced on Monterey 
was limited, by causes beyond my control, to. about 
six thousand men. With this force, as every military 
man must admit, who has seen the ground, it was en- 
tirely impossible to invest Monterey so closely as to 
prevent the escape of the garrison. Although the main 
communication with the interior was in our possession, 
yet one route was open to the Mexicans throughout 
the operations, and could not be closed, as were also 
other minor tracks and passes through the mountains. 
Had we, therefore, insisted on more rigorous terms 
than those granted, the result would have been the 
escape of the body of the Mexican force, with the 
destruction of its artillery and magazines ; our only 
advantage being the capture of a few prisoners of war. 
at the expense of valuable lives and much damage to 
the city. The consideration of humanity was present 
to my mind during the conference which led to the con- 
rention, and outweighed, in my judgment, the doubtful 



advantages to be gained by a resumption of the attack 
upon the town. This conclusion has been fully con- 
firmed by an inspection of the enemy's position and 
means since the surrender. It was discovered tliat his 
principal magazine, containing an immense amount of 
powder, was in the cathedral, completely exposed to 
our shells from two directions. The explosion of this 
mass of powder, which must have ultimately resulted 
from a continuance of the bombardment, Avould have 
been infinitely disastrous, involving the destruction not 
only of the Mexican troops, but of non-combatants, 
and even our own people, had we pressed the attack. 

" In regard to the temporary cessation of hostilities, 
the fact that we are not at this moment (within eleven 
days of the termination of the period fixed by the con- 
vention) prepared to move forward in force, is a suffi- 
cient explanation of the military reasons which dic- 
tated this suspension of arms. It paralyzed the enemy 
during a period when, from the want of necessary 
means, we could not possibly move. At the date of 
the surrender of Monterey, our force had not more than 
ten days' rations ; and even now, with all our endeav- 
ours, we have not more than twenty-five. The task 
of fighting and beating the enemy is among the least 
difficult that we encounter : the great question of sup- 
plies necessarily controls all the operations in a country 
like this. 

" In the conference with General Ampudia, I was 
distinctly told by him that he had invited the conven- 
tion to spare the further effVision of blood, and because 
General Santa Anna had declared himself favourable to 
peace. I knew that our government had made propo- 
sitions to that of Mexico to negotiate ; and I deemed 
that the change of government in that country since 
my last instructions fully warranted me in entertaining 
considerations of policy. My grand motive in moving 
forward with very limited supplies had been to increase 
the inducements of the Mexican government to nego- 
tiate for peace. Whatever may be the actual views or 
disposition of the Mexican rulers, or of General Santa 
Anna, it is not unknown to the government that I had 
the very best reason for believing the statement of 
General Ampudia to be true. It was my opinion at 
the time of the convention, and it has not been 
changed, that the liberal treatment of the Mexican 
army, and the suspension of arms, would exert none 
but a favorable influence in our behalf 

" The result of the entire operation has been to throw 
the Mexican army back more than three hundred miles, 
to the city of San Luis Potosi, and to open the country 



468 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



to us, as far as we choose to penetrate it, up to the ^ame 
point." 

The allusions to Santa Anna in the above letter, and 
the two months' armistice agreed upon, make it neces- 
Bary to turn aside, for the present, from the brilliant 
course of General Taylor's victories, to take a view of 
what was passing at other points in the wide field of 
operations. 

Another revolution had taken place in Mexico. The 
government of Paredes was overthrown. Santa Anna 
had b'een residing in exile at Havana. What means 
the American government had of becoming acquainted 
with the ulterior designs of this modern Proteus has 
never been publicly divulged. But, under the persua- 
sion that, in some way, benefit to the American cause 
would accrue from his restoration to power, the ad- 
ministration wished his return. He was notified of 
this fact, and Commodore Connor, commanding the 
blockade at Vera Cruz, was instructed, by a private and 
confidential order from the secretary of the navy, to 
let him pass freely. 

[Private and confidential.] 

Natt Depabtment, May 13, 1846. 

Commodore : If Santa Anna endeavors to enter the 
Mexican ports, you will allow him to pass freely. 

George Bancroft. 

Commodore David Connoh, 

Commanding Home Squadron. 

He entered, accordingly, unmolested, and was soon 
invested with supreme dictatorial powers, under solemn 
pledges to prosecute the war with all diligence, and to 
drive back the hated invaders of the Mexican soil. 

The views of the American government, in favour- 
ing the return of Santa Anna, were known to General 
Ampudia, and he made skilful use of them in nego- 
tiating with General Taylor. Santa Anna, however, 
entertained no views but those which looked to his 
own aggrandizement. Promises and pledges, which 
seemed to stand in the way of this one object, were 
laid aside, or trampled on, as easily as they were made. 
Accordingly, without one effort at conciliation, he took 
up the popular cry, and made vigorous preparation to 
prosecute the war, taking command of the army in 
person, and leaving the presidency, ad interim, in the 
hands of Gomez Farias, the vice-president. 

With the design of occupying as much of the terri- 
tory of Mexico as possible, three expeditions were 
organized, distinct from those of the main army ; one, 
under General Wool, against the province of Chihua- 



hua ; a second, under General Kearney, against New 
Mexico ; and a third, under Colonel Fremont, against 
California. Attempts were also to be made upon all 
the important ports on the Gulf of Mexico. 

The column under Brigadier-General Wool, consist- 
ing of about one thousand four hundred men, destined 
for the conquest of Chihuahua, was put in motion from 
San Antonia de Bexar, on the 29th of September, 1846, 
four days after General Taylor had taken possession 
of Monterey. Crossing the Rio Grande, he traversed 
Coahuila, and arrived at Monclova, on the 31st of Oc- 
tober, and was well received by the inhabitants. The 
force of General Wool having been diverted from its 
original destination, it never reached Chihuahua, and 
he subsequently joined his command to the army of 
General Taylor. 

On the 30th of June, Brigadier-General Kearney, 
with one thousand six hundred regulars and voluiUeers, 
marched from Fort Leavenworth, in the direction of 
Santa Fe, where he arrived, after a march of eight hun- 
dred and seventy-three miles, on the 18th of August, 
and took peaceable and unresisted possession of New 
Mexico. The Mexican forces, under the oommand of 
Governor Armijo, amounting to four thousand men, fled ; 
and the governor himself, with a small party of dra- 
goons, departed in haste for Chihuahua. General 
Kearney was authorized to muster into service a bat- 
talion from among the emigrants, who were on their 
way to Oregon and California ; in addition to this 
force, one thousand volunteers were started from Mis- 
souri to reenforce him. 

In August, 1846, General Kearney communicated to 
the war department the fact, that he had under his 
command a greater number of troops than was neces- 
sary to retain possession of Santa Fe, and for the con- 
quest of California ; and that he proposed sending a 
portion of them to reenforce General Wool, who, he 
supposed, was advancing upon Chihuahua. On the 23d 
of September, 1846, Colonel Doniphan, with the first 
regiment of Missouri vounteers, started upon that cele- 
brated march, which has not inaptly been compared to 
that of Xenophon. The men who composed that 
regiment were young, hardy, and possessed of a des- 
perate and reckless courage, and were well fitted for a 
service which was surrounded by so many perils. It 
was not known, when Doniphan left Santa Fe, that 
the column under the command of General Wool had 
been diverted from its movement upon Chihuahua, and 
he therefore penetrated, with his small band of heroes, 
into a country thronged with foes, and which had 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



469 



never been trod by the footsteps of an American sol- 
dier. 

On the 25th of December, the advance guard of his 
regiment was met by the Mexicans in force, in the 
vicinity of Brazito, where a battle ensued, resulting in 
the total overthrow of the enemy, with a loss on their 
part of nearly two hundred killed and wounded, and 
on that of the Americans of only seven wounded. In 
this engagement, less than five hundred Americans 
defeated twelve hundred Mexicans. Continuing his 
march, Doniphan entered El Passo without again en- 
countering a foe. It was here ascertained, that the 
movement had to be made without the aid of General 
Wool ; and the command was detained until February, 
for the purpose of receiving reenforcements of artillery 
from Santa Fe, when the force continued to advance 
towards Chihuahua. 

On the 2S[h of February, 1847, they discovered a 
large force of Mexicans, intrenched behind their batte- 
ries at the pass of Sacramento. It was at once deter- 
mined to storm the Mexican intrenchments ; they 
were fiuiously assaulted, and defended with equal des- 
peration. The ardour of the Americans proved irre- 
sistible ; the fortifications were scaled, the enemy was 
driven from his eirtillery with dreadful slaughter, and 
the victory was signal and complete. The American 
troops entered the capital of Chihuahua in triumph, 
and shortly after proceeded to join General Taylor at 
Monterey. 

In September, 1846, General Kearney, with a regular 
force of about three hundred dragoons, in pursuance 
of the instructions from the war department, started for 
California. Passing down the Rio Grande more than 
two hundred miles, he prepared to cross over to the 
River Gila; but, after advai^cing about one hundred and 
eighty miles, he was met by an express from Califor- 
nia, despatched by Colonel F'remont. Deeming it un- 
necessary to take an additional force into that country, 
he ordered most of his troops to return to Santa Fe, 
while he advanced with about one hundred men. 

In May, 1845, Captain Fremont left Washington, 
under orders from the war department to continue his 
explorations beyond the Rocky Mountains — a service 
purely of a scientific character. There were no sol- 
diers under his command, and the sixty-two men who 
made up his party were taken as a protection against 
the Indians. His route lay through a portion of Cali- 
fornia that was settled, and he was fully apprised of 
the danger of a rupture between Mexico and the United 
States, and WEis resolved to give no umbrage to the 



authorities in California. Leaving his company one 
hundred miles from Monterey, in Upper California, he 
proceeded to that place alone, for the purpose of explain- 
ing to Castro the object of his mission, and to obtain 
permission to enter the valley of the San Joaquin, to 
obtain forage for his horses and provisions for the men. 
His request was granted ; but scarcely had he arrived 
at the place.:which he had selected, before he received 
information that General Castro was preparing to over- 
whelm him with a superior force. For the purpose of 
defending himself from this unwarrantable attack, he 
intrenched his men upon a mountain thirty miles dis- 
tant from Monterey. There he remained from the 7th 
to the 10th of March, 1846, without being attacked by 
the Mexicans ; and he at length yielded to the wishes 
of some of his men, discharged them, and pursued his 
march for Oregon. After being attacked by hostile In- 
dians, who were instigated by General Castro, he was 
informed that Castro himself was advancing against 
him at the head of more than four hundred men, and 
that the American settlers in the valley of the Sacra- 
mento, as well as his own party, were to be involved 
in the scheme of destruction. Driven, in self-defence, 
to repel the foe, he determined to overthrow the Mexi- 
can authority in California. By rapidity of movement 
he surprised several parties, and obtained possession of 
nine brass cannon, and several hundred stand of arms. 
Castro was driven from one position to another, untd 
he reached Ciudad de Los Angelos. Colonel Fremont 
having formed a junction with Commodore Stockton, 
their united forces, on the 12th of August, 1846, en- 
tered the City of the Angels, the governor-general, 
Pico, and the rest of the Mexican authorities, having 
fled. Commodore Stockton took possession of the 
whole country, and appointed Colonel Fremont gov- 
ernor. In the short space of sixty days the conquest 
of a cotintry was achieved, which has more recently 
attracted the attention of the civilized world. 

The territories thus occupied were regarded and 
treated as conquered. The existing governments were 
set aside, and military governments formally established 
in their stead. On the gulf, Tampico was occupied, 
and without resistance. This port, the capital of the de- 
partment of Tamaulipas, is second in importance only 
to Vera Cruz. It is the key to one of the great ave- 
nues to the capital. Situated near the mouth of the 
River Panuco, with a good harbour, and well defended, 
it was a point of great importance, both in a commer- 
cial and a military view. The garrison consisted of 
more than one thousand soldiers, a detachment of artil- 



470 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



lery, with one hundred and twenty cannon of all cali- 
bres, and with abundant material of the park. In 
addition to these was a national guard of two thou- 
sand citizens. There were also three vessels of war, 
fully equipped, in the harbour. It is hardly conceivable 
that such a place, so fortified, should be abandoned 
without striking a blow in its defence, unless there was 
treason somewhere. The stories of the manner in 
which this was effected are various and amusing. 
One of them, whose authenticity is not without able 
support, attributes the evacuation mainly to a woman, 
the brave and worthy wife of the American consul. 
Her husband, Mr. Chase, having been expelled from 
the city by a decree of the Mexican government, was 
received, for a time, on board one of the vessels of 
the squadron cruising the gulf. While there, Mrs. 
Chase contrived, in spite of the vigilance of the au- 
thorities, to hold communication with him, and subse- 
quently with the naval commanders. Watched, sus- 
pected, and not a little persecuted, she contrived to 
sustain herself, and to impress upon the Mexicans the 
idea of immense preparations to take the place by 
storm. Whether from this source, or from another, it 
is certain that the commanding general had no hope of 
holding the city. The order was given for its abandon- 
ment, which was executed, with great precipitation, on 
the 27th of October. In the haste of departure, a large 
portion of the arms and munitions of the city were 
lost. The works of defence were, to some extent, 
demolished, and considerable quantities of arms and 
military stores conveyed to a distance up the river. 
Notice of the evacuation was given to the American 
commodore, by the heroic wife of the consul, who 
also caused the American flag to be hoisted in front of 
her house, in anticipation of his immediate arrival to 
take possession. This event was, however, delayed 
until the 14th of November, by the necessity of send- 
ing to Vera Cruz for a sufficient force to enter the 
place, and protect it. 

Victoria, an inland city of some importance, having a 
port at Soto la Marina, was entered, peaceably, on the 
29th December. As commanding some of the mountain 
passes, and lying between Monterey and Tampico, its 
occupation was deemed very desirable by General 
Taylor. But it was not expected to be secured with- 
out opposition. Two brigades, commanded by Gen- 
erals Twiggs and Quitman, were detached from Mon- 
terey, for this expedition, about the 12th of November, 
General Taylor accompanying in person. Alarmed by 
despat(;hes from General Butler, at Monterey, setting 



forth the danger of a probable attack, by superior num- 
bers, on General Worth, at Saltillo, General Taylor, 
with Twiggs's brigade, returned to Monterey, before 
reaching Victoria. General Q-uitman proceeded and 
took quiet possession. General Urrea, with all his force, 
retiring at his approach. 

The troops of the United States now held possession 
of all the region north of the Sierra Madre, extending 
from Tampico to Saltillo and Santa Fe. It Avas 
next resolved to make a descent upon Vera Cruz, and 
thence penetrate to the capital. As General Taylor 
could not leave his important conquests in the interior, 
this expedition was placed under the immediate com- 
mand of General Scott, who had hitherto remained at 
home, in consequence of some personal misunderstand- 
ing with the president. As the senior general in the 
army, he had solicited the command in May, and again 
in September ; but it was fvithheld on the ground of 
an unwillingness to supersede General Taylor in his 
command. 

War Defaktment, > 

Washington, September 14, 1846. 5 

Sir: I have received your letter of the 12th instant, 
and submitted it to the president. He requests me to 
inform you that it is not within the arrangements for 
conducting the campaign in Mexico to supersede Gen- 
eral Taylor in his present command, by assigning 
you to it. 

I am, with great respect, your obedient servant, 

W. L. Marcy. 
Major-Gcneral W. Scott. 

On the 23d November, General Scott received orders 
to place himself at the head of the invading army, with 
the most ample discretionary powers as to the conduct 
of the campaign. 

The plan of operations required the concentration of 
a large force, both military and naval, at Vera Cruz. 
For this purpose, a large portion of General Taylor's 
division was withdrawn from the interior, so as to leave 
him no power to act, except on the defensive. It was 
supposed that a formidable demonstration at Vera Cruz 
would immediately cause the transfer of Santa Anna, 
and his army, from San Luis de Potosi to the defence 
of the capital, and its approaches from the coast. This 
effect, however, did not follow immediately. He had, 
by the greatest exertions, and by pledging, for a loan, 
a portion of his own private property, succeeded in 
organizing a large army, and found himself at the head 
of an effective force of more than twenty thousand 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



471 



men. Employing himself with great industrjr in dis- 
ciplining the troops under his command, he was pre- 
pared to avail himself of a favourable opportunity to 
precipitate his army through the mountain gorges of the 
Sierra Madre, upon the scattered and weakened forces 
of General Taylor. He knew the absolute necessity 
of arousing the desponding hopes of the Mexican na- 
tion, by a brilliant demonstration, and he saw the time 
had arrived for striking an effective blow when Gen- 
eral Scott was too far advanced towards Vera Cruz to 
fly to the rescue of General Taylor. Leaving the city 
of Vera Cruz and the castle of San Juan d'Ulloa to its 
fate, he determined to measure swords with the " in- 
vincible " General Taylor. 

The favoiuable moment for which Santa Anna had 
anxiously waited, from October until February, had 
now arrived, and he rapidly advanced from San Luis 
in the direction of Agiia Nueva. General Taylor was 
assured of this fact on the 20th of February, 1847, and 
fell bad? to a more favourable position for defence, at 
Buena Vista, seven miles south of Saltillo, and eleven 
miles from his advanced post at Agua Nueva. This 
movement was made at noon on the 21st.* With a 
small force, General Taylor returned the same day to 
Saltillo, to make some arrangements for the defence of 
that town, leaving General Wool in command of the 
troops. Before his return on the morning of the 22d, 
the enemy were advancing and in sight, having marched 
from Encarnacion, a distance of forty miles, after 
11 o'clock the day previous. The position selected by 
the American commander was one of remarkable 
strength. The road at that point passed through a 
narrow defile, and the valley on its right was cut up 
by deep and impassable gullies ; while, on the left, 
rugged hills and precipitous ravines extended to the 
mountain which overlooked the battle-field ; thus ob- 
structing the use of the enemy's artillery and cavalry, 
and destroying the advantages which he possessed in 
the numerical superiority of his infantry. At 1 1 o'clock. 
General Taylor received a summons from Santa Anna 
to surrender at discretion, which he declined acceding 
to. No serious attack was meditated by the Mexican 
commander during that day, as he was evidently wait- 
ing for the arrival of his rear-guard. The troops 
bivouacked without fires, and rested with arms in their 
hands. A body of fifteen hundred cavalry hovered 



* For details of this battle, see report of General Taylor to the sec- 
retary of war, Agua Nueva, March 6, 1817. Executive Docuraents, 
Igt session 30th congress. Doc. 8, p. 132. 

60 



upon the rear of the Americans during the day, evi- 
dently having been ordered to take that position for 
the purpose of harassing the retreat. 

The American commander returned again to Saltillo ; 
and when he arrived upon the field, on the morning of 
the 23d, the battle had already commenced. The action 
was brought on by an attempt of the enemy, witli light 
troops, to outflank the American left, where they were 
met by the riflemen under Colonel Marshall, and a 
portion of the Illinois volunteers. At 8 o'clock, a heavy 
column advanced along the road, for the purpose of 
breaking the centre ; but they were repulsed and driven 
back in confusion. About this time, a dark and threat- 
ening mass was seen hovering upon the left, and col- 
unni after column was poured upon that point, for the 
purpose of forcing it by immensely superior numbers. 
Here was stationed the 2d Indiana and the 2d Illinois 
regiuients, covering O'Brien's battery, under the inmic- 
diate command of General Lane, who ordered the 
Indiana regiment and the artillery to advance. Tliat 
regiment receiving a terrible fire from small arms, and 
being raked by a cross fire of grape and canister from 
a Mexican battery planted upon the left, broke in dis- 
order and fled from the field, with the exception of a 
small number, who where rallied by Colonel Bowles. 
O'Brien's battery was served with tremendous effect ; 
but still the Mexican battalions continued to advance, 
and, not being supported, he was forced to retire, leav- 
ing behind him one of his pieces. A gallant stand 
was now made by the 2d Illinois regiment ; but, being 
at last outflanked, it was forced to fall back. The 
movement of the Mexicans in this part of the field 
was completely successful, and the light troops who 
had so gallantly defended the mountain were forced to 
retire, and were not rallied until they reached the depot 
at Buena Vista, which they subsequently aided to de- 
fend. Heavy columns of infantry and cavalry were 
now poured by Santa Anna along the foot of the 
mountain, to the rear of the Americans, where they 
assembled in great numbers. It was at this critical mo- 
ment, when the victory was almost within the grasp of 
the enemy, that General Taylor arrived upon the field, 
accompanied by the Mississippi riflemen, who were 
ordered into action, and greatly distinguished them- 
selves under the leadership of Colonel Davis. They 
were gallantly sustained by the 2d Kentucky and a 
portion of the 1st Illinois regiments, and by the bat- 
teries of §herman and Bragg, and the Mexicans were, 
driven with great loss from the positions they had 
gained. The American artillery, being in position on 



472 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



the plateau, produced terrible havoc among the masses 



who had gaiued the left. 



Again and again the Mexi- 



can columns advanced furiously to the onset, but were 
as often driven back. 

The situation of the enemy, who had broken through 
the left wing, and had gained the rear of the Ameri- 
cans, was now exceedingly critical. At that moment, 
Santa Anna sent a message to the American command- 
er, to propound the extraordinary question of " what 
he wanted." Taylor immediately despatched Gen- 
eral Wool to the Mexican general-in-chief, and at the 
same time sent orders to cease firing. The Mexicans 
still continued the attack, and General Wool returned 
without having obtained an interview. Santa Anna 
had, in the mean time, gained his object, which was to 
enable that part of his army which was in imminent 
danger of being cut off, to rejoin the main body.* 
The small demonstrations which were made by Gen- 
eral Minon in the rear of the Americans during this 
portion of the day, were easily checked by Shover's 
battery and Webster's command. The firing had par- 
tially ceased upon that part of the field which had 
been so hotly disputed ; but the cessation was for a 
very brief period. 

The Illinois and Kentucky regiments, instead of 
acting on the defensive, made an advance movement 
to meet the foe. The collision was terrific ; the ground 
was covered with the slain, but the Americans were 
overwhelmed by superior numbers, and were forced to 
retreat, leaving dead upon the field Colonels Hardin 
and McKee, and Lieutenant-Colonel Clay. The tro- 
phies of this brilliant charge were two of Captain 
O'Brien's pieces. He had sustained his posiflon to the 
very last, and until the infantry which supported him 
was driven back in disorder. At this critical moment, 
when the victory had almost deserted the American 
eagles. Captain Bragg, who had once before assisted to 
change the fortunes of the day, arrived upon the plateau 
from the left, and rapidly passing General Taylor, with- 
out any infantry support, at once placed his guns in 
battery. The enemy were within a few yards of their 
muzzles, and rapidly advancing. The first discharge 



• " The Mexicans, on the contrary, assert, that Santa Anna never 
did send such a message, but that a Mexican lieutenant, Don Jose 
Maria Montoye, having been surrounded by the Americans, and not 
desiring to be taken prisoner, pretended to have been sent to General 
Taylor by Santa Anna, and managed, while accompanjing General 
Wool to the Mexican general-in-chief, to separate from them, and 
thus rejoined the Mexicans." — See Mexican History of the War with 
Mexico, p. 126. 



of canister from his guns made terrible havoc in the 
ranks of the enemy ; they reeled and staggered as the 
iron hail swept away Avhole platoons. The second 
and third discharge forced them to recoil in dismay, 
and they fled madly from the field. That was the 
last attempt made by the enemy to carry the American 
position ; and the night furnished the exhausted troops 
the opportunity for refreshing themselves. Amid the 
dead and the dying, without fires, they bivouacked 
upon the field of battle, listening to the groans of the 
wounded, and to the chilling blasts which howled 
through the valley, expecting the morning sun to wit- 
ness a renewal of the combat. But the result of that 
long and desperate conflict had broken the spirit of the 
Mexican army. They expected to achieve an easy 
victory, but were wholly put to the rout ; and they 
retired under the disheartening impression that the 
fates were against them, and their foes not to be con- 
quered. 

The force engaged under General Taylor was three 
hundred and thirty-four ofiicers, and four thousand four 
hundred and twenty-five men, of which only four hun- 
dred and fifty-three were regular troops. The strength 
of the Mexican army was at least twenty thousand 
men. The American loss was two hundred and sixty- 
seven killed, four hundred and fifty-six wounded, and 
twenty-three missing. The loss of the Mexicans in 
killed and wounded, according to the lowest estimate, 
was fifteen hundred, and probably amounted to two 
thousand. 

While these important events were transpiring in 
the field, the capital of Mexico was agitated and dis- 
tracted with the violence of contending factions, and 
apparently on the eve of a new revolution. The dis- 
asters of Santa Anna were nearly as fatal to him in a 
political as in a military point of view. Farias, who 
exercised the presidency in his absence, greatly in- 
creased the popular exasperation, by endeavouring to 
force further contributions from the church, to carry on 
the war. The excitement was so great, that a resort 
was had to arms, and a general insurrection was only 
prevented by the timely arrival of Santa Anna, who, 
advised of this forniidable " fire in his rear," turned his 
retreat from a foreign foe into an advance upon a far 
more dangerous domestic one. 

While Mexico was thus torn and distracted by inter- 
nal conflicts, General Scott, on the 9th of March, 1847, 
eff"ected a landing in the vicinity of Vera Cruz, with a 
well-appointed army of twelve thousand men, ably 
supported by a sufiicient naval force. The landing 



HISTORY OF. THE UNITED STATES. 



473 



was effected without opposition, under the guns of the 
Amei'icau squadron. The line of investment was com- 
menced on the same day, but was not completed until 
the r2th. During that time, a norther prevailed, 
which drove the clouds of sand into the faces of the 
troops, and rendered their operations exceedingly dilli- 
cult. Frequent discharges from the city and castle 
greatly annoyed the American troops. On the 14th, 
the Americans forced the enemy to relinquish the space 
which intervened between the American lines and the 
city. But the continuance of the storm rendered it 
very difficult to land the heavy ordnance from the 
fleet until the 18th. On the 22d, at two o'clock, 
General Scott issued a summons to the governor of 
Vera Cruz to surrender, informing him that the city 
was invested by sea and land. This communication 
was responded to on the same day by the governor, 
Juan Morales, who rejected his proposal ; and General 
Scott ordered the seven mortars, which were placed in 
battery, to fire upon the city. The lighter vessels 
which composed Commodore Perry's squadron ap- 
proached within range, and, being somewhat protected 
from the raking fire of the castle, opened their guns 
upon the city. The discharges from the fleet and the 
mortars continued during the night of the 22d, and on 
the 23d three more mortars were added to the number. 
During the 24th, the fire somewhat slackened ; but on 
the 25th, all the batteries were in operation, and proved 
terribly destructive. The shells, exploding in the 
heart of the city, not only demolished the buildings, 
but the iron missives with which they were charged 
carried death and dismay in every direction. The 
bombardment was so disastrous that the consuls of 
Great Britain, France, Spain, and Russia, desired Gen- 
eral Scott to grant a truce, to enable the neutrals, and 
the Mexican women and children, to abandon the city. 
To that communication General Scott replied, that he 
could not grant a truce, unless applied for by the gov- 
ernor of Vera Cruz, accompanied by a distinct propo- 
sition to surrender the city. He also informed them 
that the communication between the neutral ships of 
war lying in the vicinity of Vera Cruz was kept open 
to allow the neutrals in the city an opportunity for 
escape. 

On the 26th, General Scott received overtures from 
General Landero for a suspension of hostilities, for the 
purpose of having honourable terms made with the 
garrison. This proposition was accepted, and the 
terms of capitulation were ratified on the 27th. It 
was agreed that the garrison should surrender them- 



selves prisoners of war, the Mexican officers to pre- 
serve their arms and private effects, and, togetiier with 
the rank and file of the regular portion of the prison- 
ers, to give their parole not- to serve again during the 
war, or until they were duly exchanged. With the 
city of Vera Cruz and San Juan de Ulloa were sur- 
rendered five thousand prisoners. 

This achievement, accomplished as it was with 
comparatively a very small loss, was one of the most 
brilliant events of the Mexican war. The castle of 
San Juan de Ulloa was considered impregnable by 
Europeans, and was only taken by the French, a few 
years previous, by the accidental explosion of a maga- 
zine. To land upon a hostile shore, and to enciicle 
the city of Vera Cruz, under the fire of her.batteries, 
illustrated the military skill of General Scott, and the 
patient endurance and gallantry of the American troops. 
A new base of operations was thus obtained, which 
opened a short and direct line to the city of Mexico. 
The eminent skill and science of Colonel Totten, of 
the engineer corps, were admirably displayed in this 
siege, and contributed greatly to the success of the 
enterprise. 

On the 6th of April, the American army took up its 
line of march for the city of Mexico. On the 17th, 
they met the first organized opposition at Plan del 
Rio. The Mexicans were intrenched in a formidable 
position, which was defended by a much larger force 
than General Scott expected to find there. The 
national road crosses a small, but very rapid stream, at 
the village of Plan del Rio. Near the village were 
several heights, upon which were planted batteries, tliat 
commanded the road for some distance, and rendered 
the position exceedingly formidable. General Scott 
at once determined to storm the batteries, and drive 
the enemy from their intrenchments, and issued his 
orders accordingly. 

These orders were brilliantly executed. The assault 
under Pillow, whose command was ordered to charge 
before it was formed, was twice rcpqjsed by the terri- 
ble fire from the Mexican batteries. The charge under 
Colonel Harney, up the steep-and precipitous ascent, 
in the face of the Mexican guns, was a daring and bril- 
liant affair, and resulted in driving the enemy, with 
great slaughter, from that part of the field. The or- 
ders issued to the division of Worth and Twiggs were 
executed with great gallantry, and the command of the 
latter general sustained considerable loss in executing 
his orders. About three thousand prisoners, with five 
generals and many other oflScers of rank, were some of 



474 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STvVTES. 



the fruits of this victory. Tiie loss of the Americans, 
in killed and wounded, was about two liundred and 
lifty ; that of tlie enemy, about three hundred and fifty. 
Among the American officers who were desperately 
wounded was General Shields. Tlie pursuit of the' 
enemy was rapidly continued in the direction of 
Jalapa. The rout of the Mexicans was complete. 
They dispersed in utter confusion, and the Americans 
soon after took possession of Jalapa and the strong 
fortress of Perote. At the latter place were captured 
fifty-four guns and mortars, eleven thousand sixty- 
five cannon balls, fourteen thousand three hundred 
bombs and hand-grenades, and five hundred muskets. 
A considerable portion of the troops under General Scott 
wore volunteers, who had entered the service for a lim- 
ited period, which being now about to expire, congress 
had passed a law for the reenlistment of such portions 
of thoni as were disposed to continue with the army ; 
and strenuoiis efforts were made to induce them to 
remain. But they had seen enough of war. Notwith- 
standing their uninterrupted successes, they did not 
covet more of the glory of conquest. Fresh from the 
bosoms of their families, and from their peaceful fire- 
sides, and unused not merely to the hardships, but to 
the restraints and discipline, of a military life, they 
could brook them no longer. They served out their 
terms with the fidelity and devotion of veterans, en- 
during fatigue and hardship of every description, and 
fighting in the field or in the breach, in the assault 
or in the skirmish, with the cool bravery and deter- 
mined, invincible courage of soldiers trained to war. 
But they were now free to depart with honour, and 
were quite willing to share the remaining laurels of 
the contest with the eager thousands at home who 
were panting to take their places in the field. In these 
circumstances, General Scott determined to discharge 
them at once, and to wait the arrival of the ten regi- 
ments of regulars, already ordered to be enlisted and 
organized for the war. 

In order to lessen the growing expenses of the 
war, and thus ^ence some part of the clamom's of 
the opposition, the president directed contributions to 
be levied upon the conquered country, for the sup- 
port of the invading army. To this course both 
General Taylor and General Scott strenuously ob- 
jected. They did not deny the military right, but 
»hey doubted the expediency, and even the practica- 
bility, of the measm-e. They felt that, in penetrating 
so far into the enemy's country, their only safety de- 
pended upon cultivating, as far £is possible, the good 



will of the people. They accordingly refiained fiom 
every act of individual oppression, and paid liberal 
prices for all the articles they required. Private jTi-op- 
erty and private rights were every where respected. 
The property of the government, whenever it fell in 
their way, was freely appropriated. This course oper- 
ated well for the army, who were never in want of 
any thing which the country aflbrded ; while to multi- 
tudes of the Mexican farmers it was a golden harvest 
of rare occurrence. 

At Washington, and throughout the United States, 
the war absorbed almost all other subjects. It gave a 
colour to all political action. All parties admired and 
applauded the gallant feats of the armies and their 
generals. The praises of Taylor and Scott, of Worth 
and Q,uitman, of Duncan, and Pierce, and Lally, and 
scores of others equally or more distinguished, were on 
every tongue. Still there was a powerful opposition 
to the war, and to the administration of Mr. Polk, as 
its authors and abettors. So powerful was this feeling, 
and so well had it been wrought upon, that a majority 
of the representatives elected to the thirtieth congress 
was opposed to the president. The twenty-ninth had 
not yet closed its session. Measures of great im- 
portance were proposed. But every thing was con- 
tested inch by inch. The progress of legislation was 
slow, and the movements of the army were conse- 
quently delayed. The employment of volunteers was 
not acceptable to the commanders, as they only enlist- 
ed for definite periods, and were liable to leave at the 
very moment when their services were most needed. 
The immediate raising of ten regiments of regular 
troops, to serve for the wax, was urgently recommend- 
ed. At the same time that measures were thus urged 
to prosecute the war, the president asked an appropria- 
tion of three millions, to be placed at his private dis- 
posal, evidently with a design to purchase a peace. To 
meet these heavy demands upon the treasury, three 
measures were devised. The first and easiest was a 
loan.. The second — a vexed question — was the sale, 
at a very low minimum, of such of the public lands as 
had been long in the market. The third was the im- 
position of a war revenue upon some articles on the 
free list of the tariff". The ten regiments were raised, 
after long and wearisome discussion. The loan was 
ordered ; but the other two measures died of debate. 

In connection with the proposition to appropriate 
three millions to assist the president in negotiating a 
peace, a new difficulty arose. It was clearly seen that, 
notwithstanding the president's disavowal of such a 



II 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



475 



purpose, one of the great objects of the war party was the 
acquisition of a portion of the Mexican territory. This, 
being in a southern latitude, it was naturally supposed, 
would be claimed for slavery. The determination, on 
the part of the northern advocates for freedom, brought 
out that tough and unmanageable bone of contention, 
the " Wilmot Proviso." This was a simple amend- 
ment to the three million bill, proposed by Mr. David 
Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, prohibiting slavery in any of 
the territories that might be acquired as the result of 
the contemplated negotiations. This famous "Pro- 
viso " has made its humble author a very prominent 
man, and given him a world-wide distmction. And 
yet it is nothing more nor less than a proposition to 
extend over newly-acquired territories the provisions 
of an ordinance of sixty years standing — an ordi- 
nance framed by Jefferson, and supported, without 
opposition or division, by all the fathers of the con- 
stitution. But the southern interest, which has, from 
the beginning, monopolized the government, prevailed. 
The "Proviso" was rejected, and the question left 
open for further and more bitter agitation in a time of 
peace. 

In the prospect, not very distant, of a new presiden- 
tial election, the position of the two victorious generals 
in Mexico, both of whom were opposed in politics to 
the party then in power, was decidedly alarming to the 
administration. General Scott had shown some polit- 
ical aspirations already ; and it was desirable, if possi- 
ble, to dim the lustre of his name, by dividing the 
glory of the conquest of Mexico. This was first pro- 
posed to be done by the creation of a new grade in 
the army, to take rank of all others, under the title of 
lieutenant-general. Colonel Benton, of Missouri, was 
the prominent and only candidate for this distinction. 
No possible motive, other than a personal one, could be 
assigned for this measure. General Scott's courage, 
skill, and consummate ability were unquestioned and 
unquestionable. He had accomplished whatever he 
had undertaken. He had done more and better than 
his instructions had demanded of him. There was 
not a man from Maine to Texas who would have risked 
his reputation upon the assertion that Colonel Benton, 
or any other inexperienced man in the country, could 
finish what Scott had begun better than he coiJfd do it 
himself In such a crisis, to supersede all the expe- 
rienced and tried officers in the army, by the arbitrary 
elevation of a mere civilian to the supreme command, 
would have been either to woo and insure defeat, or 



to turn tlic whole matter of the war into a broad farce, 
Fortunately, the good sense of the people prevailed, 
and the anomalous measure was defeated. 

A second attempt was made to obtain the same end. 
by iugiafting on a bill for the increase of the number 
of general officers in the army a i^rovision, that the 
president should be authorized to place any one of 
them, without regard to rank, in command of the army 
in Mexico. But this met with the same opposition, 
and shared the same fate as the other. Thus it was 
not without reason that General Scott apprehended 
" a fire in his rear," when he undertook the command 
of the army. 

The disasters of Vera Cruz and Cerro Gordo had 
not exhausted the resources of Santa Anna, nor entirely 
broken the spirits of the Mexicans. The president- 
general with difficulty escaped capture, and, with a few 
companions, after two or three days and nights of soli- 
tary wandering and romantic adventure among the 
mountain passes and secluded valleys of that alpine 
region, arrived at the city of Orizaba. Here he was 
received with great enthusiasm, and immediately set 
himself to devising measures to retrieve his lost for- 
tunes. This he would have had no time to do, if Gen- 
eral Scott had vigorously pursued his advantages. 
But his determination to discharge a large portion of 
the volunteers, and wait the arrival of recruits, — which 
was doubtless a prudent and commendable exercise .of 
" the better part of valor," — afforded ample time for the 
discomfited Mexican to arouse his countrymen to re- 
newed exertions, and to convmce them of the possi- 
bility of yet driving back the invaders. 

During this state of inactivity and mutual prepara- 
tion, a commissioner from the United States govern- 
ment, authorized to treat for peace, arrived at Vera 
Cruz. A more singular and injudicious appointment 
was jM-obably never ■ made, under ciixumstances so 
grave. Mr. N. P. Trist was simply a clerk in the state 
department at Washington, having neither position, 
experience, nor talent, to qualify him for so important 
a diplomatic mission. He was scarcely known out of 
Washington. His name had never been heard in 
Mexico. It is impossible to imagine a reason for the 
selection of such a man, unless it was intended as a 
deliberate insult both to the Mexican nation and to 
the commanding general of the American army. Gen- 
eral Scott received the commissioner with a marked 
coldness, which seriously offended the dignity of tiiat 
functionary. The following letter to the secretary of 



476 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



vvar will serve, not only to indicate the feelings of 
General Scott on this occasion, but to show the true 
military aspects of the whole transaction : — 

" Mr. Trist arrived here on the 14th instant. He has 
not done me the honour to call upon me. Possibly he 
has thought tlie compliment of a first visit was due 
to him ! 

" When I wrote to you and Mr. Trist, late in the 
night of the 7th instant, to go down by a detachment 
of horse that I was obliged to despatch early the next 
morning, I had not time to defend the position you had 
forced me to assume ; I shall now but glance at that 
position. The Hon. Mr. Benton has publicly declared, 
that if tlie law had passed making him general-in-chief 
of the United States armies in Mexico, either as lieu- 
tenant-general, or as junior major-general over seniors, 
the power would have been given him not only of 
agreeing to an armistice, (which would, of course, have 
appertained to his position,) but the much higher 
power of concluding a treaty of peace ; and it will be 
remembered, also, that in my letter to Major-General 
Taylor, dated June 12, 1846, written at your instance, 
and, as I understood at the time, approved by the cab- 
inet, his power to agree to an. armistice was merely 
adverted to in order to place upon it certain limitations. 
1 understand your letter to me of the 14th ultimo as 
not only taking from me, the commander of an army 
under the most critical circumstances, all voice or ad- 
vice in agreeing to a truce with the enemy, but as an 
attempt to place me under the military command of 
Mr. Trist ; for you tell me that, ' should he make 
known to you, in writing, that the contingency has 
occurred in consequence of which the president is will- 
ing that further active military operations should cease, 
you will regard such notice as a direction from the 
])resident to suspend them until further orders from 
this department.' 

" That is, I am required to respect the judgment of 
Mr. Trist here, on passing events purely military, as 
the judgment of the president, who is some two thou- 
sand miles off! 

" I suppose this is to be the second attempt of the 
kind ever made to dishonour a general-in-chief in the 
field, before or since the time of the French con- 
vention. 

" That other instance occurred in your absence from 
Washington, in June, 1845, when Mr. Bancroft, acting 
secretary pf war, instructed General Taylor in certain 
matters to obey the orders of Mr. Donaldson, charge 



d'affaires in Texas ; ' and you may remember the let- 
ter that I wrote to General Taylor, with the permis- 
sion of both Mr. Bancroft and yourself, to correct that 
blunder. 

" Whenever it may be the pleasure of the president 
to instruct me, directly or through any authorized chan- 
nel, to propose or to agree to an armistice with the 
enemy, on the happening of any given contingency or 
contingencies, or to do any other military act, I shall 
most promptly and cheerfully obey him ; but I entreat 
to be spared the personal dishonour of being again re- 
quired to obey the orders of the chief clerk of the state 
department as the orders of the constitutional com- 
mander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United 
States. 

" To Mr. Trist, as a functionary of my government, 
I have caused to be shown, since his arrival here, every 
proper attention. I sent the chief quartermaster and 
an aid-de-camp to show him the rooms I had ordered 
for him. I have caused him to be tendered a sentinel, 
to be placed at his door and to receive his orders. I 
shall from time to time send him word of my personal 
movements, and I shall continue to show him all other 
attentions necessary to the discharge of any diplomatic 
functions with which he may be intrusted." 

This letter called forth from the war department a 
very strong and pungent reply. The secretary ob- 
serves in relation to the letter respecting the mission of 
Mr. Trist, " The president would not have deemed 
it proper that I should advert again to this subject, but 
for the apprehension he has that your course may ob- 
struct the measures he has taken to procure a peace. 
It does not appear, from any communication made by 
you to this department, that you have executed or at- 
tempted to execute the order which you have received 
to forward the despatch from the secretary of state 
addressed to the Mexican secretary of foreign affairs. 
The president is, however, unwilling to believe that 
you have not done your duty in this respect. If it has 
not been sent, he presumes that you have not been 
able to send it, and that you will, in due time, explain 
the causes which compelled you to detain it. 

" My letter, taken by itself, neither sustains nor ex- 
cuses ^Tch an interpretation as you have given to it ; 
and, taken in connection with the facts which Mr. 
Trist was directed to communicate to you, and which 
it was expected Avould have been communicated with 
that letter, shows how idle it is to imagine that there 
was any attempt to place you 'under the military 



41 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



477 



command of Mr. Trist,' or that you were 'required to 
respect the judgment of Mr. Trist here, (in Mexico,) on 
passing events purely military, as the judgment of the 
president, who is some two thousand miles oft".' The 
respect due to yourself, as well as that due to the presi- 
dent, who had placed you in chief command of our 
armies in Mexico, should have made you extremely 
reluctant to adopt such a conclusion, even on adequate 
proof of the fact ; and to me it seems, as I am sure it 
will appear to others, strange indeed that you have 
been able to extract any such inference from my letter. 
You and Mr. Trist are both functionaries of the gov- 
ernment of the United States, with important public 
interests confided to each in his respective sphere of 
action : cordial cooperation was expected ; duty im- 
posed it ; the public good, the cause of humanity, de- 
manded it. If there has been a failure in this respect, 
— and from the tenor of your despatch the president 
fears that there has been, — a high responsibility rests 
somewhere. 

" In relation to the direction for an armistice, or the 
suspension of hostilities, the president, after duly con- 
sidering all you have said on the subject, does not 
doubt that it was an order proper and right for him to 
give, and consequently one which you were bound to 
obey. He sincerely regrets your strange misapprehen- 
sion of it ; and he is wholly unable to conceive how 
you can reconcile with duty and subordination the 
making of it a topic of remark, I may say of incidental 
reproof, of your common superior, in an official com- 
munication to a subordinate olficer in another branch 
of the public service." 

Mr. Trist continued with the army in its marches, 
and finally had an opportunity, after General Scott 'had 
" conquered a peace," and taken possession of strong- 
holds, palaces, and citadels, to negotiate a treaty with 
the vanquished. In doing this, he transcended his or- 
ders, lost the confidence of the president and his cabi- 
net, and fully confirmed, to the nation and the world, 
General Scott's estimate of his fitness for the place to 
which he was so singularly elevated. 

Soon after his arrival at Jalapa, General Scott ad- 
dressed a proclamation to the people of Mexico, setting 
forth the causes of the war, the true state of the bel- 
ligerents, the utter hopelessness of further resistance on 
their part, and his wish, if possible, to prevent the 
further effusion of blood, and bring his work to a close 
without the necessity of fighting his way up to the 
" halls of the Montezumas." It is an admirable docu- 
ment, and worthy of preservation. 



" The General-in-chief of the Armies of the Uniled Stales oj 
America to the Mexican Nation. 

"Mexicans: The late events of the war, and the 
measures adopted in consequence by your government, 
make it my duty to address you, in order to lay before 
you truths of which you are ignorant, because tliey 
have been criminally concealed from you. I do not 
ask you to believe me singly on my word, — ■ though he 
who has not been found false has a claim to be be- 
lieved, — but to judge for yourselves of these truths, 
from facts within the view and scrutiny of you all. 

" Whatever may have been the origin of this war, 
which the United States were forced to undertake liy 
insurmountable causes, we regard it as an evil. War 
is ever such to both belligerents ; and the reason and 
justice of the case, if not unknown on both sides, are 
in dispute, and claimed by each. You have proof of 
this truth, as well as we ; for in Mexico, as in the 
United States, there have existed, and do exist, two 
opposite parties — one desiring peace; another, war. 

" Governments, however, have sacred duties to per- 
form, from which they cannot swerve ; and these 
duties frequently impose, from national considerations, 
a silence and a reserve that displease, at times, the 
majority of those who, from views purely personal or 
private, are found in opposition ; to Avhich governments 
can pay little attention, expecting the nation to repose 
in them the confidence due to a magistracy of its own 
selection. 

"Considerations of high policy and of continental 
American interests precipitated events, in spite of the 
circumspection of the cabinet at Washington. This 
cabinet, ardently desiring to terminate all differences 
with Mexico, spared no efforts compatible with honour 
and dignity. It cherished the most flattering hopes 
of attaining this end by frank explanations and reason- 
ings addressed to the judgment and prudence of the 
virtuous and patriotic government of General Herrera. 
An unexpected misfortune dispelled these hopes, and 
closed every avenue to an honourable adjustment. Your 
new government disregarded your national interests as 
well as those of continental America, and yielded, more- 
over, to foreign influences the most oppo.sed to those 
interests — the most fatal to the future of Mexican 
liberty, and of that republican system which the United 
States hold it a duty to preserve and to protect. Duty, 
honour, and dignity placed us under the necessity of 
not losing a season of which the monarchical party 
was fast taking advantage. As not a moment was to 



478 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



be lost, we acted %vitli a promptness and decision suited 
to the urgency of the case, in order to avoid a compli- 
cation of interests which might render our relations 
more difficult and involved. 

" Again : in the course of civil war, the government 
of General Paredes was overthrown. We could not but 
look upon this as a fortunate event, believing that any- 
other administration, representing Mexico, would be 
less deluded, more patriotic, and more prudent ; look- 
ing to the common good, weighing probabilities, 
strength, resources, and, above all, the general opinion 
as to the inevitable results of a national war. We 
were deceived — as perhaps you, Mexicans, were also 
deceived — in judging of the real intentions of General 
Santa Anna, whom you recalled, and whom our gov- 
ernment permitted to return. 

" Under this state of things, the Mexican nation has 
seen the results lamented by all, and by us most sin- 
cerely ; for we appreciate, as is due, the valour and 
noble decision of those unfortunate men who go to 
battle, ill conducted, worse cared for, and almost always 
enforced by violence, deceit, Or perfidy. 

" We are witnesses — and we shall not be taxed with 
partiality, as a party interested, when we lament with 
surprise — that the heroic behaviour of the garrison of 
Vera Cruz, in its valiant defence, has been aspersed by 
the general who had just been routed and put to shame- 
ful flight at Buena Vista, by a force far inferior to his 
own ; that the same general rewarded the insurgents 
of the capital, — promoters of civil war, — and heaped 
outrage on those who had just acquired for themselves 
singular distinction by a resistance beyond expectation, 
and of admirable decision. 

" Finally, the bloody event of Cerro Gordo has plain- 
ly shown the Mexican nation what it may reasonably 
expect, if it longer continues blind to its real situation 
— a situation to which it has been brought by some of 
its generals, whom it has most distinguished, and in 
whom it has most confided. 

" The hardest heart would have been moved to grief, 
in contemplating any battle-field of Mexico, a moment 
after the last struggle. Those generals whom the na- 
tion has paid, without service rendered, for so many 
years, have, in the day of need, with some honourable 
exceptions, but served to injure her by their bad exam- 
ple or unskilfulness. The dead and wounded on those 
gelds received no marks of military distinction, sharing 
alike the sad fate which has been the same from Palo 
Alto to Cerro Gordo ; the dead remained unburied, and 
the wounded abandoned to the clemency and charity of 



the victor. Soldiers who go to battle, knoAving they 
have such reward to look for, deserve to be classed w'th 
the most heroic ; for they are stimulated by no hope of 
glory, nor remembrance, nor a sigh — not even a 
grave. 

" Again : contemplate, honourable Mexicans, the lot 
of peaceful and industrious citizens in all classes of 
your country. The possessions of the church menaced, 
and presented as an allurement to revolution and an- 
archy ; the fortunes of rich proprietors pointed out for 
the plunder of armed ruffians ; the merchant and the 
mechanic, the husbandman and the manufacturer, bur- 
dened with contributions, excises, monopolies, duties on 
consumption, and surrounded by officers and collectors 
of tliese odious internal customs ; the man of letters 
and the legislator ; the freeman of knowledge, who 
dares to speak, persecuted, without trial, by some fac- 
tion, or by the very rulers who abuse their power ; 
and criminals, unpunished, are set at liberty, as were 
those of Perote. What, then, Mexicans, is the liberty 
of which you boast ? 

" I will not believe tjiat Mexicans of the present day 
want the courage to confess errors which do not dis- 
honour them, or to adopt a system of true liberty — 
one of peace and union with' their brethren and neigh- 
bours of the north. 

" Neither can I believe Mexicans ignorant of the in- 
famy of the calumnies put forth by the press, in order 
to excite hostility against us. No ; public spirit cannot 
be created nor animated by falsehood. We have not 
profaned your temples, nor abused your women, nor 
seized your property, as they would have you believe. 
We say it with pride, and we confirm it by an appeal 
to your bishops and the curates of Tampico, Tuzpan, 
Matamoras, Monterey, Vera Cruz, and Jalapa; to all 
the clergy, civil authorities, and inhabitants of all the 
places we have occupied. 

" We adore the same God ; and a large portion of our 
army, as well as of the people of the United States, is 
Catholic, like yourselves. We punish crime wherever 
we find it, and reward merit and virtue. 

" The army of the United States respects, and will 
ever respect, private property of every class, and the 
property of the Mexican church. Woe to him who does 
not — where we are. 

" Mexicans : the past is beyond remedy, but the fu- 
ture may yet be controlled. I have repeatedly declared 
to you that the government and people of the LFnited 
States desire peace — desire your sincere friendship. 
Abandon, then, state prejudices; cease to be the sport 



^^1 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



479 



of private ambition, and conduct yourselves like a great 
American nation. Abandon at once those old colo- 
nial habits, aad learn to be truly free — truly repub- 
lican. You may then soon attain prosperity and 
happiness, of which you possess all the elements ; but 
remember that yon are Americans, and that your hap- 
piness is not to come from Europe. 

" I desire, in conclusion, to say to you, with equal 
frankness, that, were it necessary, an army of one hun- 
dred thousand Americans would soon be among you ; 
and tliat the United States, if forced to terminate by 
arms their differences with you, would not do it in an 
uncertain or precarious, or still less in a dishonourable 
manner. It would be an insult to the intelligent peo- 
ple of this country to doubt their knowledge of our 
power. 

" The system of forming guerilla parties to annoy us 
will, I assure you, produce only evils to this country, 
and none to our army, which knows how to protect 
itself, and how to proceed against such cutthroats ; 
and if, so far from calming resentments and passions, 
you try to irritate, you will but force upon- us the hard 
necessity of retaliation. In that event, you cannot 
blame us for the consequences which will fall upon 
yourselves. 

" I shall march with this army upon Puebla and 
Mexico. I do not conceal this from you. From those 
capitals I may again address you. We desire peace, 
friendship, and union ; it is for you to choose whether 
you prefer continued hostilities. In either case, be 
assured I will keep my word. 
Head-Quakieks of the Aemt, ) 
Jalap A, May 11, 1847." 5 

This proclamation of General Sco^tt was highly 
commended by all parties in the United -States, and 
was received with great favour by a large portion of 
the people of Mexico, who would have yielded at once 
to its generous suggestions, if they had been free to 
act for themselves. They were entirely in the power 
of their military leaders. The secretary of war thus 
commended the proclamation : — 

" I have received and laid before the president the 
copy of your proclamation to the Mexican nation of 
the 11th of May. The considerations you have pre- 
sented to the people of Mexico, as inducements to them 
to wish for peace and to concur in measures for the 
accomplishment of that desirable object, are well select- 
ed and ably enforced. As it could not have been your 
design to enter into a full discussion of the causes which 
led to the war, it is not to be taken as an authoritative 

61 



exposition of the views of the executive in this respect ; 
but he regards it as a document containing ' topics and 
sentiments the most likely to find a response in the 
bosoms of the Mexicans, and to promote the cause of 
justice, moderation, and peace.' Such were properly 
the scope and end of the proclamation, and most ably 
have they been carried out." 

Senor Auvaya was now president of Mexico ad in- 
terim. The Mexican congress was in session. So 
excited and exasperated were they, on receiving tidings 
of the disastrous issue of the battle of Ccrro Gordo, 
that they "passed many violent decrees, breathing war 
to the uttermost against the United States ; declaring 
that the executive should have no power to conclude 
a treaty, or even an armistice, and denouncing as a 
traitor any Mexican functionary who should entertahi 
either proposition." While the punishment of treason 
was thus proclaimed against any one who should pre- 
sume to speak of peace, the executive officers were en- 
dowed with extraordinary powers for the prosecution 
of the war. The greatest activity prevailed. The 
guerilla system was strongly recommended and fostered. 
A levy en masse was ordered, the capital was declared 
in a state of siege, and great preparations were made 
to put the fortifications of the city in the best possible 
condition of defence. 

Such being the temper of the existing government 
and the capital, it required something more than the 
issuing of a proclamation by General Scott, or the 
waving of an olive-branch by Mr. Trist, to restore the 
nation to its right mind. 

Preparations for an advance upon the capital of 
Mexico were at length completed, and, on the 8th of 
May, General Worth took up his line of march from 
Perote. On the 15th he arrived at Puebla, and took 
possession of the city without resistance. General 
Santa Anna had arrived there but a few days before, 
expecting to find supplies of /noney, ammunition, arms, 
and men, and resolved to make another stand in defence 
of the passage to the capital. To his dismay, however, 
he found no preparations for defence, no means to em- 
ploy for that purpose, and no spirit in the people to 
second his design. Forcible exactions were attempted, 
but without success. Ten thousand dollars were all 
he could obtain, even by force. It is due to Santa 
Anna to say, that he did what he could to induce, and 
even to compel, the place to make a stand. But there 
were absolute terror and perfect apathy with the people, 
and with the governor, Don Rafael Inzunza, a full con- 
viction that defence was impossible in the then state 



480 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



of the city. Santa Anna was requested to evacuate, 
and leave thu place to the mercy of the invaders. 

Resolved, if possible, to do something to annoy the 
enemy, and attach some little eclat to his own position, 
Santa Anna attempted to surprise and cut off the 
American advance. Throwing forward a strong body 
of horse, by a circuitous and concealed route, to occu- 
py the height of Chacapa, which overlooks the town 
of Amozoc, he thought to place himself between the 
two divisions of the American advance, of which Gen- 
eral Worth led the van and General Quitman the rear. 
But Worth was too quick for him. He was already 
at Amozoc, though unaware of his approach. Instead 
of surprising his enemy, however, Santa Anna was 
himself surprised, and driven back with considerable 
loss. General Worth was not aware of the designs of 
the Mexican, until the head of his column was seen 
winding along the mountain side, and endeavoring to 
conceal itself in the thickets, the object being to pass 
Amozoc, attack duitman, and thus compel Worth to 
fall back. Not knowing the intentions of the enemy, 
or what force he had to contend with. General Worth 
immediately threw the guns of the siege train into 
battery at the angles of the plaza of the village, and 
sent out corps of observation by diiferent routes. Sup- 
posing, from their movements, that the enemy had 
Q,uitman's corps in view, he sent a detachment, under 
Colonel Garland, in that direction. On passing out of 
the village, a long column of lancers was seen moving 
rapidly down on the right. Their number was after- 
wards ascertained to be three thousand, unsupported 
by infantry or artillery. When the head of the column 
reached a point opposite the centre of the town, the 
batteries opened a rapid and effective fire. A few 
rounds sufficed to break and scatter the column. Fly- 
ing up the sides of the hills, it soon after reunited, and 
resumed its march in the same dii-ection as before. 
The 2d artillery and 8th infantry, with two sections 
of the light batteries, were put upon its track, when 
suddenly it swerved to the left, and disappeared among 
the hills. Retreating by the slope of the Malinche, 
and traversing, with great difficulty and fatigue, a por- 
tion of country which was every where broken by 
deep gullies, or tangled with almost impenetrable 
thickets, they arrived, a little before sunset, at Puebla, 
weary, dispirited, and their numbers somewhat reduced. 
General Santa Anna led this enterprise in person. 

The result of this adventiue tended in no way to 
rouse the authorities of Puebla to measures of resist- 
ance or defence ; and General Santa Anna, after seizing 



all the horses he could find for the use of his cavalry, 
left the city early the next morning, continuing his 
retreat towards Mexico. The same day, the 1.5th of 
May, General Worth entered the city, the authorities 
having come out three miles to meet him, and make 
arrangements for the capitulation. 

Santa Anna now fixed his head-quarters, temporarily, 
at the village of St. Martin Teamalucan, about twenty- 
five miles from Mexico. His recent defeats had lost 
him the confidence and favour of the people to a great 
extent. A new election, or, rather, an attempt at an 
election, had just passed, resulting in no choice. This 
left the general still in^power, till a new election. 
Having, by great exertions, increased the force of the 
army, so as to make a fair show of power and resolu- 
tion, he hastened to the capital, to see what could be 
done there to reestablish himself with the people. 
The city was distracted with contending factions. 
The government was a mere name, a shadow, under 
which unprincipled men sought to accomplish their 
private ends. Santa Anna, possessed of the extraor- 
dinary powers so recently conferred by congress, seized 
his personal enemies, and shut them up in prison, or 
assigned them to distant service. Almonte was incar- 
cerated at San Jago, and Arista at Acapulco. Busta- 
mente was ordered to Sinaloa, and Ampudia to Cuer- 
navaca. This done, Santa Anna resigned the presi- 
dency, on the 29th of May. His example was soon 
followed by several generals, the veteran Bravo at their 
head, and all appeared in irretrievable confusion. 

Having thus " sacrificed himself for the public 
good," and lain four days upon the altar, exposed to 
the admiration of the people and the army, who 
knew not which way to look for a leader, he rose, 
suddenly, on the 2d of June, withdrew his resignation, 
on which congress had taken no action, and resumed 
the dictator. The Mexicans were once more roused 
to vigorous action. Reenforcements to the army 
were rapidly concentrating, and the work of fortifying 
the city at every point was pushed with the greatest 
energy. Battalion after battalion poured in from the 
different cities and states of the republic ; each sent its 
guns for the defence ; while many more were in the 
process of casting, at a newly-established foundery near 
the capital ; so that, by the end of June, the dictator 
found himself at the head of twenty-five thousand 
men, with sixty pieces of artillery. 

The reenforcements did not arrive as fast as General 
Scott expected, and he was detained in a state of 
"masterly inactivity " nearly all summer. Impctient 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



481 



of the long delay, and knowing the heavy force already 
collecting about the capital of Mexico, he thought it 
best to concentrate his own forces. He accordingly, 
on the 3d of June, ordered up the garrison from Jalapa 
to Paebla, keeping possession of the castle of Perote, 
for the accommodation of the sick. This left the whole 
route from Perote to Vera Cruz unguarded, and open 
to the enemy. Parties of guerillas were skulking 
about in all directions, to cut off stragglers from the 
army, and to plunder the trains on their way to head- 
quarters. Tliese banditti were now well organized, hav- 
ing a secret understanding with the dictator. Colonel 
Cenobio, a notorious chief among them, held his ren- 
dezvous near Mango de Clavo, the magnificent hacienda 
of Santa Anna. Serious losses were incurred in this 
way by the Americans, and many valuable lives were 
sacrificed. On the 4th of June, Colonel Mcintosh 
marched from Vera Cruz, with a train of one hundred 
and twenty-eight wagons, and a command of two com- 
panies of mounted and one of dismounted dragoons, 
and six of infantry. General Cadwallader followed 
him, on the 8th, with about five hundred men, and 
two mountain howitzers. On the 10th, he overtook 
Mcintosh, both having been greatly annoyed by the 
gueiiileros, who amused themselves by firing at a long 
range from behind the shelter of rock, or tree, or mound, 
and then retiring from pursuit. They also succeeded 
in robbing some of the wagons. On the 11th, the train 
arrived at the National Bridge, which spans the Rio de 
la Antigua, a few miles below Cerro Gordo. Here the 
enemy was found to be in considerable force, having 
possession of the bridge, and of the surrounding heights. 
The position was strong and well posted. It was near 
night, and the full force of the enemy was not seen. 
Cadwallader ordered an instant charge by a detach- 
ment of dragoons, at the same time bringing his howit- 
zers to bear. When the dragoons reached the middle 
of the bridge, the hills on either side were suddenly 
lighted up by the flash of five hundred muskets. The 
dragoons were thrown into confusion, recoiled, and 
seemed about giving way, but immediately rallied 
under the voice and example of their commander. 
Lieutenant Maury, and carried the point. Had the 
Americans been in the position of the Mexicans, there 
would not have been a man left to tell how the adven- 
ture fared. The American soldiers take sure aim in 
fighting, which soon decides a conflict. The Mexi- 
cans generally fire at random, as if the flash and the 
noise were to frighten the enemy, or the lead to find 
its own way to his heart. 



A temporary barricade, which had been thrown 
across the road, was histantly carried, and, the .ufantry 
coming up to the support of the dragoons, the enemy 
were dislodged, and driven back in great disorder. 
The Americans lost, in this aft"air, thirty-two men in 
the ranks, besides a considerable lumaber of drivers, 
and other persons attendant upon the train. On the 
13th, the march was resumed, the enemy hovering on 
its flanks all the way to Jalapa, and firing from the 
thickets, and from behind the rocks, inflicting a severe 
loss both in men and animals. 

At the pass of La Hoya a similar reception was 
prepared for the train. The heights commanding the 
pass were occupied by gnerilleros, and the passage 
was fiercely disputed, but carried without much loss. 
Joined by Colonel Childs at Jalapa, the train moved on 
to Perote, and awaited the arrival of General Pillow, 
who left Vera Cruz on the 17th, with fifteen hundred 
men. Though annoyed, in all its march, by sriaall par- 
ties of skulking gnerilleros, and threatened with serious 
opposition at the pass of El Pinal, the column reached 
Puebla on the 8th of July. By these accessions. Gen- 
eral Scott's force was increased to more than ten thou- 
sand. General Pierce, who left Vera Cruz on the 19th 
of July, with a command of three thousand men, 
reached head-quarters, at Puebla, early in August, hav- 
ing encountered the same difliculties and dangers with 
those who preceded him, and having lost, by the 
guerillas and by disease, nearly five hundred of his men. 

By the 6th of August, the army was ready to com- 
mence its march on Mexico. Just at this moment, a 
communication was received, through secret agents, 
from the president-general of Mexico, of a character so 
singular, that, had it purported to come from any other 
man in the wide world, it would have been regarded 
as a forgery. But, as nothing in the way of duplicity, 
cunning, or treason, was out of character with Santa 
Anna, it. was received as a genuine proposal, and treated 
as such. It suggested that, as the Mexicans relied upon 
their defences and their army of thirty-six thousand 
men, and felt confident of being able to annihilate the 
Americans on their approach to the city, the only hope 
of securing a peace was in once more attacking and 
carrying some of their strongholds. It accordingly 
proposed that General Scott should march into the 
valley with his whole force, assault and carry one of 
the outworks of the Mexican hne of defence, its sworn 
defender conniving at and permitting it ; and then, ni 
the moment of gaining so signal an advantage, send in 
a flag of truce, and offer to negotiate, A previous prop- 



4S2 



HiSTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



osition had been made to purchase a peace, by placing 
at the private disposal of the " invincible " Mexican a 
million of dollars. The desire to sjiare the effusion of 
blood was all that induced the American commander 
to listen to such proposals. He knew the character he 
had to deal with, and was as willing to buy the man 
who was willing to be sold, as to fight the man who, 
for a price, could secretly consent beforehand to be 
beaten. There was a division in the council in respect 
to these propositions. So little confidence was reposed 
in the integrity of Santa Anna, that no one was will- 
ing to risk even a delay of action upon the responsi- 
bility of his word. Yet all were desirous of accom- 
plishing the great end of the war, by peaceable means 
if they could. General Scott was strongly inclined to 
meet tiie propositions as they rose, but could not bring 
himself to consent, after a jDartial victory, to seem to 
sue for peace. The result was a sort of non-committal 
answer, which left both parties free to act according to 
their own subsequent views of duty and interest. 

The crisis of the war was now at hand. The 
capital of Mexico,- the first and oldest city in the 
western world, the jewel of Central America, was 
about to be attacked — a city of one hundred and 
eighty thousand inhabitants, remarkably well situated 
for defence, and defended, at every assailable point, 
by fortifications deemed absolutely impregnable, and 
guarded by a well-appointed army of more than three 
times the force of the assailants. The contest was one 
of the most unequal that ever was waged. That of 
Cortez with Montezuma, in the same beautiful valley, 
three hundred and fifty years before, was scarcely more 
rasli and daring. He had horses and fire-arms, which 
were wholly unknown to tlie Aztecs, and against 
which their simple arrows and their naked bodies 
were no defence. He had, also, the friendship and 
assistance of powerful tribes of natives, the natural 
enemies of Montezuma. The Americans had no such 
advantage. Every tiling was against them but their 
own indomitable courage, and the very exigency of 
their case. They well knew that victory or annihila- 
tion were their only alternatives. A single defeat 
would have been their instant ruin. If they had fal- 
tered or given way at a single point, it would have 
nerved every arm in Mexico to resist and exterminate 
them. The doubtful and timid would have become 
bold as lions. Those who had been disposed, from 
fear or advantage, to show them respect, or to supply 
their wants, would have combined eiiinasse, to crush 
them ; all factions, and all leaders, would have united, 



each vying with the other to immolate, on the altar of 
their country, the greatest possible number of their 
ruthless invaders. Under these circumstances, the 
American army took up their last line of march, and 
entered the valley on the 10th of August. The head- 
quarters of the commander-in-chief were fixed at Ayot- 
la, a small village on the north-eastern angle of Lake 
Chalco. 

An extraordinary energy seemed to have taken pos- 
session of the Mexican troops. A determination to 
resist to the last extremity appeared to govern them 
all. Those persons who had hitherto been anxious 
for the establishment of peace now hesitated to utter 
their sentiments, and all seemed resolved to vindicate 
the honour of their country. Fortifications were re- 
paired, cannon cast, and powder manufactured with 
great industry. The plan of operations adopted by 
Santa Anna was, to await the attack of the Americans 
in his intrenchments, while the army of the north, im- 
der General Valencia, composed of the flower of the 
Mexican troops, was ordered to assail the invaders in 
the rear. The first barrier to the advance of General 
Scott was the truly formidable position of El Perion. 
This was a lofty hill, on the southern shore of 1/ake 
Tezcuco, strongly fortified, and commanding the great 
thoroughfai-e leading to the city. On the southern 
line of the city were the fortifications of Mexical- 
cingo, San Antonio, the Convent, and the bridge of 
Churubusco. Its south-western side was defended by 
the fortress of Chapultepec. The north, from whence 
no danger of attack could be apprehended, was only 
protected by three garitas ; while the eastern part, 
where it was supposed the Americans would make the 
most formidable demonstration, was defended by El 
Penon. On the 9th of August, the brigade of General 
Leon marched out of the city, for the purpose of cov- 
ering that fortification. Santa Anna himself visited it, 
for the purpose of givuig his final orders for its defence. 

On the 12th, a daring and successful reconnaissance 
of El Penon was effected. As the party approached, 
a Mexican, in the proud confidence that the place was 
absolutely impregnable, jumped upon the parapet, and 
shouted defiance to the invaders. On the 13th, a de- 
tachment, under the command of Brigadier-General 
Smith, ventured into the narrow valley beyond El 
Penon, to reconnoitre Mexicalcingo. This was the 
most daring reconnaissance of the whole war. To ac- 
complish it, a handful of men were obliged to traverse 
a narrow pass between two of the most formidable of 
the enemy's strongholds, where they were in the most 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



483 



imminent danger of being shut up between two fires, 
without the possibility of an escape. Tlie adventure 
was ably and successfully conducted. The two great 
outposts of the city were declared to be impregnable^ 
and consequently the ordinary route to its gates was 
impracticable. The army was encamped, in divisions, 
in several small villages along the northern and eastern 
shores of Lake Chalco. Lieutenant-Colonel Duncan 
having volunteered to reconnoitre the road around the 
southern shore of that lake, and found it practicable, 
the whole army was put in motion on the loth, with 
a view to reach the capital by its southern approach, 
and thus avoid the necessity of carrying those formida- 
ble outposts in the northern valley. The southern 
line of defence was by no means feebly fortified. It 
consisted. of several points, ho one of them, except San 
Antonio, to be compared to El Peiion or Mexicalcingo, 
but altogether presenting an appalling barrier to so 
small an army. San Antonio, Contreras, San Angel, 
Churubusco, Tacubaya, Molino del Rey, and Chapul- 
tepec, were each in succession to be carried, before they 
could reach the city, which, with their ranks thinned^ 
and their strength exhausted by so many hard-fought 
battles, might prove the most difficult conquest of all. 
The events of the first few days that followed this 
movement will be given in the language of General 
Scott's official report to the war department. If it 
seem partial and one sided, it v/ill have, at least, 
the advantage of coming fresh from the pen of one 
who ought to have known every circumstance accu- 
rately, and whose successes were so brilliant and miin- 
terrupted, that he could well afford to allow to his 
enemy every advantage which they could with any 
propriety crlaim ; and, as it details the actions, and ap- 
plauds the gallantry of his officers and men, it is wholly 
free from that distasteful egotism which usually char- 
acterizes the narratives of personal exploits. It com- 
mences at San Augustin, the last unfortified village on 
the south-western border of Lake Xochimilco. 

" Arriving here on the 18th, Worth's division and 
Harney's cavalry were pushed forward a league, to 
reconnoitre, and to carry or to mask San Antonio, on 
the direct road to the capital. This village was found 
strongly defended by field-works, heavy guns, and a 
numerous garrison. It could only be turned by in- 
fantry to the left, over a field of volcanic rocks and 
lava ; for, to our right, the ground was too boggy. 
It was soon ascertained, by the daring engineers. Cap- 
tain Mason and Lieutenants Stevens and Tower, that 
he point could only be approached, by the front, over 



a narrow causeway, flanked with wet ditches of great 
depth. Worth was ordered not to attack, but to 
threaten and to mask the place. 

" The first shot fired from San Antonio, on the 18th, 
killed Captain S. Thornton,* 2d dragoons, a gallant 
officer, who was covernig the operations with his 
company. 

" The same day, a reconnaissance was commenced to 
the left of San Augustin, first over difficult mounds, 
and farther on, over the same field of volcanic rocks 
and lava, which extends to the mountains, some five 
miles from San Antonio towards Magdalena. This 
reconnaissance was continued by Captain Lee, assisted 
by Lieutenants Beauregard and Tower, all of the en- 
gineers ; who were joined, in 'the afternoon, by Major 
Smith, of the same corps. Other divisions coming up, 
Pillow's was advanced to make a practicable road for 
heavy artillery, and Twiggs's thrown farther in front, 
to cover that operation ; for, by the partial reconnais- 
sance of yesterday. Captain Lee discovered a large 
corps of observation in that direction, with a detach- 
ment of which his supports of cavalry and foot under 
Captain Kearney and Lieutenant-Colonel Graham, re- 
spectively, had a successful skirmish. 

" By three o'clock this afternoon, the advanced di- 
visions came to a point where the new road could only 
be continued under the direct fire of twenty-two pieces 
of the enemy's artillery, most of them of large calibre, 
placed in a strong intrenched camp, to oppose our 
operations, and surrounded by every advantage of 
ground, besides immense bodies of cavalry and infan- 
try, hourly reenforced from the city, over an excellent 
road beyond the volcanic field, and consequently en- ' 
tirely beyond the reach of our cavalry and artillery. 

" Arriving on the ground an hour later, I found that 
Pillow's and Twiggs's division had advanced to dis- 
lodge the enemy, picking their way (all officers on 
foot) along his front, and extending themselves towards 
the road, from the city and the enemy's left. Captain 
Magruder's field battery, of twelve and six-pounders, 
and Lieutenant Callender's battery of mountain howit- 
zers and rockets, had also, with great difficulty, been 
advanced within range of the intrenched camp. These 
batteries, most gallantly served, suflered much, in the 
course of the afternoon, from the enemy's, superior 
metal. 

" The battle, though mostly stationary, continued 



* The same officer who had been the first victim of the war near 
Matamoras, where he was surprised and taken prisoner. 



484 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



to rage, with great violence, until nightfall. General 
P. F. Smith's and Colonel Riley's brigades, supported 
by Generals Pierce and Cadwallader's brigades, were 
more than three hours under a heavy fire of artillery 
and musketry, along the almost impassable ravine in 
front and to the left of the intrenched camp. Besides 
the twenty-two pieces of artillery, the camp and ravine 
were defended closely by masses of infantry, and these 
again supported by clouds of cavalry at hand and hov- 
ering in view. Consequently, no decided impression 
could be made by daylight on the enemy's most for- 
midable position, because, independent of the difficulty 
of the ravine, our infantry, unaccompanied by cavalry 
and artillery, could not advance in column without 
being mowed down by the grape and canister of the 
batteries, nor advance in line without being ridden 
over by the enemy's numerous cavalry. All our corps, 
however, including Magruder's and Callender's last 
batteries, not only maintained the exposed positions 
early gained, but all attempted charges upon them, re- 
spectively, — particularly on Riley, twice closely en- 
gaged with cavalry in greatly superior numbers, — were 
repulsed and punished. 

" From an eminence, soon after arriving near the 
scene, I observed the church and hamlet of Contreras, 
(or Ansalda,) on the road leading up from the capital, 
through the intrenched camp, to Magdalena ; and see- 
ing, at the same time, the stream of reen force ments 
advancing by that road from the city, I ordered Colonel 
Morgan, with his regiment, till then held in reserve by 
Pillow, to move forward, and to occupy Contreras, (or 
Ansalda,) being persuaded, if occupied, it would ar- 
rest the enemy's reenforcements, and ultimately decide 
the battle. 

" Riley was already on the enemy's left, in advance 
of the hamlet. A few minutes later, Brigadier-General 
Shields, with his volunteer brigade, coming up, under 
my orders, from San Augustin, I directed Shields to 
follow and to sustain Morgan. These corps, over the 
extreme difficulties of ground — partially covered with 
a low forest — before described, reached Contreras, and 
found Cadwallader's brigade in position, observing the 
formidable movement from the capital, and much need- 
ing the timely reenforcement. 

" It was already dark, and the cold rain had begun 
to fall in torrents upon our unsheltered troops ; for the 
hamlet, though a strong defensive position, can hold only 
llie wounded men, and, unfortunately, the new regi- 
ments have little or nothing to eat in their haversacks. 
Wet, hungry, and without the possibility of sleep, all 



and. ^Bj 



onr gallant corps, I learn, are full of confidence, and 
only wait lor the last hour of darkness, to gain the posi- 
tions whence to storm and carry the enemy's works. 

" The morning of the 20th opened with one of a 
series of unsurpassed achievements, all in view of the 
capital, and to which I shall give the general name 
battle of Mexico. 

" In the night of the 19th, Generals Shields, P. F. 
Smith, and Cadwallader, and Colonel Riley, with their 
brigades, and the 15th regiment, under Colonel Mor- 
gan, detached from General Pierce, foiuid themselves 
in and about the important position, the village, ham- 
let, or hacienda, called, indifferently, Contreras, An- 
salda, San Geronimo, half a mile nearer to the city 
than the enemy's intrenched camp, on the same road, 
towards the factory of Magdalena. 

" That camp had been, unexpectedly, our formidable 
point of attack the afternoon before, and we had now 
to take it, without the aid of cavalry or artillery, or to 
throw back our advanced corps upon the road from 
San Augustin to the city, and thence force a passage 
through San Antonio. 

" Accordingly, to meet contingencies, Major-General 
Worth was ordered to leave, early in the morning of 
the 20th, one of his brigades to mask San Antonio_ 
and to march, with the other, six miles, via San Au- 
gustin, upon Contreras. A like destination was given 
to Major-General Quitman and his remaining brigade. 
in San Augustin, replacing, for the moment, the gar- 
rison of that important depot with Harney's brigade of 
cavalry, as horse could not pass over the intervening 
rocks to reach the field of battle. 

" Shields, the senior officer at the hamlet, having ar- 
rived in the night, after Smith had arranged with Cad- 
Avalladcr and Riley the plan of attack for the morning, 
delicately waived interference, but reserved to himself 
the double task of holding the hamlet, with his two 
regiments, (South Carolina and New York volunteers,) 
against ten times his numbers on the side of the city, 
including the slopes to his left, and, in case the camp 
in his rear should be carried, to face about and cut otF 
the flying enemy. 

" At 3 o'clock A. M., the great movement com- 
menced on the rear of the enemy's camp, Riley leading, 
followed successively by Cadwallader's and Smith's 
brigades, the latter temporarily under the orders of 
Major Dimick of the 1st artillery ; the whole force 
being commanded by Smith, the senior in the general 
attack, and whose arrangements, skill, and gallantry 
always challenge the highest admiration. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



'4S5 



" The march was rendered tedious by the darkness, 
rain, ajid mud ; but, about, sunrise, Riley, conducted 
by Lieutenant Tower, engineer, had reached an eleva- 
tion behind the enemy, whence he precipitated his 
columns, stormed the intrenchments, planted his sev- 
eral colours upon them, and carried the work — all in 
seventeen minutes. 

" Conducted by Lieutenant Beauregard, engineer, 
and Lieutenant Brooks, of Twiggs's staff, — both of 
whom, like Lieutenant Tower, had, in the night, twice 
reconnoitred the ground, — Cadwallader brought up to 
the general assault two of his regiments, the volti- 
geurs and the 11th, and at the appointed time. Colonel 
Ransom, with his temporary brigade, conducted by 
Captain Lee, engineer, not only made the movement 
to divert and to distract the enemy, but, after crossing 
the deep ravine in his front, advanced, and poured into 
the works, and upon the fugitives, many volleys from 
his destructive musketry. 

" In the mean time. Smith's own brigade, under the 
temporary command of Major Dimick, following the 
movements of Riley and Cadwallader, discovered, op- 
posite to, atid outside of the works, a long line of 
Mexican cavalry, drawn up as a support. Dimick, 
having at the head of the brigade the company of sap- 
pers and miners, under Lieutenant Smith, engineer, 
who had conducted the march, was ordered by Briga- 
dier-General Smith to form line faced to the enemy, 
and, in a charge against a flank, routed the cavalry. 

" Shields, too, by the wise disposition of his brigade, 
and gallant activity, contributed much to the general 
results. He held masses of cavalry and infantry, sup- 
ported by artillery, in check below him, and captured 
hundreds, with one general, (Mendoza,) of those who 
fled from above. 

" I doubt whether a more brilliant or decisive victo- 
ry, — taking into view ground, artificial defences, bat- 
teries, and the extreme disparity of numbers, — without 
cavalry or artillery on our side, is to be found on rec- 
ord. Including all our corps directed against the in- 
trenched camp, with Shields's brigade at the hamlet, 
we positively did not number over four thousand five 
hundred rank and file ; and we knew by sight, and 
since, more certainly, by many captured documents 
and letters, that the enemy had actually engaged on 
the spot seven thousand men, with at least twelve 
thousand more hovering within sight and striking dis- 
tance, both on the 19th and 20th. All, not killed or 
captured, now fled with precipitation. 

" Thus was the great victory of Contreras achieved ; 



one road to the capital opened, seven hrmdred of the 
enemy killed; eight hundred and thirteen prisoners, 
including, among eighty-eight ofiicers, four generals ; 
besides many colours and standards ; twenty-two pieces 
of brass ordnance, half of large calibre ; thousands of 
small arms and accoutrements ; an immense quantity 
of shot, shells, powder, and cartridges ; seven hundred 
pack mules, many horses, »kc., &c. ; all in our hands. 

" The battle being won before the advancing brig- 
ades of Worth's and Quitman's divisions were in sight, 
both were ordered back to their late positions ; Worth 
to attack San Antonio in front, with his whole force, 
as soon as approached in the rear bj^ Pillow's and 
Twiggs's divisions ; moving from Contreras, through 
San Angel and Coyoacan. By carrying San Antonio, 
we knew that we should open another, a shorter and 
better, road to the capital, for our siege and other trains. 

" Accordingly, the two advanced divisions and 
Shields's brigade marched from Contreras, under the 
immediate orders of Major-General Pillow, who was 
now joined by the gallant Brigadier-General Pierce,- of 
his division, personally thrown out of activity, late the 
evening before, by a severe hurt from the fall of his 
horse. 

"After giving necessary orders on the field, in the 
midst of prisoners and trophies, and sending instruc- 
tions to Harney's brigade of cavalry, left at San Au- 
gustin, to join me, I personally followed Pillow's com- 
mand. 

" Arriving at Coyoacan, two miles, by a cross road, 
from the rear of San Antonio, I first detached Captain 
Lee, engineer, with Captain Kearney's troop 1st dra- 
goons, supported by the rifle regiment, under Major 
Loring, to reconnoitre that strong point ; and next 
despatched Major-General Pillow, with one of his 
brigades, (Cadwallader's,) to make the attack upon it, 
in concert with Major-General Worth on the opposite 
side. 

" At the same time, by another road to the left, 
Lieutenant Stevens, of the engineers, supported by 
Lieutenant G. W. Smith's company of sappers and 
miners, of the same corps, was sent to reconnoitre the 
strongly fortified church or convent of San Pablo, in 
the hamlet of Churubusco, one mile off. Twiggs, 
with one of his brigades, (Smith's, less the rifles,) and 
Captain Taylor's field battery, were ordered to follow 
and to attack the convent. Major Smith, senior engi- 
neer, was despatched to concert with Twiggs the mode 
and means of attack, and Twiggs's other brigade (Ki 
ley's) I soon ordered up to support him. 



iS6 



HISTORY OP THE UNITED STATES. 



"Next I sent Pierce, (just able to keep the saddle,) 
with his brigade, conducted by Captain Lee, engineer, 
by a third road, a little farther to our left, to attack the 
enemy's right and rear, in order to favour the move- 
ment upon the convent, and cut off the retreat towards 
the capital. And, finally. Shields, senior brigadier to 
Pierce, with the New York and South Carolina volun- 
teers, was ordered to follow Pierce closely, and to take 
the command of our left wing. All these movements 
were made with the utmost alacrity by our gallant 
troops and commanders. 

■ Finding myself at Coyoacan, from which so many 
roads conveniently branched, without escort or reserve, 
I had to advance, for safety, close upon Twiggs's rear. 
The battle now raged from the right to the left of our 
wliole line. 

" Learning, on the return of Captain Lee, that 
Shields,- in the rear of Churubusco, was hard pressed, 
and in danger of being outflanked, if not overwhelmed, 
by greatly superior numbers, I immediately sent, under 
Major Sumner, the riiies, (Twiggs's reserve,) and Cap- 
tain Sibley's troop 2d dragoons, then at hand, to sup- 
port our left, guided by the same engineer. 

" About an hour earlier. Worth had, by skilful and 
daring movements upon the front and right, turned and 
forced San Antonio ; its garrison, no doubt, much 
shaken by our decisive victory at Contreras. 

'• The forcing of San Antonio was the second bril- 
liant event of the day. 

" Worth's division being soon reunited in hot pur- 
suit, he was joined by Major-General Pillow, wlio, 
marching from Coyoacan, and discovering that San 
Antonio had been carried, immediately turned to the 
left, according to my instructions, and, thougli much 
impeded by ditches and swamps, hastened to the attack 
of Churubusco. 

" The hamlet, or scattered houses bearing this name, 
presented, besides the fortified convent, a strong field- 
work, (iilie de po7it,) with regular bastions and curtains, 
at the head of a bridge over which the road passed 
from San Antonio to the capital. 

" The whole remaining forces of Mexico, (some 
twenty-seven thousand men,) cavalry, artillery, and 
infantry, collected from every quarter, were now in, 
on the flanks, or within supporting distance of those 
works, and seemed resolved to make a last and des- 
perate stand ; for if beaten here, the feebler defences at 
the gates of the city (four miles oflf) could not, as was 
well known to both parties, delay the victors an hour. 

" The fortified church or convent, hotly pressed by 



Twiggs, had already held out about an hour, when 
Worth and Pillow, the latter having with him Cadwalla- 
der's brigade, began to manoeuvre closely upon the 
tete de pout, with tlie convent at half gun-shot to their 
left. Garland's brigade, (Worth's division,) to which 
had been added the light battalion under Lieutenant- 
Colonel Smith, continued to advance in front, and, un- 
der the fire of a long line of infantry, oft" on the left of 
the bridge ; and Clarke, of the same division, directed 
his brigade along the road, or close by its side. Two 
of Pillow's and Cadwallader's regiments, the 11th and 
14th, supported. and participated in this direct move- 
ment ; the other, the voltigeurs, was left in reserve. 
Most of these corps, particularly Clarke's brigade, ad- 
vancing perpendicularly, were made to suffer much by 
the fire of the tete depont, and they would have suf- 
fered greatly more by flank attacks from the convent; 
but for the pressure of Twiggs on the other side of 
that work. 

" This well-combined and daring movement at 
length reached the principal point of attack, and the 
formidable tete depont was at once assaulted and car- 
ried by the bayonet. Its deep wet ditch was first gal- 
lantly crossed by the 8th and 5th infantry, commanded, 
respectively, by Major Waite and Lieutenant-Colonel 
Scott, followed closely by the 6th infantry, which had 
been so much exposed on the road ; the 11th regiment, 
under Lieutenant-Colonel Graham ; and the 14th, com- 
manded by Colonel Trousdale. About the same time, 
the enemy in front of Garland, after a hot conflict of 
an hour and a half, gave way, in a retreat towards the 
capital. 

" The immediate results of this third signal triumph 
of the day were, three field-pieces, one hundred and 
ninety-two prisoners, much ammunition, and two col- 
ours taken at the tele de pout. 

" Lieutenant J. F. Irons, aid-de-camp to Brigadier- 
General Cadwallader, a young officer of great merit, 
and conspicuous in battle on several previous occasions, 
received, in front of the work, a mortal wound. 

" As the concurrent attack upon the convent favoured, 
physically and morally, the assault upon the tete de 
pont, so, reciprocally, no doubt, the fall of the latter 
contributed to the capture of the former. The two 
works were only some four hundred and fifty yards 
apart ; and as soon as we were in possession of the tete 
de pont, a captured four-pounder was turned and fired 
several times upon the convent. In the same brief in- 
terval, Lieutenant-Colonel Duncan gallantly brought 
two of his guns to bear, at a short range, from the San 



fi 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



437 



Antonio road, upon the principal face of the work, and 
on the tower of the church, which, in the obstinate 
contest, had been often refilled with some of the best 
sharp-shooters of the enemy. 

"Finally, twenty miimtes after the Ute de font had 
been carried by Worth and Pillow, and at the end of a 
desperate conflict of two hours and a half, the church 
or convent, — the citadel of the strong line of defence 
along the rivulet of Churubusco, — yielded to Twiggs's 
division, and threw out on all sides signals of surren- 
der. The white flags, however, were not exhibited 
until the moment when the 3d infantry, mider Captain 
Alexander, had cleared the way by fire and bayonet, 
and had entered the work. Captain J. M. Smith and 
Lieutenant O. L. Shepherd, both of that regiment, 
with their companies, had the glory of leading the as- 
sault. The former received the surrender, and Captain 
Alexander instantly hung out from the balcony the 
coloius of the gallant 3d. Major Dimick, with a part 
of the 1st artillery, serving as infantry, entered nearly 
abreast with the leading troops. 

" Captain Taylor's field battery, attached to Twiggs's 
division, opened its efl>ective fire, at an early moment, 
upon the outworks of the convent and the tower of its 
church. Exposed to the severest fire of the enemy, 
the captain, his officers and men, won universal admi- 
ration ; but, at length, much disabled in men and horses, 
the battery was, by superior orders, withdrawn from 
the action, thirty minutes before the surrender of the 
convent. 

" Those corps, excepting Taylor's battery, belonged 
to the brigade of Brigadier-General Smith, who closely 
directed the whole attack in front, with his habitual 
coolness and ability ; while Riley's brigade, under Cap- 
tain T. Morris and Lieutenant-Colonel Plympton. vig- 
orously engaged the right of the work and part of its 
rear. At the moment, the rifles, belonging to Smith's, 
were detached in support of Brigadier-General Shields 
on om- extreme left ; and the 4th artillery, acting as 
infantry, under Major Gardner, belonging to Riley's 
brigade, had been left in charge of the camp, trophies, 
&c., at Contreras. Twiggs's division, at Churubusco, 
had thus been deprived of the services of two of its 
most gallant and eflfective regunents. 

" The immediate results of this victory were, the 
capture of seven field-pieces, some ammunition, one 
colour, three generals, and one thousand two hundred 
and sixty-one prisoners, including other officers. 

" Captains E. A. Capron and M. J. Burke, and Lieu- 
62 



tenant S. Hofl"man, all of the 1st artillery, and Captain 
J. W. Anderson and Lieutenant Thomas Easley, both 
of the 2d infantry, (five officers of great merit,) fell 
gallantly before this work. 

" The capture of the enemy's citadel "was the fourth 
great achievement of our arms in the same day. 

" It has been stated that, some two hours and a half 
before, Pierce's, followed closely by the volunteer brig- 
ade, (both under the command of Brigadier-General 
Shields.) had been detached to our left to turn the ene- 
my's works, to prevent the escape of the garrisons, 
and to oppose the extension of the enemy's nvnnerous 
corps from the rear upon and around our left. 

" Considering the inferior numbers of the two brig- 
ades, the objects of the movement were difficult to 
accomplish. Hence the reenforcement sent forward a 
little later. 

" In a winding march of a mile around to the right, 
this temporary division found itself on the edge of an 
open, wet meadow, near the road from San Antonio to 
the capital, and in the presence of some four thousand 
of the enemy's infantry, a little in rear of Churubus- 
co, on that road. Establishing the right at a strong 
building. Shields extended fts left parallel to the road, 
to outflank the enemy towards the capital. But the en- 
emy extending his right, supported by three thousand 
cavalry, more rapidly (being favoured by better ground) 
in the same direction. Shields concentrated the division 
about a hamlet, and determined to attack in front. 
The battle was long, hot, and varied ; but, ultimately, 
success crowned the zeal and gallantry of our troops, 
ably directed by their distinguished commander. Our 
f/th victory in the same day. 

" Shields took three hundred and eighty prisoners, 
including officers ; and it cannot be doubted that the 
rage of the conflict between him and the enemy, just 
in the rear of the tete de pent and the convent, had 
some influence on the surrender of those formidable 
defences. 

" As soon as the tele de pont was carried, the greater 
part of Worth's and Pillow's forces passed that bridge 
in rapid pursuit of the flymg enemy. These distin- 
guished generals, coming up with Brigadier-General 
Shields, now also victorious, the three continued to 
press upon the fugitives to within a mile and a half of 
the capital. Here, Colonel Harney, with a small part 
of his brigade of cavalry, rapidly passed to the front, 
and charged the enemy up to the nearest gate. 

" The cavalry charge was headed by Captain Kear* 



488 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



ney. of the 1st dragoons, having in squadron, \vith his 
own troop, that of Captain McReynolds of the 3d ; 
making the usual escort to general head-quarters ; but, 
being early in the day attached for general service, 
was now under Colonel Harney's orders. The gallant 
captain, not hearing the recall, that had been sounded, 
dashed up to the San Antonio gate, sabring, in his 
way, all who resisted. Of the seven officers of the 
squadron, Kearney lost his left arm, McReynolds and 
I>ieu tenant Lorimer Graham were both severely wound- 
ed, and Lieutenant R. S. Ewell, who succeeded to the 
command of the escort, had two horses killed under 
him. Major F. D. Mills, of the 15th infantry, a vol- 
unteer in this charge, was killed at the gate. 

"So terminated the series of events which I have 
but feebly presented. My thanks were freely poured 
out, on the different fields, to the abilities and science 
of generals and other officers, to the gallantry and 
prowess of all, the rank and file included. But a re- 
ward infinitely higher — the applause of a grateful 
country and government — will, I cannot doubt, be ac- 
corded, in due time, to so much merit, of every sort, 
displayed by this glorious army, which has now over- 
come all difficulties — dis^nce, climate, ground, fortifi- 
cations, numbers. 

" It has, in a single day, in many battles, as often 
defeated thirty-two thousand men ; made about three 
thousand prisoners, including eight generals, (two of 
them ex-presidents,) and two hundred and five other 
officers ; killed or wounded four thousand of all ranks, 
besides entire corps dispersed and dissolved ; captured 
thirty-seven pieces of ordnance, — more than trebling 
our siege train and field batteries, — with a large num- 
ber of small arms, a full supply of ammunition of every 
kind, &c., &c. 

•' These great results have overwhelmed the enemy. 

"Oiu- loss amounts to one thousand fifty-three — 
killed, one hundred and thirty-nine, including sixteen 
officers ; woimded, eight hundred and seventy-six, with 
sixty officers. The greater number of the dead and 
disabled were of the highest worth. Those under 
treatment — thanks to our very able medical officers — 
are generally doing well. 

" I regret having been obliged, on the 20th, to leave 
Major-General Quitman, an able commander, with a 
part of his division, (the fine 2d Pennsylvania volun- 
teers and the veteran detachment of United States 
marines,) at our important depot, San Augustin. It was 
there that I had placed our sick and wounded ; also the 



siege, supply, and baggage trains. If these had been 
lost, the army would have been driven almost to de- 
spair ; and considering the enemy's very great e.xcess 
of numbers, and the many approaches to the depot, it 
might well have become, emphatically, the post of 
hoiiou?: 

" After so many victories, we might, with but little 
additional loss, have occupied the capital the same 
evening. But Mr. Trist, commissioner, as well as my- 
self, had been admonished by the best friends of peace 
— intelligent neutrals and some American residents — 
against precipitation ; lest, by wantonly driving away 
the goverimient and others, (dishonoured,) we might 
scatter the elements of peace, excite a spirit of national 
desperation, and thus indefinitely postpone the hope ol 
accommodation. Deeply impressed with this danger, 
and remembering our mission, (to conquer a peace,) 
the army very cheerfully sacrificed to patriotism — to 
the great wish and want of our country — the eclat 
that would have followed an entrance, sword in hand, 
into a great capital. Willing to leave something to 
this republic, (of no immediate value to us,) on which 
to rest her pride, and to recover temper, I halted our 
victorious corps at the gates of the city, (at least for a 
time,) and have them now cantoned in the neighbour- . 
ing villages, where they are well sheltered and supplied 
with all necessaries. 

" On the morning of the 21st, being about to take 
up battering or assaulting positions, to authorize me to 
summon the city to surrender, or to sign an armistice, 
with a pledge to enter at once into negotiations for 
peace, a mission came out to propose a truce. Reject- 
ing' its terms, I despatched my contemplated note to 
President Santa Anna, omitting the summons. The 
22d, commissioners were appointed by the commanders 
of the two armies ; the armistice was signed the 23d, 
and ratifications exchanged the 24th. 

" All matters in dispute between the two govern- 
ments have been thus happily turned over to their 
plenipotentiaries, who have now had several confer- 
ences, and with, I think, some hope of signing a treaty 
of peace." 

The " intelligent neutrals," to whose counsel Gen- 
eral Scott refers, were the ambassador and consul-gen- 
eral of Great Britain, and other foreign functional ies, 
who now interposed to save the city from the horrors 
of a siege and bombardment. The result was a tem- 
porary armistice, on the terms set forth in the follow- 
ing paper : — 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



4S9 



" Head-Quarters of the Army, 

Tacueaya, August 24, 1847. 

"GENER.iL Orders, ) 

No. 262. ) 

" The following military convention is published for 
the information and strict government of the American 
army, its retainers and followers. Any infraction of 
one or more of the articles of the said convention shall 
be followed by rigorous punishment. 

" The undersigned appointed respectively, the three 
first by Major-General Winfield Scott, commander-in- 
chief of the armies of the United States, and the two 
last by his excellency D. Antonio Lopez de Santa 
Anna, President of the Mexican republic, and com- 
mander-in-chief of its armies, met with full powers, 
which were duly verified, in the village of Tacubaya, 
on the 22d day of August, 1847, to enter into an ar- 
mistice, for the purpose of giving the Mexican govern- 
ment an opportunity of receiving propositions for peace 
from the commissioner appointed by the president of 
the United States, and now with the American army, 
when the following articles were agreed upon : — 

" Article 1. Hostilities shall instantly and abso- 
lutely cease betAveen the armies of the United States 
of America and the United Mexican States, within 
thirty leagues of the capital of the latter States, to 
allow time to the commissioner appointed by the United 
States, and the commissioners to be appointed by the 
Mexican republic, to negotiate. 

" 2. This armistice shall continue as long as the 
commissioners of the two governments may be engaged 
in negotiations, or until the commander of either of the 
said armies shall give formal notice to the other of the 
cessation of the armistice, and for forty-eight hours 
after such notice. 

" 3. In the mean time, neither army shall, within 
thirty leagues of the city of Mexico, commence any 
new fortification, or military work of offence or defence, 
or do any thing to enlarge or strengthen any existing 
work or fortification of that character within the said 
limits. 

"4. Neither army shall be reenforced within the 
same. Any reenforcements in troops or munitions of 
war, other than subsistence now approaching either 
army, shall be stopped at the distance of at least twenty- 
eight leagues from the city of Mexico. 

" 5. Neither army, nor any detachment from it, shall 
advance beyond the line it at present occupies. 

" 6. Neither army, nor any detachment or individual 
of ( ither, shall pass the neutral limits established by the 



last article, except under flags of truce bearing the cor- 
respondence between the two armies, or on the busi- 
ness authorized by the next article ; and individuals of 
either army, who may chance to straggle within the 
neutral limits, shall, by the opposite party, be kindly 
warned oflT, or sent back to their own army under flags 
of truce. 

" 7. The American army shall not, by violence, ob- 
struct the passage from the open country into the city 
of Mexico, of the ordinary supplies of food necessary 
to the consumption of its inhabitants, or the Mexican 
araiy within the city ; nor sliall the Mexican authori- 
ties, civil or military, do any act to obstruct the passage 
of supplies from the city or the country needed by the 
American army. 

" 8. All American prisoners of war, remaining in 
the hands of the Mexican army, and not heretofore 
exchanged, shall immediately, or as soon as practicable, 
be restored to the American army against a like num- 
ber (having regard to rank) of Mexican prisoners cap- 
tured by the American army. 

"9 [Omitted.] 

" 10. The better to enable the belligerent armies to 
execute these articles, and to favour the great object 
of peace, it is further agreed between the parties, that 
any courier with despatches that either army shall desire 
to send along the line from tlie city of Mexico, or its 
vicinity, to and from Vera Cruz, shall receive a safe- 
conduct from the commander of the opposing army. 

" 11. The administration of justice between Mexi- 
cans, according to the general and state constitutions 
and laws, by the local authorities of the towns and 
places occupied by the American forces, shall not be 
obstructed in any manner. 

" 12. Persons and property shall be respected in the 
towns and places occupied by the American forces. 
No person shall be molested in the exercise of his pro- 
fession ; nor shall the services of any one be required 
without his consent. In all cases where services are 
voluntarily rendered, a just price shall be paid, and 
trade remain unmolested. 

" 13. Those wounded prisoners who may desire to 
remove to some more convenient place for the purpose 
of being cured of their wounds, shall be allowed to do 
so without molestation — they still remaining prisoners. 

" 14. Those Mexican medical oiRcers who may 
wish to attend the wounded shall have the privilege 
of doing so, if their services be required. 

" 15. For the more perfect execution of this agree- 
ment, two commissioners shall be appointed, (one by 



490 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



each party,) who, in case of disagraement, shall appoint 
a tliird. 

" 16. This convention shall have no force or effect 
unless approved by their excellencies the commanders 
respectively of the two armies, within twenty-four 
hours, reckoning from 6 o'clock, A. M., of the 22d day 
of August, 1847. 

"J. A. Q,UITMAN, 

Major- General U. S. A. 
PERSiroit F. Smith, 

Brevet Brigadier- Gen. U. S. A. 
Franklin Pierce, 

Brigadier- General U. S. A. 
Ignacio de Mora y Villamil. 
Benito GIuijano." 

On the day following the ratification of this conven- 
tion, Mr. Trist commenced his diplomatic duties by 
addressing a note to Senor Pacheco, minister of foreign 
relations, announcing his readiness to enter upon the 
negotiation of a treaty. This, after some delay, re- 
sulted in the appointment of commissioners, to whom 
Mr. Trist submitted the project of a treaty, wliich had 
been prepared at Washington. While this was under 
discussion, a powerful opposition to every species of 
negotiation was beginning to be fomented in the city, 
and in various sections of the country. The enemies 
of Santa Anna, who were many and powerful, opposed 
the measure altogether. The deputies to congress, 
who were summoned to deliberate upon it, refused, for 
the most part, to attend. Protests against it were sent 
in from the neighbouruig states, and from cliques of 
the absent deputies, reminding Santa Anna that the 
law was still unrepealed, which pronounced it treason 
to open negotiations with the enemy, while he remained 
upon their soil. The common people were roused to 
indignation against the Yankees. Their hatred had 
Increased with the success of the American arms. 
The panic occasioned by those successes, and the steady 
and irresistible march of the invaders, was beginning 
to subside, as they moved in and out among them, and 
saw they were but men. They shouted insultingly as 
tliey passed, and even attacked the provision train, as, 
in accordance with the provisions of the convention, it 
was receiving supplies in the city. 

These difficulties increased as the negotiations ad- 
vanced. Protests and proclamations came in from 
every quarter. The president was openly accused of 
high treason, and articles of impeachment were drawn 
up and published. The greater part of this opposition 



arose from parties and factions hostile to Santa Anna, 
who sought to destroy him, by undermining his influ- 
ence with the army. So long as that army stood by 
him, he cared little for his enemies, or for his country. 
He sought only to establish his own power, and to so- 
cure, if possible, the million of dollars which had once 
been proffered as the price of submission. 

Difficulties, also, arose among the negotiators. The 
demands of the United States were large, covering, 
from the commencement, all that they have since ac- 
quired, and considerably more. They were, for the 
most part, peremptorily resisted, and counter demands 
presented, on the part of Mexico, as if she were the 
conquering party, with full power to dictate her own 
terms. She proved wholly impracticable, and the ne- 
gotiations were finally broken off, without coming to 
any result. 

The advantage of this delay was all on the side of 
the Mexicans. They had gained time to recruit their 
wasted forces, and strengthen their fortifications, and, 
despite the provisions of the convention, they had 
done both industriously. After the battle of Churu- 
busco, the victorious American army might have 
marched at once into the city, and dictated its own 
terms. The panic was too great, the rout too com- 
plete and overwhelming, to have admitted of any for- 
midable resistance at that time. And it reflects the 
highest credit upon General Scott, that, in the hope of 
peace, he should willingly forego such advantages, at 
such a crisis, and relinquish, for the good of the van- 
quished, all the eclat of a triumphal entry into their 
capital. It is true, it cost another hard-fought battle 
in the end, and the loss of many valuable lives. In a 
military point of view, it may have been ill judged. 
But the motive which dictated it is not. only above all 
reproach or suspicion, but demands the admiration of 
all who can appreciate that noble sentiment of inspira- 
tion, " Greater is he that ruleth his spirit than he that 
taketh a city." The great error of the American com- 
mander, in all this matter, was, that he placed confi- 
dence in the integrity of S.anta Anna — a man whose 
whole political career had been a mere tissue of du- 
plicity, intrigue, and faithlessness, and whose name 
will yet come to be a synonyme for treachery. In this, 
however, the general had the countenance and sym- 
pathy, and perhaps the secret instructions, of the presi- 
dent and his cabinet. With the same inane reliance 
upon the man and his promises, they had opened wide 
the doors, of which they held the key, and suffered 
him to enter, who, with all his faults, was the only 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



491 



man in Mexico who could rouse and unite the people, 
or hope successfully to fight their battles. It would 
seem, that they were afraid of too easy a victory. 
They wanted something for the invading army to 
achieve. They therefore furnished them, at their own 
cost, a head — a man of immense resources, of great 
influence with the people, of unscrupulous daring in 
the assumption of power ; a man thoroughly acquaint- 
ed with the country and the people, and accustomed 
to lead them like sheep to the slaughter. That, after 
so many triumphs. over this wily foe, when all but his 
last defence was carried, and he stood at his very gates, 
with a victorious army panting to enter. General Scott 
should have supposed that foe honest in j^roposing a 
parley, and wishing to negotiate, is certainly far less 
remarkable than that the cabinet of Washington should 
have sought him in the cockpits of Havana, proffered 
a passport, and opened the blockade, at the very time, 
when, wanting a daring leader, it was certain the Mex- 
icans would forgive the past, and receive him with 
open arms. The arrangement is a mystery yet to be 
explained. The ordinary principles of diplomacy, and 
of war, are at fault in the elucidation. The unchal- 
lenged entrance of Paredes, through all the barriers of 
military occupation and surveillance, at the moment 
v/hen the popularity and power of Santa Anna were 
on the wane from so many defeats, is a kindred enigma,- 
which even time, that reveals all things, will jirobably 
not explain. 

Santa Anna had gained one of his ends — for such a 
thing as a single purpose he scarcely understood : he 
had gained time to improve his positions for defence, 
and to rouse in the people a spirit which he hoped 
might at length prevail, to drive back the proud invad- 
ers. Success in this last attempt would have placed 
him on the pinnacle of power, and enabled him to 
crush at once those domestic foes whom he hated and 
feared far more than the foreign ones. And he might 
well hope, that, with an army of more than three times 
the force of that of the Americans, and a jjopulation of 
several hundred thousand, now in their last intrench- 
ments, fighting for their capital, their beloved city, 
their altars and then- hearths, with no possible alterna- 
tive but victory, or submission to the terms they had 
just scornfully rejected, they might yet achieve a de- 
fence, and, falling upon their constantly diminishing 
assailants, exterminate them at once. Whatever Avere 
his hopes, or those of his people, a renewal of hostili- 
ties was determined upon. 

The ai-mistice had continued two weeks. .On the 



6th of September, immediately after the interruption 
of the negotiations, General Scott informed the Mexi- 
can commander that, in view of the repeated violations, 
on his part, of the terms of the convention, he had full 
right to consider it at an end, and that, unless full: sat- 
isfaction were given before noon of the following day, 
he should act accordingly. Santa Anna's reply was 
recriminative and defiant, concluding with a high re- 
solve " to repel force by force, with that decision and 
energy which his high obligations imposed upon him." 
The armistice was, consequently, at an end. 

General Scott had received the impression that there 
was a foundery in active operation at Molino del Rey, 
and that a large number of men were employed there 
in preparing cannon for the Mexican defences. He 
therefore resolved to make that the first point of attack, 
hoping, by breaking up the machinery, and stopping 
the manufacture of cannon, to weaken the enemy es- 
sentially in his plans of defence. 

The range of strong stone buildings, known as El 
Molino del Rey, or the Royal Mill, is nearly a mile 
north of the village of Tacubaya. It is some five hun- 
dred yards long, and constructed of massive stone. It 
forms the western side of an enclosure, which sur- 
rounds the castle and grounds of Chapultepec, the 
castle being about two thirds of a mile from the Mill, 
overlooking and commanding, from its lofty seat of- 
rock, not only that position, but a large sweep of coun- 
try on every side of it. The Molino was occupied by 
a strong corps of troops, under General Leon. The 
doors, windows, and gateways were strongly barri- 
caded, the walls pierced for musketry, and the roofs 
surrounded with sand-bag parapets. About five hun- 
dred yards on the west was the Casa Mata, a strong 
stone building, surrounded by a quadrangular bastioned 
field-work, and occupied by troops of the line, under 
General Perez. Still farther west, about three hundred 
yards, was a deep and wide ravine, on the other side 
of which a corps of Pintos, under General Alvarez, 
was stationed. 

There was a difference of opinion, in the American 
camp, in reference to the attack upon this position. 
General Scott regarded Chapultepec as too strong and 
difficult to be attempted. It would cost too many 
lives to carry it. And he hoped that, by carrying any 
of its outposts, and thus showing to the Mexicans his 
determination to renew and prosecute the war, they 
would at once resimie negotiations for peace. He was 
therefore resolved to attempt Molino del Rey alone, 
and, having destroyed whatever of military works it 



492 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



might contain, to retire at once to his then position at 
Taciibaya. This he ordered to be effected at night 
by General Worth's division, the attack to be made as 
soon as it was dark. General Worth, who had caused 
the ground to be thoroughly reconnoitred, thought 
the attack should be made at daylight, and that the 
entire position, including Ohapultepec, should be em- 
braced in the plan of operations. He judged from his 
observations, that the place would be ably defended, 
and not carried without difiiculty and loss, and that it 
would be far better to follow up the movement upon 
Molino del Rey, if successful, by an immediate attempt 
upon the castle to Avhich it led. General Scott con- 
sented to change his plan so far as to" make the attack 
by daylight, but peremptorily refused to allow an at- 
tempt upon Ohapultepec at that time. The result 
proved that General Worth had not overestimated the 
strength of the Molino, or the difficulty of the task as- 
signed him. The story of its execution will be given 
in the words of his own official report : — 

" Having, in the course of the 7th, accompanied the 
general-in-chief on a recoymaissance of the formidable 
dispositions of the enemy near and around the castle 
of Ohapultepec, they were found to exhibit an extend- 
ed line of cavalry and infantry, sustained by a field 
battery of four guns — occupying directly, or sustain- 
ing, a system of defences collateral to the castle and 
summit. This examination gave fair observation of 
the configuration of the grounds, and the extent of the 
enemy's force ; but, as appeared in the sequel, an in- 
adequate idea of the nature of his defences — they be- 
mg skilfully masked. 

" The general-in-chief ordered that my division, 
reenforced as before mentioned, should attack and carry 
those lines and defences, capture the enemy's artillery, 
destroy the machinery and material supposed to be in 
the foundery El Molino del Rey ; but limiting the 
operations to that extent. After which, my command 
was to be immediately withdrawn to its position in 
the village of Tacubaya. 

" A close and daring reconnaissance by Oaptain Ma- 
son of the engineers, made on the morning of the 7th, 
represented the enemy's lines collateral to Ohapultepec 
to be as follows : His left rested upon and occupied 
a group of strong stone buildings, called El Molino del 
Rey, adjoining the grove at the foot of the hill of Oha- 
pultepec, and directly under the guns of the castle 
which crowns its summ it. The right of his line rested 
upon another stone building, called Oasa Mata, situated 
at the foot of the ridge that slopes gradually from the 



heights above the village of Tacubaya to the plam tre- 
low. Midv/ay between these buildings was tlie ene- 
my's field battery, and his infantry forces were disposed 
on either side to support it. This reconnaissance was 
verified by Oaptain Mason and Oolonel Duncan, on the 
afternoon of the same day. The result indicated that 
the centre was the weak point of the enemy's position ; 
and that his flanks were the stong points, his left flanic 
being the stronger. 

" As the enemy's system of defence was connected 
with the hill and castle of Ohapultepec, and as my 
operations were limited to a specific object, it became 
necessary to isolate the work to be accomplished, from 
the castle of Ohapultepec and its immediate defences. 
To effect this object, the following dispositions were 
ordered : Oolonel Garland's brigade to take posses- 
sion on the right, strengthened by two pieces of Oap- 
tain Drum's battery, to look to El Molino del Rey, as 
well as any support of this position from Ohapultepec ; 
and also within sustaining distance of the assaulting 
party and the battering guns, which, under Oaptain 
Huger, were placed on the ridge, five or six hundred 
yards from El Molino del Rey, to batter and loosen 
this position from Ohapultepec. An assaulting party 
of five hundred picked men and officers, under com- 
mand of Brevet Major George Wright, 8th infantry, 
was also posted on the ridge to the left of the battering 
guns, to force the enemy's centre. The 2d brigade, 
the command of which devolved on Oolonel Mcintosh, 
(Oolonel Olarke being sick,) with Duncan's battery, 
was to take post still farther up the ridge, opposite the 
enemy's right, to look to our left flank to sustain the 
assaulting column if necessary, or to discomfit the 
enemy, (the ground being favourable,) as circumstances 
might require. Oadwallader's brigade was held in re- 
serve, in a position on the ridge between the battering 
guns and Mcintosh's brigade, and in easy support of 
either. The cavalry, under Major Sumner, to envelop 
our extreme left, and be governed by circumstances, — 
to repel or attack, as the commander's judgment might 
suggest. The troops to be put in position under cover 
of the night ; and the work to begin as soon as the 
heavy metal could be properly directed. Oolonel Dun- 
can was charged with the general dispositiqn of tne 
artillery. Accordingly, at 3 o'clock in the morning of 
the Sth, the several columns were put in motion on as 
many different routes ; and when the gray of the morn- 
ing enabled them to be seen, they were as accurately 
in position as if posted in midday for review. The 
early dawn was the moment appointed for the attack, 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



493 



which was announced to our troops by the opening of 
Huger's guns on El Molino del Rey, upon which they 
continued to play actively until this point of the ene- 
my's line became sensibly shaken, when the assaulting 
party, commanded by Wright, and guided by that ac- 
complished officer, Captain Mason of the engineers, 
assisted by Lieutenant Foster, dashed gallantly for- 
ward to the assault. Unshaken by the galling of the 
musketry and canister that was showered upon them, 
on they rushed, driving infantry and artillerymen at 
the point of the bayonet. The enemy's field battery 
was taken, and his own guns were trailed upon his re- 
treating masses : before, however, they could be dis- 
charged, perceiving that he had been dispossessed of 
his strong position by comparatively a handful of men, 
he made a desperate effort to regain it. Accordingly 
his retiring forces rallied and formed with this object. 
Aided by the infantry, which covered the house-tops, 
within reach of which the battery had been moved 
during the night, the enemy's whole line opened upon 
the assaulting party a terrific fire of musketry, which 
struck down eleven out of the fourteen officers" that 
composed the command, and non-connnissioned officers 
and men in proportion ; including, amongst the officers. 
Brevet Major Wright, the commander ; Captain Mason 
and Lieutenant Foster, engineers ; all severely wounded. 
This severe shock staggered, for a moment, that gallant 
band. The light battalion, held to cover Captain Hu- 
ger's battery, under Captain Smith, and the right wing 
of Cadwallader's brigade, were promptly ordered for- 
ward to support, which order was executed in the most 
gallant style ; the enemy was again routed, and this 
point of his line carried, and fully possessed by our 
troops. In the mean time. Garland's brigade, ably sus- 
tained by Captain Drum's artillery, assaulted the ene- 
my's left, and, after an obstinate and very severe contest, 
drove him from his apparently impregnable position, 
immediately under the guns of the castle of Chapulte- 
pec. Drum's section, and the battering guns under 
Captain Huger, advanced to the enemy's position, and 
the captured guns of the enemy were now opened on 
his retreating forces, on which they continued to fire 
until beyond their reach. While this work was in 
progress of accomplishment by our centre and right, 
our troops on the left were not idle. Duncan's battery 
opened on the right of the enemy's line, up to this 
time engaged ; and the 2d brigade, under Colonel 
Mcintosh, was now ordered to assault the extreme 
right of the enemy's line. The direction of this brig- 
ade soon caused it to mask Duncan's battery, — the 



fire of which, for the moment, was discontinued ; and ' 
the brigade moved steadily on to the assault of Casa 
Mata, which, instead of an ordinary field iutrenchment, 
as was supposed, proved to be a strong stone citadel, 
surrounded with bastioned intrenchments and impassa- 
ble ditches — an old Spanish work, recently repaired 
and enlarged. When within easy musket range, the 
enemy opened a most deadly fire upon our advancing 
troops, which was kept up, without intermission, until 
our gallant men reached the very slope of the parapet 
, of the work that surrounded the citadel. By this time, 
a large proportion of the command was either killed or 
wounded, amongst whom were the three senior officers 
present — Brevet. Colonel Mcintosh, Brevet Lieuten- 
ant-Colonel Scott, of the 5th infantry, and Major Waite, 
8th infantry ; the second killed, and the first and last 
desperately woixnded. Still, the fire from the citadel 
was unabated. In this crisis of the attack, the com- 
mand was, momentarily, thrown into disorder, and fell 
back on the left of Duncan's battery, where they ral- 
lied. As the 2d brigade moved to the assault, a very 
large cavalry and infantry force was discovered ap- 
proaching rapidly upon our left flank, to reenforce the 
enemy's right. As soon as Duncan's battery was 
masked, as before mentioned, supported by Andrews's 
voltigeurs of Cadwallader's brigade, it moved promptly 
to the extreme left of our line, to check the threatened 
assault on this point. The enemy's cavalry came, 
rapidly, within canister range, when the whole battery 
opened a most eflective fire, which soon broke the 
squadrons, and drove them back in disorder. During 
this fire upon the enemy's cavalry. Major Sumner's 
command moved to the front, and changed direction in 
admirable order, imder a most appalling fire from the 
Casa Mata. This movement enabled his command to 
cross the ravine immediately on the left of Duncan's 
battery, where it remained, doing noble service, until 
the close of the action. At the very moment the cav- 
alry were driven beyond reach, our own troops drew 
back from before the Casa Mata, and enabled the guns 
of Duncan's battery to reopen upon this position ; which, 
after a short and well-directed fire, the enemy aban- 
doned. The guns of the battery were now turned 
upon his retreating columns, and continued to play 
upon them until beyond reach. 

" He was now driven from every point in the field, 
and his strong lines, which had certainly been defended 
well, were in our possession. In fulfilment of the in- 
structions of the general-in-chief, the Casa Mata was 
blown up, and such of the captured ammunition as was 



494 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



useless to us, as well as the cannon moulds found in 
El Molino del Rey, were destroyed. After which, my 
command, under the reiterated orders of the general- 
in-chief, returned to quarters at Tacubaya, with three 
of the enemy's four guns, (the fourth, having been 
spiked, was rendered unserviceable,) as also a large 
quantity of small arms, with gun and musket ammu- 
nition, and exceeding eight hundred prisoners, includ- 
ing fifty-two commissioned officers. 

" By tlie concurrent testimony of prisoners, the ene- 
my's force exceeded fourteen thousand men, com- 
manded by General Santa Anna in person. His total 
loss, killed, (including the 2d and 3d in command. 
Generals Valdarez and Leon,) wounded, and prisoners, 
amounts to three thousand, exclusive of some two 
thousand who deserted after the rout. 

" My command, reenforced as before stated, only 
reached three thousand one hundred men of all arms. 
The contest continued two hours, and its severity is 
painfully attested by our heavy loss of officers, non- 
commissioned officers, and privates, including in the 
first two classes some of the brightest ornaments of the 
service." 

The American loss in this battle was nearly eight 
hundred men, killed and wounded, of whom fifty 
were officers. Not a single post, during the whole 
war, had been more resolutely and ably defended 
than El Molino del Rey. It was carried, never- 
theless, but at an immense sacrifice of life. And, 
unfortunately, no advantage was gained by it, except 
that of proving to the Mexicans that the invading 
general was determined to prosecute the war, and that 
no superiority of numbers or position could avail them 
against the indomitable courage and consummate skill 
of the Americans. There was no foundery at tlie Mill. 
A few useless cannon moulds were destroyed, a large 
quantity of ammunition was taken, a still larger quan- 
tity was destroyed ; Casa Mata was blown up. El 
Molino was dismantled ; but Chapultepec remained, 
frowning from its lofty rock, and bidding defiance to 
all its enemies. Worth, Pillow, and Cadwallader were 
eager to pursue the victory to its walls, and carry it by 
storm. But, restrained by the decided order of the 
commander-in-chief, they retired under a heavy fire 
from the castle, and left the field so hardly won to be 
reoccupied, at his leisure, by the enemy, and to be 
retaken, at some cost, a few days after. 

The Mexicans, instead of being disheartened, were 
reassured by the result of the battle of Molino del Rey. 
Supposing Chapultepec to have been the object of the 



movement, they looked upon the untimely retirement 
of the assailants as at least a partial defeat, and a clear 
acknowledgment that the castle was impregnable. 
In this confidence, they renewed their zeal in the de- 
fence, and re-resolved to die in their last intrenchment, 
sooner than allow their beloved city to be dishonoured 
by the foot of the hated invader. 

Not receiving, as he hoped and expected, new pro- 
posals of peace, the American commander now resolved 
to finish his work by one decisive blow. The city 
was to be taken. This involved the storming of Cha- 
pultepec, and the consequent recovery of El Molino 
del" Rey. Dispositions were immediately made to effect 
this object on the 13th of September. The result is 
thus briefly stated in General Scott's official report : — 

" The- victory of the 8th, at the Molino del Rey, 
was followed by daring reconnaissances on the part of 
our distinguished engineers. Their operations were 
directed principally to the south — towards the gates 
of the Piedad, San Angel, (Nino Perdido,) San Anto- 
nio, and the Paseo de la Viga. 

" This city stands on a slight swell of ground, near 



the centre of an iiregular basin. 



and is girdled with a 



ditch in its greater extent, (a navigable canal of great 
breadth and depth,) very difficult to bridge in the pres- 
ence of an enemy, and serving at once for drainage, 
custom-house purposes, and military defence ; leaving 
eight entrances or gates, over arches, each of which 
we found defended by a system of strong works, that 
seemed to require nothing but some men and guns to 
be impregnable. 

" Outside and within the cross fires of those gates, 
we found to the south other obstacles but little less 
formidable. All the approaches near the city are over 
elevated causeways, cut in many places, (to oppose us,) 
and flanked on both sides by ditches, also of unusual 
dimensions. The numerous cross roads are flanked in 
like manner, having bridges at the intersections, recent-- 
ly broken. The meadows thus checkered are, more- 
over, in many spots, under water or marshy ; for, it 
will be remembered, we were in the midst of the wet 
season, though with less rain than usual, and we could 
not wait for the fall of the neighbouring lakes emd the 
consequent drainage of the wet grounds at the edge of 
the city — the lowest in the whole basin. 

" After a close personal survey of the southern gates, 
covered by Pillow's division and Riley's brigade of 
Twiggs's, — with four times our numbers concentrated 
hi our immediate front, — I determined, on the 11th, 
to avoid that network of obstacles, and to seek, by a 



HISTOHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



495 



sudden inversion to the south-west and west, less un- 
favourable approaches. 

" To economize the lives of our gallant officers and 
men, as well as to insure success, it became indispensa- 
ble that this resolution should be long masked from 
the enemy ; and again, that the new movement, when 
discovered, should be mistaken for a feint, and the old 
as indicating our true and ultimate point of attack. 

" Accordingly, I ordered Quitman's division from 
Coyoacan to join Pillow, by daylight, before the south- 
ern gates, and then that the two major-generals, wi.th 
their divisions, should, by night, proceed to join me 
at Tacubaya, where I was quartered with Worth's 
division. Twiggs, with Riley's brigade, and Captains 
Taylor's and Steptoe's field batteries, was left in front 
of those gates to manoeuvre, to threaten, or to make 
false attacks, in order to occupy and deceive the enemy. 
Twiggs's other brigade was left at supporting distance 
in the rear, at San Angel, till the morning of the 13th, 
and also to support our general depot at Mixcoac. 
The stratagem against the south was admirably exe- 
cuted throughout the 12th, and down to the afternoon 
of the 13th, when it was too late for the enemy to 
recover from the effects of his delusion. 

" The first step in the new movement was to carry 
Chapultepec, a natural and isolated mound, of great 
elevation, strongly fortified at its base, on its acclivi- 
ties, and heights. Besides a numerous garrison, here 
was the military college of the republic, with a large 
number of sub-lieutenants and other students. Those 
works were within direct gunshot of the village of 
Tacubaya, and, until carried, we could not approach 
the city on the west without making a circuit too wide 
and too hazardous. In the course of the same night, 
heavy batteries, within easy ranges, were established. 

" To prepare for an assault, it was foreseen that the 
play of the batteries might run into the second day ; 
but recent captures had not only trebled our siege 
pieces, but also our ammunition ; and we knew that 
we should greatly augment both by carrying the place. 
I was, therefore, in no haste in ordering an assault be- 
fore the works were well crippled by our missiles. 

" The bombardment and cannonade, under the direc- 
tion of Captain Huger, were commenced early in the 
morning of the 12th. Before nightfall, which neces- 
sarily stopped our batteries, we had perceived that a 
good irnpression had been made on the castle and its 
outworks, and that a large body of the enemy had re- 
mained outside, towards the city, from an early hour, 
to avoid our fire, and to be at hand on its cessation, 

63 



in order to reenforce the garrison against an assault. 
The same outside force was discovered the next morn- 
ing, after our batteries had reopened upon the castle, 
by which we again reduced its garrison to the mitd- 
mum needed for the guns. 

" Pillow and Q,uitman had been in position since 
early in the night of the lllh. Major-General Worth 
was now ordered to hold his division in reserve, near 
the foundery, to support Pillow; and Brigadier-Gen- 
eral Smith had just arrived with his brigade from Pie- 
dad, to support Quitman. Twiggs's guns, before the 
southern gates, again reminded us, as the day before, 
that he, with Riley's brigade and Taylor's and Step- 
toe's batteries, was in activity, threatening the south- 
ern gates, and there holding a great part of the Mexican 
army on the defensive. 

" Worth's division furnished Pillow's attack with an 
assaulting party of some two hundred and fifty volun- 
teer officers and men, under Captain McKenzie, and 
Twiggs's division supplied a similar one, commanded 
by Captain Casey, to Q,uitman. Each of those little 
columns was furnished v/ith scaling-ladders. 

" The signal I had appointed for the attack was the 
momentary cessation of fire on the part of our heavy 
batteries. About 8 o'clock in the morning of the 13th, 
judging that the time had arrived, by the effect of the 
missiles we had thrown, I sent an aid-de-camp to Pil- 
low, and another to Q,uitman, with notice that the 
concerted signal was about to be given. Both columns 
now advanced with an alacrity that gave assurance of 
prompt success. The batteries, seizing opportunities, 
threw shots and shells upon the enemy over the heads 
of our men, with good eftect, particularly at every at- 
tempt to reenforce the works from without to meet our 
assault. 

" Major-General Pillow's approach, on the west side, 
lay through an open grove, filled with sharp-shooters, 
v/ho were speedily dislodged ; when, being up with 
the front of the attack, and emerging into open space, 
at the foot of a rocky acclivity, that gallant leader was 
struck down by an agonizing wound. The immediate 
command devolved on Brigadier-General Cadwallader, 
in the absence of the senior brigadier. Pierce, of the 
same division — an invalid since the events of August 
19. On a previous Call of Pillow, Worth had just sent 
him a reenforcement. 

" The broken acclivity was still to be ascended, and 
a strong redoubt, midway, to be carried, before reach- 
ing the castle on the heights. The advance of our 
brave men, led by brave officers, though necessarily 



496 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



slow, was unwavering, over rocks, chasms, and mines, 
and under the hottest fire of cannon and musketry. 
The redoubt now yielded to resistless valor, and the 
shouts that followed announced to the castle the fate 
that impended. The enemy were steadily driven from 
shelter to shelter. The retreat allowed not time to fire 
a single mine, without the certainty of blowing up 
friend and foe. Those who, at a distance, attempted 
to apply matches to the long trains, were shot down by 
our men. There was death below, as well as above 
ground. At length the ditch and wall of the main 
work were reached ; the scaling-ladders were brought 
up and planted by the storming parties ; some of the 
daring spirits first in the assault were cast down, killed 
or wounded ; but a lodgment was soon made ; streams 
of heroes followed ; all opposition was overcome, and 
several of our regimental colours flung out from the 
upper walls, amidst long-continued shouts and cheers, 
which sent dismay into the capital. No scene could 
have been more animating or glorious. 

" Major-General duitman, nobly supported by Briga- 
dier-Generals Shields and Smith, his other officers and 
men, was up with the part assigned him. Simultane- 
ously with the movement on the west, he had gallantly 
approached the south-east of the same works over a 
causeway with cuts and batteries, and defended by an 
army strongly posted outside, to the east of the works. 
Those formidable obstacles duitman had to face, with 
but little shelter for his troops or space for manoeuvring. 
Deep ditches, flanking the causeway, made it difficult 
to cross on either side into the adjoining meadows, 
and these again were intersected by other ditches. 
Smith and his brigade had been early thrown out to 
make a sweep to the right, in order to present a front 
against the enemy's line, and to turn two intervening 
batteries, near the foot of Chapultepec. This move- 
ment was also intended to support duitman's storming 
parties, both on the causeway. The storming party, 
now commanded by Captain Paul, carried the two bat- 
teries in the road, took some guns, with many prison- 
ers, and drove the enemy posted behind in support. 
The New York and South Carolina volunteers and the 
2d Pennsylvania volunteers, all on the left of Q,uit- 
inan's line, together with portions of his storming par- 
ties, crossed the meadows in froiit, under a heavy fire, 
and entered the outer enclosure of Chapultepec just in 
time to join in the final assault from the west. 

" Early in the morning of the 13th, I repeated the 
orders of the night before to Major-General Worth, to 
be, with his division, at hand, to support the move- 



ment of Major-General Pillow from our left. The lat- 
ter seems soon to have called for that entire division, 
standing momentarily in reserve, and Worth sent him 
Colonel Clarke's brigade. The call, if not unneces- 
sary, was at least, from the circumstances, unknown 
to me at the time ; for, soon observing that the verj; 
large body of the enemy, in the road in front of Major- 
General duitman's right, was receiving reenforcements 
from the city, (less than a mile and a half to the east,) 
I sent instructions to Worth, on our opposite flank, to 
turn Chapultepec with his division, and to proceed, 
cautiously, by the road at its northern base, in order, 
if not met by very superior numbers, to threaten or to 
attack, in rear, that body of the enemy. The move- 
ment, it was also believed, could not fail to distract 
and to intimidate the enemy generally. 

" Worth promptly advanced with his remaining brig- 
ade, and having turned the forest on the west, and 
arriving opposite to the north centre of Chapultepec, 
came up with the troops in the road, under Colonel 
Trousdale, and aided by a flank movement of a part 
of Garland's brigade in taking the one-gun breastwork, 
then under the fire of Lieutenant Jackson's section 
of Captain Magruder's field battery. Continuing to 
advance, this division passed Chapultepec, attacking the 
right of the enemy's line, resting on that road, about 
the moment of the general retreat consequent upon the 
capture of the formidable castle and its outworks. 

" Arriving some minutes later, and mounting to the 
top of the castle, the whole field, to the east, lay plainly 
under my view. 

" There are two routes from Chapultepec to the 
capital, — the one on the right entering the same gate, 
Belen, with the road from the south, via Piedad ; and 
the other obliquing to the left, to intersect the great 
western, or San Cosme road, in a suburb outside of the 
gate of San Cosme. 

" Each of these routes (an elevated causeway) pre- 
sents a double roadway on the sides of an aqueduct of 
strong masonry, and great height, resting on open 
arches and massive pillars, which, together, afi'ord fine 
points both for attack and defence. The sideways of 
both aqueducts are, moreover, defended by many strong 
breastworks at the gates, and before reaching them. 
As we had expected, we found the four tracks unusu- 
ally dry and solid for the season. 

" Worth and duitman were prompt "in pursuing the 
retreating enemy, — the former by the San Cosme aque- 
duct, and the latter along that of Belen. Each had 
now advanced some hundred yards. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



497 



" Deeming it all-important to profit by our successes, 
and the consequent dismay of the enemy, which could 
not be otherwise than general, I hastened to despatch, 
from Chapultepec — first Clarke's brigade, and then 
Cadwallader's, to the support of Worth, and gave or- 
ders that the necessary heavy guns should follow. 
Pierce's brigade was, at the same time, sent to Q,uit- 
man, and in the course of the afternoon, I caused some 
additional siege pieces to be added to his train. Then, 
after designating the 15th infantry, under Lieutenant- 
Colonel Howard, — Morgan, the colonel, had been 
disabled by a wound at Churubusco, — as the garrison 
of Chapultepec, and giving directions for the care of 
the prisoners of war, the captured ordnance and ord- 
nance stores, I proceeded to join the advance of Worth, 
within the suburb, and beyond the turn at the junc- 
tion of the aqueduct with the great highway from the 
west to the gate of San Cosme. 

"At this junction of roads, we first passed one of 
those formidable systems of city defences, spoken of 
above, and it had not a gun ! — a strong proof that the 
enemy had expected us to fall in the attack upon Cha- 
pultepec, even if we meant any thing more than a 
feint ; that, in either case, we designed, in his belief, 
to return and double our forces against the southern 
gates, — a delusion kept up by the active demonstrations 
of Twiggs and the forces posted on that side ; and 
that, advancing rapidly from the reduction of Chapul- 
tepec, the enemy had not time to shift guns — our 
previous captures had left him, comparatively, but few 
— from the southern gates. 

" Within those disgarnished works, I found our troops 
engaged in a street fight against the enemy posted in 
gardens, at windows, and on house-tops, all flat with 
parapets. Worth ordered forward the mountain how- 
itzers of Cadwallader's brigade, preceded by skir- 
mishers and pioneers, with pickaxes and crowbars, to 
force windows and doors, or to burrow through walls. 
The assailants were soon in an equality of position 
fatal to the enemy. By 8 o'clock in the evening. 
Worth had carried two batteries in this suburb. Ac- 
cording to my instructions, he here posted guards and 
sentinels, and placed his troops under shelter for the- 
night. There was but one more obstacle — the San 
Cosine gate, between him and the great square in front 
of the cathedral and palace, the heart of the city ; and 
that barrier, it was known, could not, by daylight, re- 
sist our siege guns thirty minutes. 

" I had gone back to the foot of Chapultepec, the 
point from which the two aqueducts begin to diverge, 



some hours earlier, in order to be neai that new depot, 
and in easy communication with Quitman and Twiggs 
as well as with Worth. 

" From this point I ordered all detachments and 
stragglers to their respective corps, then in advance ; 
sent to Quitman additional siege guns, ammunition, 
intrenching tools ; directed Twiggs's remaining brig- 
ade from Piedad, to support Worth, and Captain Step- 
toe's field battery, also at Piedad, to rejoin Quitman's 
division. 

" I had been, from the first, well aware that the 
western, or San Cosme, was the less diflicult route to 
the centre and conquest of the capital ; and, there- 
fore, intended that Quitman should only manoeuvre 
and threaten the Belen or south-western gate, in order 
to favor the main attack by Worth, — knowing that the 
strong defences at the Belen were directly under the 
guns of the much stronger fortress, called the citadel, 
just within. Both of these defences of the enemy 
were also within easy supporting distance from the San 
Angel (or Nino Perdido) and San Antonio gates. 
Hence the greater support, in numbers, given to 
Worth's movement as the main attack. 

" Those views I repeatedly, in the course of the day. 
communicated to Major-General Quitman ; but bemg 
in hot pursuit, — gallant himself, and ably supported 
by Brigadier-Generals Shields and Smith, (Shields 
badly wounded before Chapultepec, and refusing to re- 
tire,) as well as by all the officers and men of the 
column, — Quitman continued to press forward, under 
flank and direct fires ; carried an intermediate battery 
of two guns, and then the gate, before two o'clock in 
the afternoon, but not without proportionate loss, in- 
creased by his steady maintenance of that position. 

"Quitman, within the city, adding several new de- 
fences to the position he had won, and sheltering his 
corps as well as practicable, now awaited the return 
of daylight under the guns of the formidable citadel, 
yet to be subdued. 

" At about 4 o'clock next morning, September 14, 
a deputation of the city council waited upon me to 
report that the federal government and the army of 
Mexico had fled from the capital some three hours be- 
fore, and to demand terms of capitulation in favor of 
the church, the citizens, and the municipal authorities. 
I promptly replied, that I would sign no capitulation ; 
that the city had been virtually in our possession from 
the time of the lodgments eff'ected by Worth and Quit- 
man the day before ; that I regretted the silent escape 
of the Mexican army ; that I should levy upon the city 



49S 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



a moderate contribution, for special purposes ; and that 
the American army should come under no terms, not 
sclf-imTposed ; such only as its own honour, the dignity 
of the United States, and the spirit of tlie age, should. 
in my opinion, imperiously demand and impose. 

"At the termination of the interview with the city 
deputation, I communicated, about daylight, orders to 
Worth and (iuitman to advance slowly and cautiously 
towards the heart of the city, and to occupy its stronger 
and more commanding points. Quitman proceeded to 
the great plaza or square, planted guards, and hoisted 
the colours of the United States on the national palace, 
containing the halls of congress and executive apart- 
ments of federal Mexico. In this grateful service, 
Quitman might have been anticipated by Worth, but 
for my express orders, halting the latter at the head of 
the Alameda, within three squares of that goal of gen- 
eral ambition. The capital, however, was not taken 
by any one or two corps, but by the talent, the science, 
the gallantry, the prowess of this entire army. In the 
glorious conquest, all had contributed — early and pow- 
erfully — the killed, the wounded, and the Jit for duty 
— at Vera Cruz, Cerro Gordo, Contreras, San Antonio, 
Churubusco, (three battles,) the Molinos del Rey, and 
Chapultepec ; as much as those who fought at the 
gates of Belen and San Cosme. 

" Soon after we had entered, and were in the act of 
occupying the city, a fire was opened upon us from 
the flat roofs of the houses, from windows and corners 
of streets, by some two thousand convicts liberated the 
night before by the flying government ; joined by, per- 
haps, as many Mexican soldiers, who had disbanded 
themselves and thrown o9' their uniforms. This un- 
lawful war lasted more than twenty-four hours, in spite 
of the exertions of the municipal authorities, and was 
not put down till we had lost many men, including 
several officers, killed or wounded, and had punished 
the miscreants. Their objects were, to gratify national 
hatred ; and, in tlie general alarm and confusion, to 
plunder the wealtliy inhabitants, particularly the de- 
serted houses. But families are now generally return- 
ing ; business of every kind has been resumed, and the 
city is already tranquil and cheerful, under the admira- 
ble conduct (with exceptions very few and trifling) of 
our gallant troops." 

The campaign which had been commenced by the 
advance from Puebla, was brought to a close by the 
capture and occupation of the city of Mexico. The 
little army of ten thousand five hundred, which had 

after having di- 



'aken the field on the 7th of August. 



minislied, by sickness and the casualties of battle, more 
than one third of.its effective numbers, on the 14th of 
September was within the enemy's capital, triumphant. 
It had marched from Puebla to Mexico, had turned the 
capital and presented itself in the rear, and liad won 
the city in the battles of Contreras and Churubusco. 
Every military advantage which it had acquired was 
surrendered by the convention of Tacubaya to a 
doubtful prospect of negotiation. If its situation had 
been dangerous in its first attack, it was still more so, 
by many fold, when the second was about to be en- 
tered upon. Yet, in spite of all these obstacles, it had 
triumphed repeatedly, both in regaining the advantages 
which had been sacrificed, and in pursuing those re- 
gamed, whenever it had been allowed the opportunity. 
It had fought through a bloody field in search of an 
uncertain object, but it had not failed to triumph even 
there, against every disadvantage. Opportunity had 
been lost, time thrown away, and, finally, it had at- 
tacked the strongest point, had carried it, and over 
such obstacles as are seldom encountered by an invad- 
ing force, had borne the banner of its country to the 
palace of the supreme powers of Mexico. 

In all these military operations, the unsurpassed 
valor of the soldiery, and the skill of the officers, had 
borne the burden which had been imposed, increased 
as it was by the sacrifice of all advantages, and by the 
effect of the mistaken confidence in the faith of a man 
noted for his i:)erfidy, but in none more eminent, in 
none more successful, than in that by which he prac- 
tised upon the American government, and the com- 
mander-in-chief of the American army. 

But, against all untoward circumstances, this little 
army had now accomplished the mission on which it 
was sent. It had done more. It had not only " con- 
quered a peace," but a very large piece of Mexico. It 
occupied and garrisoned, not the capital only, but nearly 
all the important posts on its various approaches. It 
held military possession of the country, and could now 
dictate its own terras of submission. 

When the further defence of the capital was aban- 
doned as hopeless, Santa Anna resigned the presidency, 
and withdrew with the remnant of his army to Guaida- 
loupe Hidalgo, resolved, in the impotence of his rage, 
to keep Mexico under his feet, if he could not conquer 
her enemies. Without an army he was nothing, and 
not much with one, except against his own unarmed 
countrymen. He had now nearly exhausted his re- 
sources. Driven from all his defences, on which ha 
had expended so much toil, treasure, and skill, — a fugi- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



499 



tive from his capital, with the broken-down remnant of 
an army, without subsistence, without funds, or the 
means of obtaining them, except by military exactions 
from a people wliose favour lie was so ambitious to 
win, — what could he now hope to do ? He had lost 
•his last opportunity to bargain with the conquerors. 
He had lost nearly the last chance of intrigue at home. 
The confidence of the Mexicans in his skill and prow- 
ess was gone. He had no resort but, under pretence 
of annoying the enemy as much as possible, in all his 
future movements, to keep up a show of patriotism, and 
thus endeavour to revive his waning popularity, and 
keep his old rivals in the background. He still hoped 
to overawe the government to the adoption of his own 
measures, and thus virtually retain the dictatorship, 
which, from motives of policy, he had nominally re- 
signed. He, accordingly, ordered a column of three 
thousand men, nnder General Herrera, to take position 
at Q,ueretaro, which had been fixed upon as the tem- 
porary seat of government. A portion of his force was 
disbanded, for want of means to subsist it, and, with 
the remainder, composed principally of cavalry, Santa 
Anna marched upon Puebla. The American garrison 
at this place consisted of five hundred men, under the 
command of Colonel Childs; and eigliteen hundred 
invalids. Surrounded by a population of eighty 
thousand Mexicans, and by a country infested with 
guerillas and banditti, who were excited to frenzy by 
the events of the war, this little band, though holding 
possession of tlie fortresses of the place, was actually 
for many weeks in a state of siege, and subject to every 
possible annoyance. 

On the 22d September, Santa Anna arrived at Pue- 
bla, and was received with acclamations of joy by the 
citizens, who now hoped to overwhelm and annihilate 
the garrison. On the 25th, Santa Anna summoned the 
garrison to surrender, and received a peremptory re- 
fusal.* On the 27th, he made a feeble and unsuccess- 



• " Having taken possession of this city with the forces under my 
command, to operate against the points occupied by you, and for the 
purpose of restoring to full Hberty the citizens who have suffered so 
much from the troops of the United States, I deem it proper, before 
making any movement, and for the sake of humanity, to intimate to 
your excellency that you shall have leave, within a limited time, to 
abandon the places you now occupy in this city, and march out with 
the honours of war, either to join General Scott, or to proceed to Pe- 
rote, as may be most convenient for you. But, if this moderate prop- 
osition be not accepted by your excellency, I shall, in that case, with 
the deepest feeling, proceed to act in a military manner, and assault 
all of your positions, from the consequences of which your troops 
must suffer, inasmuch as there is in the vicinity of your excellency an 



fill attempt to carry the fortress by assault, and then 
withdrew, with all his force, to Huamantla, with a 
view to annoying, and, if possible, cutting off the re-* 
enforcements to the American army, which were con- 
tinually arriving at Vera Cruz, and marching, column 
after column, towards the capital, subject, in every de- 
file and mountain pass, to all the annoyances and losses 
attendant on guerilla warfare. Driven from Huaman- 
tla by the unexpected approach of Colonel Lane, with 
his column, the Mexican forces fell back upon Atlixco, 
returning again to their former position as soon as Lane 
had passed, on his way to Puebla. Here the unfor- 
tunate general was deprived of his command, by order 
of the new government, just organized at Q,ueretaro.* 

army of eight thousand men, determined to cause the rights of this 
nation to be respected. God and liberty. 

"Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, 

General-in-Chief Mexican Army. 
" Seiior Colonel Childs, 

Cummander U. H. Forces in this city." 

" I had the honour to receive this day (2 o'clock, P. M.) the note 
of youi' excellency, of this date, notifying me that you had taken pos- 
session of this city, and ' for the purpose of restoring to full liberty 
tlie citizens who have suffered so much from the troops of the United 
States,' and also offering the garrison certain terms in case they would, 
in a limited time, abandon the points occupied by the same. 

" In regard to the first point, I deem it necessary and just, in yin- 
dication of the good name of the military forces of the United States, 
— which thej' have earned by the humanity, good order, and disci- 
pline which have at all times distinguished their conduct, and more 
particularly while holding military possession of the city of Puebla, — 
to deny the imputation conveyed in your excellency's communica- 
tion ; but, on the contrary, would assert that the rights of persons and 
property have been most scrupulously respected, and maintained to a 
degree unparalleled in warfare ; and would willinglj- leave the ques- 
tion for the decision of the intelligent and impartial portion of the 
population of this city, by whom have they suffered most violence, 
from their own people or from troops of the army of the United States. 

" As for the other portion of your excellency's communication, de- 
manding a surrender, withm a Umited time, of the places held by the 
troops under my command, I have but this reply to make to your ex- 
cellency; that having been honoured Avith the custody and safe- 
keeping of these places, it is alike ray desire and my duty to maintain 
them to the last, feeling fully confident in the means at my disposal 
to accomplish that purpose. 

" With consideration of high respect, I have the honour to be your 
excellency's most obedient servant, 

" Thomas Childs, 
Colonel U. S. Army, Civil and Military Govermr." 

* The note addressed to Santa Anna, on this' occasion, by Don 
Luis de la Rosa, minister of state and war, is so rernarkable for its 
"uidirect directness," that it may well be preserved4i3 a model of 
diplomatic composition. 

" His excellency, the senor provisional president of the republic, 
feeling profoundly his duties to the country ; convinced of the necessi- 
ty of establishing in the nation public moraUty, and of giving more en- 
ergy to the discipline of the army, ahnost extinguished by our civil 



500 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



In obedience to this arrangement, Santa Anna retired 
to Tehuacan, leaving -behind him an address to the 
army, replete with high-sounding protestations of pa- 
triotism, and charging the government with great 
wrong to the country, as well as injustice to himself, 
in thus displacing him from the command at the very 
moment, when, after so many disasters, he was about 
to obtain a triumph over the invaders. " I depart from 
you," he said, " and from the theatre of war, perhaps 
to sacrifice myself to the vengeance of my enemies, or 
to effect an inglorious peace, which I did not wish to 
grant, because it was repugnant to my conscience." 

Volunteers and recruits for the army continued to 
arrive in considerable numbers at Vera Cruz, until the 
effective force vnider command of General Scott was 
nearly or quite doubled. But they had little to do but 
sit still. The work of conquest was already achieved. 
It was now an army of observation only. It sat qui- 
etly down, in the rich valley of Mexico, to watch the 
progress of events, and to give time to the prostrate 
republic to recover its vitality, and resume the func- 
tions of a body politic. The new recruits were dis- 
tributed to different posts, so as to open and protect 
a clear line of communication with the coast, which 
had been seriously obstructed hitherto, for want of 
numbers sufficient to man the garrisons. With the ex- 
ception of an occasional brush with a band of gueril- 
las, or a sort of police encounter with a mob of leperos, 
the newly-arrived aspirants for military honour saw 
little or nothing of the rough side of war. Such ad- 
ventures as they had, lilce that of the gallant Lally, in 
conducting his train to Puebla through swarms of des- 
perate banditti, belong rather to personal than to na- 
tional history. 

The spectacle is rarely exhibited of a victorious 
army sitting down in the capital of a subjugated em- 
pire, holding possession of all its important fortresses, — 
Its aimy of defence vanquished and scattered, its gov- 
ernment disorganized, its whole population distracted 
by civil dissensions, — and there quietly awaiting the 
return of order, fostering the reunion of the social and 
civil elements, and protecting the reorganization of 
government, not for the purpose of holding the im- 



dissensions ; desiring, moreover, to manifest to the people of the city 
of Mexico, and other points now in possession of the enemy, that their 
lot is not indifferent to his excellency ; considering, in fine, that in ev- 
ery T\-ell-organized country, the generals of an army answer before a 
tribunal for the .faults which they have committed, and even for the 
misfortunes which have befallen their campaigns, — has resolved that 
your excellency deliver up the command of the army," &o. . . . 



mense advantages its prowess had gained, but of treat- 
ing for a just and honourable peace, on the same terms, 
now that it had unlimited power to dictate, which had 
been offered in the commencement of hostilities. If 
there is a redeeming feature in this war, if there is one 
page of its bloody history on which the philanthropist 
and the Christian may dwell with satisfaction, it is this 
which displays the humane moderation, the magnani- 
mous forbearance of the conquering chief, as ready, at 
every step of his proud career of victory, to sheathe 
the sword, and grant liberal terms of peace, as to ad- 
vance to new fields of conquest and glory. Men of 
military talent and experience have reviewed the acts 
of this war, bringing them all down to the test of the 
maxims of Napoleon and other merely despotic con- 
querors. Judging by this standard, and warped by 
personal or party prejudice, they have severely censured 
the more than heroic forbearance of General Scott, 
and the large sacrifices he made, at various times, in 
the hope of staying the work of death, and reopening 
negotiations for peace. Not only has his judgment 
been severely condemned, but his motives have been 
harshly impugned, and made the subject of sarcastic 
surmise and heartless innuendo. If, in all his previous 
career of military renown, he had not always shown 
the same exalted preference of peace over war, — if, 
from the beginning, the olive had not been liberally 
entwined with the laurel in the wreath of his fame, 
until he had come to be as well known by the title of 
" pacificator," as by the less enviable one of conqueror, 
— the imputation, now freely charged against him, of 
seeking popularity at home, by the mere show of mod- 
eration in the battle-fields of Mexico, and attempting to 
win favour as an office-seeking politician, by a gross 
dereliction of his duty as a soldier, would be less fla- 
grantly mean and uncharitable. But, in view of his 
entire history in the service of his country, such in- 
sinuations are as paltry and contemptible as they are 
impolitic and unjust. Party rancor, personal pique, or 
sympathy with the wounded pride of some disappoint- 
ed or injured subordinate, may seek, for a time, by 
such means, to detract from the lofty merit of acts 
whose motives it is incapable of appreciating. But 
impartial history will engrave its vindication on endur- 
ing tablets. And wlien the epitaph of the traduced 
shall be written, it will tell of a man who was no less 
moderate than brave, no less humane than heroic, no 
less ready to treat than able to fight, no less prompt to 
subdue himself than to conquer an enemy. 

But there is a reverse to every picture. War ia 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



501 



fruitful in extravagant contrasts and painful incongrui- 
ties. "No man is a hero to his t;a^e<-o(e-cAaw6?-e." It 
would seem to be equally true that even a general is 
no hero to his subordinates. Like the comic after- 
piece, following the serious drama of the stage, and 
degrading to mere triflers and buffoons those who just 
before had appeared in great and imposing characters, 
the accompaniments and sequels of war serve often 
only as a foil to the glory which its principal actors 
have achieved, reducing quite down to the common 
level of poor humanity men who had just been looked 
upon as almost sublime in virtue and dignity. The 
great work of victory has been achieved. The stern 
requirements of actual warfare have given place to the 
dull routine of a mere camp life. The scene is changed. 
The afterpiece is a petty family quarrel, in which every 
man is divided against his fellow. Jealousies, animosi- 
ties, and bitter criminations take the place of the lofty 
courtesies of martial etiquette. Officers, on whose con- 
duct the language of commendation had been exhausted 
in the official reports of yesterday, are to-day arrested 
and arraigned for some merely technical misdemeanor 
or oversight. The camp is metamorphosed into a 
criminal court, its docket as full of censures and com- 
plaints as the previous bulletins and reports had been 
of unqualified gratulation and praise. The war depart- 
ment, in a measure, participates in these personal dis- 
putes. The commander-in-chief is suddenly placed 
under censure, condemned, and displaced from his high 
command. The whole country, which but now rang 
with acclamations for the conquering chief, and his 
brave and able comrades, is rent with divisions and 
parties, each industriously plucking the plumes from 
one or other of their late heroes, and magnifying into 
beams every mote that could be discovered or imagined 
in their private or official history. Alas for the insta- 
bility of human applause, and the gratitude of repub- 
lics ! The details of these matters, the wearisome 
doings of the courts martial, that occupied nearly as 
much time as the war had done, and consumed no 
small amount of the national treasure, belong, perhaps, 
to biography, rather than to history. But the occur- 
rence of such scenes, and the lessons they teach, are 
within the proper domain of history. They are among 
the essential elements of war, and show us, not only 
that " there is but a step between the sublime and the 
ridiculous," but that war is, in itself and in its accom- 
-paniments, hostile to true greatness, and favourable 
mainly to what is low, and mean, and selfish in man. 
It cultivates revenge, hatred, pride, cruelty, cunning. 



jealousy, and every species of insolence and injustice. 
Its fundamental principle is the false and despotic 
maxim that "might gives right." It merges all moral 
distinctions in that of physical power, and triimiphs as 
boastingly when trampling on Poland, Hungary, or 
Italy, or invading the soil of Mexico, as when resisting 
oppression at Saratoga or Yorktown, or defending the 
altars of freedom at Lexington or Bunker' Hill. It 
cherishes those notions of personal honor, individual 
importance, and official distinction, which almost com- 
pel every man to be jealous of his fellow, and leads to 
endless disputes, among comrades, about the mere tech- 
nicalities of a service which professes to have nothing 
in view but the rights and the glory of the country 
whose cause it supports. 

The voluminous correspondence of the principal 
actors in this war exhibits, in ludicrous and painful 
contrast, the greatness and the littleness of human 
pride — the strength and the weakness of human char- 
acter. There is no true dignity but in following the 
maxims of the gospel. To assert among comrades the 
nice distinctions between inezim and tinim, to resent an 
official injury, to repel a technical insult, may be 
soldier-like and correct, but it is neither heroic, digni- 
fied, nor manly. 

It is but justice to remark, in this connection, that 
the correspondence on the part of the wai department 
is characterized by great ability, dignity, and courtesy, 
and contrasts favourably with the querulousness and 
severity of some portions of that of the commanding 
general. While unjust to him in many respects, and 
assuming a knowledge of events and of the exigencies 
of war which he only conld be presumed to possess, 
Mr. Marcy maintained the highest style of diplomatic 
courtesy in all his communications, and exhibited a 
knowledge of the whole subject with which he had to 
do, that was not to be expected of a mere civilian. If 
political jealousy had not required the cabinet to keep 
steady hold of the leash, its part in this great drama 
would have been more worthy of the nation, and more 
entitled to respect. 

As soon as the new government was organized at 
Queretaro, negotiations were reopened, by Mr. Trist, 
for the adjustment of all difficulties between the two 
nations. He had not proceeded far, however, in his 
preliminaries, when he was suddenly recalled, and his 
powers as commissioner revoked. He had given offence 
to the cabinet of Washington by admitting into the 
convention of Tacubaya a clause which threw a shade 
of doubt over the title of Texas to all the territory east 



502 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



of tlie Rio Grande. So flagrant a departure from his 
instructions was not to be overlooked. He was no 
longer to be trusted with the high prerogatives of a 
commissioner. He -was recalled, and no substitute 
provided. Even at this juncture, General Scott was 
not invested with any authority whatever to make 
terms of peace. He was simply instructed to transmit 
to Washington whatever propositions he might receive 
from the Mexican government, and by no means to 
relax, or change, in the interim, his "movements, or 
measures, for carrying on hostilities." With such in- 
structions. General Scott might well have imitated the 
conduct of the great Macedonian, and wept for another 
Mexico to conquer. It was already at his feet, suing 
for peace. Negotiations were happily begun. And, 
whatever mere diplomatists may say of the propriety 
of the course, Mr. Trist assumed the responsibility, 
though deprived of "all official authority, to carry them 
on to their completion. The result was a treaty of 
peace,* which General Scott also " took the responsi- 



• " Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Limits, and Settlement between the United 
States of America and the Mexican Repxiblic. Dated at Guadalupe 
Hidalgo, February 2, 1S43 ; ratified by the President of the United 
States, March 16, 1848 ; exchanged at Queretaro, May .30, 1848 ; 
proclaimed by the President of the United States, July 4, 1848. 

" By the President of the United States of Ameiuca. 
"A PROCLAMATION. 

" Whereas, a treaty of peace, friendship, limits, and settlement, be- 
tween the United States of America and the Mexican republic, was 
concluded and signed at the city of Guadalupe Hidalgo, on the second 
day of February, one thousand tight hundred and forty-eight, whicli 
treaty, as amended by the senate of the United States, and being in 
the English and Spanish languages, is word for word as follows : — 

" In the name of the Almighty God : the United States of America, 
and the United Mexican States, animated by a sincere desire to put an 
end to the calamities of the war which unhappily exists between the 
two republics, and to establish upon a solid basis relations of peace 
and friendship, which shall confer reciprocal benefits upon the citizens 
of both, and assure the concord, harmony, and mutual confidence 
wherein the two people should live, as good neighbours, have for that 
purpose appointed their respective plenipotentiaries, that is to say, tlie 
President of the United States has appointed Nicholas P. Trist, a 
citizen of the United States, and the President of the Mexican repub- 
lic has appointed Don Luis Gonzaga Cuevas, Don Bernardo Couto, 
and Don Miguel Atristain, citizens of the said republic, who, after a 
reciprocal communication of their respective fuU powers, have, under 
the protection of the Almighty God, tlic author of peace, arranged, 
agreed upon, and signed the following 

" Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Limits, and Settlement, between the United 
States of America and the Mexican Republic. 

" Article I. There shall be firm and universal peace between tlie 
United States of America and the Me.xican republic, and between 
their respective countries, territories, cities, towns, and people, with- 
out exception of places or persons. 

" Article II. Immediately upon the signature of this treaty, a 
convention shall be entered into between a commissioner or com- 



bility " of forwarding to Washington. It was received 
by the government with no little indignation, as well 
against the general-m-chief, who presumed to transmit 
the unauthorized document, as against the audacious 
nondescript, who, when stripped of all power to repre- 
sent his government, or speak in its behalf, had dared 
to draw it up, and set his name to it as commissioner 
plenipotentiary. The treaty was received at Wash- 
ington on the 20th of February. It was in no way 
binding on the United States. It was a simple com- 
pact between a private citizen of the country and the 
commissioners of Mexico. But, considering that those 
commissioners had been duly authorized to act for their 
own government, and had acted with a full knowledge 
of Mr. Trist's position, the president regarded the 
treaty as binding upon Mexico as any unratified treaty 
could be. Its terms were, for the most part, the same 
as those contained in the original projet, which was 
prepared at Washington, and which alone Mr. Trist 
was authorized to submit. The fact that such a treaty 

missioners, appointed by the general-in-chief of the forces of the 
United States, and such as may be appointed by the Mexican govern- 
ment, to the end that a provisional suspension of hostilities shall take 
place, and that, in the places occupied by the said forces, constitu- 
tional order may be reestablished, as regards the political, adminis- 
trative, and judicial branches, so far as this shall be permitted by the 
circumstances of military occupation. 

" Article III. Immediately upon the ratification of the present 
treaty by the government of the United States, orders shall be trans- 
mitted to the commanders of their land and naval forces, requiring the 
latter (provided tliis treaty shall then have been ratified by the gov- 
ernment of the Me.xican repubhc, and the ratifications exchanged) 
immediately to desist from blockading any Mexican ports ; and requir- 
ing the former (under the same condition) to commence at the earliest 
moment practicable, withdrawing all troops of the United States then 
in the interior of the Jlexican republic, to the points that shall be 
selected by common agreement, at a distance from the seaports not 
exceeding tliirty leagues ; and such evacuation of the interior of the 
republic shall be completed with the least possible delay ; the Mexi- 
can government hereby binding itself to afford every facility in its 
power for rendering the same convenient to the troops, on their march 
and in their new positions, and for promoting a good understanding 
between them and the inhabitants. In like manner, orders shall be 
despatched to the persons in charge of the custom-houses, at aU ports 
occupied by the forces of the United States, requiring them (under 
the same condition) immediately to deliver possession of the same to 
the persons authorized by the Mexican government to receive it, 
together with all bonds and evidences of debts for duties on impor- 
tations and on exportations, not yet fallen due. Moreover, a faithful 
and exact account shall be made out, showing the entire amount of 
all duties on imports and on exports collected at such custom-houses, 
or elsewhere in Mexico, by autliority of the United States, fi-om and 
after the day of the ratification of this treaty by the government of 
the Mexican republic ; and also on account of the cost of collection ; 
and such entire amount, deducting onl v the cost of collection, shall be i 
delivered to the Me.xican government, at the city of Mexico, within .' 
three months after the exchange of the ratifications. ' 

" The evacuation of the capital of the Mexican republic by th» : 



m 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



5U3 



nad been definitively agreed npon had been published 
in Mexico, and was well known in the United States. 
The people approved of it. They were entirely satis- 

troops of the United States, in virtue of the above stipulations, shall 
be completed in one month after the orders there stipulated for shall 
have been received by the commander of said troops, or sooner, if 
possible. 

" Article IV. Immediately after the exchange of ratifications of 
•he present treaty, all castles, forts, territories, places, and possessions, 
which have been taken or occupied by the forces of the United States, 
during the present war, mthin the limits of the Mexican republic, as 
about to be established by the following article, shall be definitely 
restored to the said republic, together with all the artillery, arms, 
apparatus of war, munitions, and other public property, which were 
in the said castles and forts when captured and which shall remain 
there at the time when this treaty shall be duly ratified by the gov- 
ernment of the Mexican republic. To this end, immediately upon the 
signature of this treaty, orders shall be despatched to the American 
officers commanding such castles and forts, secuiing against the re- 
moval or destruction of any such artillery, arms, apparatus of war, 
munitions, or other public property. The city of Mexico, within the 
inner line of intrenchments surrounding the said city, is compre- 
•bended in the above stipulations, as regards the restoration of artillery, 
apparatus of war, &c. 

" The final evacuation of the territory of the Mexican republic, by 
the forces of the United States, shall be completed in three months 
from the said exchange of ratifications, or sooner, if possible ; the 
Mexican government hereby engaging, as in the foregoing article, to 
use all means in its power for facilitating such evacuation, and ren- 
dering it convenient to the troops, and for promoting a good under- 
standing between them and the inhabitants. 

" If, however, the ratification of this treaty by both parties should 
not take place in time to allow the embarkation of the troops of the 
United States to be completed before the commencement of the sickly 
season at the Mexican ports on the Gulf of Mexico, in such case a 
ftiendly arrangement shall be entered into between the gencral-in- 
chief of the said troops and the Mexican government, whereby healthy 
and otherwise suitable places, at a distance from the ports not exceed- 
ing thirty leagues, shall be designated for the residence of such troops 
as may not yet have embarked, until the return of the healthy season. 
And the space of time here referred to as comprehending the sicldy 
season, shall be understood to extend from the first day of May to the 
first day of November. 

" All prisoners of war, taken on either side, on land or on sea, shall 
be restored as soon as practicable after the exchange of ratifications of 
this treaty. It is also agreed, that if any Mexicans should now be 
held as captives by any savage tribe within the limits of the United 
States, as about to be established by the following article, the govern- 
ment of the United States will exact the release of such captives, and 
cause them to be restored to their country. 

" Article V. The boundary line between the two republics shall 
commence in the Gulf of Mexico, three leagues from land, opposite 
the mouth of the Rio Grande, otherwise called Kio Bravo del Norte, 
or opposite the mouth of its deepest branch, if it should have more 
than one branch emptying directly into the sea, from thence up the 
middle of that river, foUovring the deepest channel, where it has more 
than one, to the point where it strikes the southern boundary of New 
Mexico, thence wcstwardly along the whole southern boundary of 
New Mexico (which runs nortii of the town called Paso) to its west- 
ern termination ; thence northward along the western line of New 
Mexico until it intersects the first branch of the River Gila, (or, if it 
should not intersect any branch of that river, then to the point on the 
said line nearest to such branch, and thence in a direct line to the 
same ;) thence down the middle of the said branch and of the said 

64 



fied with what they had already accomplished. They 
were either tired or ashamed of the war, and eager for 
peace. They demanded the ratification of the treaty. 

river, untU it empties into the Rio Colorado ; thence across the Kio 
Colorado, following the division line between Upper and Lower Cali- 
fornia to the Pacific Ocean. 

" The southern and western limits of New Mexico, mentioned in 
this article, are those laid down in the map entitled ' Map of the 
United Mexican States, as organized and defined by various acts of 
the congress of said republic, and constriictcd according to the best 
authorities. Revised edition. Published at New York, in 1817, by 
J. Disturnell." Of which map a copy is added to this treaty, bearing 
the signatures and seals of the undersigned plenipotentiaries. And, 
in order to preclude all difficulty in tracing upon the ground the 
limit separating Upper from Lower California, it is agreed that the 
said limit shall consist of a straight line drawn from the middle of the 
Rio Gila, where it unites with the Colorado, to a point on the coast 
of the Pacific Ocean, distance one marine league due south of the 
southernmost point of the port San Diego, according to the plan of 
said port made in the year 1782, by Don Juan Pantoja, second sailing- 
master of the Spanish fleet, and published at Madrid in the year 
1802, in the Atlas to the voyage of the schooners Sutil andMexicana, 
of which plan a copy is hereunto added, signed and sealed by the re- 
spective plenipotentiaries. ■ • 

" In order to designate the boundary line with due precision, upon 
authoritative maps, and to establish tipon the ground landmarks 
which shall show the limits of both republics, as described in the 
present article, the two governments shall each appoint a com- 
missioner and a surveyor, who, before the expiration of one year from 
the date of the exchange of ratifications of this treaty, shall meet at 
the port of San Diego, and proceed to run and mark the said boun- 
dary in its whole course to the mouth of the Rio Bravo del Norte. 
They shall keep journals and make out plans of their operations ; and 
the result agreed upon by them shall be deemed a part of this treaty, 
and shall have the same force as if it were inserted therein. The two 
governments will amicably agree regarding what may be necessary to 
these persons, and also as to their respective escorts, should such be 
necessary. 

" The boundary line, established by this article, shall be rehgiously 
respected by each of the two republics, and no change shall ever be 
made therein, except by the express and free consent of both nations, 
lawfully given by the general government of each, in conformity with 
its own constitution. 

" Article VI. The vessels and citizens of the United States shall, 
in all times, have a free and uninterrupted passage by the Gulf of 
California, and by the River Colorado below its confluence with the 
Gila, to and from their possessions situated north of the boundary line 
defined in the preceding article ; it being understood that this passage 
is to be by navigating the Gulf of California and the River Colorado, 
and not by land, without the express consent of the Mexican govern- 
ment. 

" If, by the examinations which may be made, it should be ascer- 
tained to be practicable and advantageous to construct a road, canal, 
or railway, which should in whole or in part run upon the River GUa, 
or upon its right or its left bank, witliin the space of one marine 
league from either margin of the river, the governments of both re- 
publics will form an agreement regarding its construction, in order 
that it may serve equally for the use and advantage of both coun- 
tries. 

"Article VII. The River Gila, and the part of the Rio Bravo del 
Norte, lying below the southern boundary of New Mexico, being, 
agreeably to the fifth article, divided in the middle between the two 
republics, the navigation of the Gila and of the Bravo below said 
boundary shall be free and common to the vessels and citizens of both 



504 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



It was, accordingly, transmitted to the senate on the 
23d of February, and by them ratified, with amend- 
ments, on the 10th of March. Commissioners were 

countries ; and neither shall, without the consent of the other, con- 
struct any work that may impede or interrupt, in whole or iu part, 
the exercise of this right ; not even for the purpose of favouring new 
methods of navigation. Nor shall any tax or contribution, under any 
denommation or title, be le^•ied upon vessels, or persons navigating 
the same, or upon merchandise or effects transported thereon, except 
in the case of landing upon one of their shores. If, for the purpose of 
making said rivers navigable, or for maintaining them in such state, it 
should be necessary or advantageous to establish any tax or contri- 
bution, this shaE not be done without the consent of both govern- 
ments. 

"The stipulations contained in the present article shall not impair 
the territorial rights of either republic within its established limits. 

" Article \^II. Mexicans now established in territories previously 
belonging to Mexico, and which remain for the future within the 
limits of the United States, as defined by the present treaty, shall be 
free to continue where they now reside, or to remove at any time to 
the Mexican republic, retaining the property which they possess in 
the said territories, or disposing thereof, and removing the proceeds 
•wherever they please, without their being subjected, on this account, 
to any contribution, tax, or charge whatever. 

" Those who shall prefer to remain in the said territories, may either 
retain the title and rights of Mexican citizens, or acquire those of 
citizens of the United States. But they shall be under the obligation 
to make their election within one year from the date of the exchange 
of ratifications of this treaty ; and those who shall remain in the said 
territories after the expiration of that year, without having declared 
their intention to retain the character of Mexicans, shall be considered 
to have elected to become citizens of the United States. 

" In the said territories, property of every kind, now belonging to 
Mexicans not established there, shall be inviolably respected. The 
present owners, the heirs of these and all Mexicans who may hereafter 
acquire said property by contract, shall enjoy with respect to it 
guarantees equally ample, as if the same belonged to the citizens of 
the United States. 

" Article IX. The Jlexicans who, in the territories aforesaid, 
shall not preserve the character of citizens of the Mexican republic, 
conformably with what is stipulated in the preceding article, shall be 
incorporated into the Union of the United States, and be admitted at 
the proper time (to be judged of by the congress of the United States) 
to the enjoyment of all the rights of citizens of the United States, 
according to the principles of the constitution ; and, in the mean time, 
shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty 
and property, and secured in the free exercise of their religion with- 
■ out restriction. 

" Article X. [Stricken out.] 

" Article XI. Considering that a great part of the territories 
■which, by the present treaty, are to be comprehended for the future 
■within the limits of the United States, is now occupied by savage 
tribes, who will hereafter be under the exclusive control of the gov- 
ernment of the United States, and whose incursions ■within the terri- 
tory of Mexico would be prejudicial in the extreme, it is solemnly 
agreed that all such incursions shall be forcibly restrained by the 
government of the United States whensoever this may be necessary ; 
and that when they cannot be prevented, they shall be punished by 
the said government, and satisfaction for the same shall be exacted all 
in the same way, and with equal diligence and energy, as if the same 
incursions were meditated or committed within its own territorj', 
against its own citizens. 

" It shall not be lawful, under any pretext -whatever, for any inhab- 
itant of the United States to purchase or acquire any Mexican or any 



immediately appointed, with full powers, to pro- 
ceed to Q-ueretaro, and exchange ratifications- with 
the Mexican government. This was done, in due 



foreigner residing in Mexico, who may have been captured by Indians 
inhabiting the territory of either of the two republics, i.or to purchase 
or acquire horses, mules, cattle, or property of any kind, stolen ■within 
Mexican territory by such Indians. 

" And in the event of any person or persons, captured within Mexi- 
can territory by Indians, being can^ied into the territory of the United 
States, the government of the latter engages and binds itself in the 
most solemn manner, so soon as it shall know of such captives being 
within its territory, and shall be able so to do through the faithful 
exercise of its influence and power, to rescue them and return them to 
their countrj-, or deliver them to the agent or representative of the 
Mexican government. The Mexican authorities will, as far as practi- 
cable, give to the government of the United States notice of such cap- 
tures ; and its agents shall pay the expenses incurred in the main- 
tenance and transmission of the rescued captives ; who, in the mean 
time, shall be treated with the utmost hospitality by the American 
authorities at the place where they rhay be ; but if the government of 
the United States, before receiving such notice from Mexico, should 
obtain intelligence through any other channel of the existence of 
Mexican captives within its territory, it will proceed forthwith to 
effect their release and delivery to the Mexican agent as above 
stipulated. 

" For the purpose of giving to these stipulations the fullest possible 
efficacy, thereby affording the security and redress demanded by their 
true spirit and intent, the government of the United States will no^w 
and hereafter pass, without unnecessary delay, and always vigilantly 
enforce, such laws as the nature of the subject may require. And 
finally, the sacredness of this obligation shall never be lost sight of by 
the said government when providing for the removal of the Indians 
from any portion of the said territories, or for its being settled by 
citizens of the United States ; but, on the contrarj-, special care should 
be taken not to place its Indian occupants under the necessity of seek- 
ing new homes, by committing those invasions which the United 
States has solemnly obliged themselves to restrain. 

" Article XII. In consideration of the extension acquired by the 
boundaries of the United States, as defined in the fifth article of the 
present treaty, the government of the United States engages to 
pay to that of the Mexican republic the sum of fifteen millions of 
dollars. 

" Immediately after this treaty shall have been duly ratified by the 
government of the Mexican republic, the sum of three millions of 
dollars shall be paid to the said government by that of the United 
States, at the city of Jlexico, in the gold or silver coin of Mexico. The 
remaining twelve millions of dollars shall be paid at the same place 
and in the same coin, in annual instalments of three millions of dollars 
each, together with interest on the same, at the rate of six per centum 
per annum. This interest shall begin to run upon the whole sum of 
twelve millions from the day of the ratification of the present treaty 
by the Mexican government, and the first of the instalments shall be 
paid at the expiration of one year from the same day. Together with 
each annual instalment as it falls due, the whole interest accruing on 
such instalment from the beginning shall also be paid. 

" Article XIII. The United States engage, moreover, to assume 
and pay to the claimants all the amounts now due them and those 
hereafter to become due, by reason of the claims already liquidated 
and decided against the Mexican republic, under the conventions 
between the two republics severally concluded on the eleventh day 
of April, eighteen hundred and thirty-nine, and on the thirteenth day 
of January, eighteen hundred and forty-three ; so that the Mexican 
republic shall be absolutely exempt, for the future, from all expense 
whatever on account of the said claims. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



SOt 



form, on the 30th of May. Thus ended the war in 
Mexico. 

The results of this war, in a moral and statistical 

•' Ahticle XIV. The Urfitcd States do furthermore discharge the 
Mexican republic from all claims of citizens of the United States, not 
heretofore decided against the Mexican government, which may have 
arisen previously to the date of the signature of this treaty ; which 
discharge shall be final and perpetual, whether the said claims be 
rejected or be allowed by the board of commissioners provided for in 
the following article, and whatever shall be the total amount of those 
allowed. 

" Akticle XV. The United States, exonerating Mexico from all 
demands on account of the claims of their citizens mentioned in the 
preceding article, and considermg them entirely and forever cancelled, 
whatever their amount may be, undertake to make satisfaction for the 
Barae, to an amount not exceeding three and one quarter millions of 
dolhirs. To ascertain the validity and amount of those claims, a 
board of commissioners shall be established by the government of the 
United States, whose awards shall be final and conclusive : provided, 
that in deciding upon the vahdity of each claim, the board shall be 
guided and governed by the principles and rules of decision prescribed 
by the first and fifth articles of the unratified convention, concluded 
at the city of ilexico on the twentieth day of November, one thou- 
sand eight hundred and forty-three ; and in no case shall an award 
be made in favour of any claim not embraced by these principles and 
rules. 

" If, in the opinion of the said board of commissioners or of the 
claimants, any books, records, or docximents in the possession or power 
of the government of the Mexican republic, shall be deemed necessary 
to the just decision of any claim, the commissioners, or the claimants 
through them, shall, within such period as congress may designate, 
make an application in writing for the same, addressed to the Mexican 
minister for foreign affairs, to be transmitted by the secretary of state 
of the United States ; and the Mexican government engages, at the 
earliest possible moment after the receipt of such demand, to cause 
any of the books, records, or documents, so specified, wliich shall be 
in their possession or power, (or authenticated copies or extracts of the 
same,) to be transmitted to the said secretary of state, who shall im- 
mediately deliver them over to the said board of commissioners : jiro- 
vided, that no such application shall be made by, or at the instance of, 
any claimant, until the facts which it is expected to prove by such 
books, records, or documents, shall have been stated under oath or 
affirmation. 

" Article XVI. Each of the contracting parties reserves to itself 
the entire right to fortify whatever pomt within its territory it may 
judge proper so to fortify, for its security. 

'* AiiTicLE XVII. The treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation, 
concluded at the city of Mexico on the fifth day of April, A. D. one 
thousand eight hundred and thirt5'-one, between the United States of 
America and the United Mexican States, except the additional article, 
and except so far as the stipulations of the said treaty may be incom- 
patible with any stipulation contained in the present treaty, is hereby 
revived for the period of eight years from the day of the exchange of 
ratifications of this treaty, with the same force and virtue as if incor- 
porated therein ; it being understood that each of the contracting 
parties reserves to itself the right, at any time after the said period of 
eight years shall have expired, to terminate the same by giving one 
year's notice of such intention to the other party. 

" Article XVIII. All supplies whatever for troops of the United 
States in Mexico, arriving at ports in the occup.ation of such troops 
previous to the final evacuation thereof, although subsequently to the 
restoration of the custom-houses at such ports, shall be entirely ex- 
empt fi-om duties and charges of any kind ; the government of the 
United States hereby engaging and pledging its faith to establish, and 



view, have already been alluded to. Who can esti- 
mate them ? Its advantages to the United States are 
thus summed up by the president, in his message to 



vigilantly to enforce, all possible guards for securing the revenue of 
Jlexico, by preventing the importation, under cover of tliis stipulation, 
of any articles other than such, both in kind and quantity, as shall 
reaUy be wanted for tlie use and consumption of the forces of the 
United States during the time they may remain in Mexico. To this 
end, it shall be the duty of all officers and agents of the United States 
to denounce to the Mexican authorities at the respective ports any 
attempt at a fraudulent abuse of this stipulation which they may 
know of, or may have reason to suspect, and to give to such authori- 
ties all the aid in their power with regard thereto ; and every such 
attempt, when duly proved aud established by sentence of a compe- 
tent tribunal, shall be punished by the confiscation of the property so 
attempted to be fraudidently introduced. 

" AiiTiCLE XIX. WitK respect to all merchandise, effects, and 
property whatsoever, imported into ports of Mexico whilst in the 
occupation of the forces of the United States, whether by citizens of 
either republic, or by citizjcns or subjects of any neutral nation, the 
following rules shall be observed : — 

" 1st. All such merchandise, eff'ects, and property, if imported pre- 
viously to the restoration of the custom-houses to the Mexican 
authorities, as stipulated for in the third ai'ticle of this treaty, shall be 
exempt from confiscation, although the importation of the same be 
prohibited by the Mexican tariff. 

" 2d. The same perfect e.xemption shall be enjoyed by all such 
merchandise, eff'ects, and property, imported subsequently to the 
restoration of the custom-houses, and previously to the sixty days 
fixed in the following article for the coming into force of the Mexican 
tariff at such ports respectively ; the said merchandise, effects, and 
property being, however, ftt the time of their importation, subject 
to the payment of duties, as provided for in the said following 
article. 

" 3d. All merchsindise, effects, and property described in the two 
rules foregoing shall, during their continuance at the place of impor- 
tation, and upon their leaWng such place for the interior, be exempt 
from all duty, tax, or impost of every kind, under whatsoever title or 
denommation. Nor shall they be there subjected to any charge what- 
soever upon the sale thereof. 

" 4th. All merchandise, effects, and property described in the first 
and second rules, which shall have been removed to any place in 
the interior whilst such place was in the occupation of the forces 
of the United States, shall, during their continuance therein, be 
exempt from all tax upon the sale or consumption thereof, and firom 
every kind of impost or contribution, under whatsoever title or de- 
nomination. 

" 5th. But if any merchandise, effects, or property described in the 
first and second rules, shall-be removed to any place not occupied at 
the time by the forces of the United States, they shall, upon their 
introduction into such place, or upon their sale or consumption there, 
be subject to the same duties which, under the Mexican laws, tluiy 
would be required to pay in such cases if they had been imported in 
time of peace, through the maritime custom-houses, and had there 
paid the duties conformably with the Mexican tai-iff. 

" 6th. The owners of all merchandise, effects, or property described 
in the first and second rules, and existmg in any port of Mexico, shall 
have the right to reship the same, exempt from all tax, impost, or con- 
tributions whatever. 

" With respect to the metals or other property, exported from any 
Mexican port whilst in the occupation of the forces of the United 
States, and previously to the restoration of the custom-houses at such 
port, no person shall be required by the Mexican authorities, whether 
general or state, to pay any tax, duty, or contribution upon any such 



506 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



the thii-tieth congress, at the opening of its second 
session, on the 5th of December, 1848 : — 

" One of the most important results of the war into 

exportation, or in any manner to account for the same to the said 
• authorities. 

" Akticle XX. Through consideration for the interests of com- 
merce generally, it is agreed, that if less than sixty days should elapse 
between the date of the signature of this treaty and the restoration 
of the custom-houses, conformably with the stipulation in the third 
article, in such case all merchandise, effects, and property •whatsoever, 
arriving at the Mexican ports after the restoration of the said custom- 
houses, and preriously to the expiration of sixty days after the date 
of the signature of this treaty, shall be admitted to entry; and no 
other duties shall be levied tliorcon than the duties establislied by the 
tariff found in force at such custom-houses at the time of the restora- 
tion of the same. And to all such merchandise, effects, and property, 
the rules established by the preceding article shall apply. 

" Article XXI. If unhajipily any disagreement should hereafter 
arise between the governments of the two republics, whether with 
respect to the interpretation of any stipulation in this treaty, or -n-ith 
respect to any other particular concerning the political or commer- 
cial relations of the two nations, the said governments, in the name 
of those nations, do promise to each other that they will endeavor, in 
the most sincere and earnest manner, to settle the differences so 
arising, and to preserve the state of peace and friendship in which the 
two countries are now placing themselves ; using, for this end, mu- 
tual representation and pacific negotiations. And if, by these means, 
they should not be enabled to come to an agreement, a resort shall 
not, on this account, be had to reprisals, aggression, or hostility of 
any kind, by the one repubUc against the other, until the government 
of that wliich deems itself aggrieved sliaU have maturely considered, 
in the spirit of peace and good neighborship, whether it would not be 
Detter that such difference should be settled by the arbitration of com- 
missioners appointed on each side, or by that of a friendly nation. 
And should such course be proposed by either party, it shall be 
acceded to by the other, unless deemed by it altogether incom- 
patible with the nature of the difference or the circumstances of the 
case. 

" Aeticle XXII. If (which is not to be expected, and which God 
forbid) war should unhappily break out between the two republics, 
they do now, with a view to such calamity, solemnly pledge them- 
selves to each other and to the world, to observe the foUowri:ig rules ; 
absolutely, where the nature of the subject permits, and as closely as 
possible in all cases where sucH absolute observance shall be im- 
possible : — 

" I. The merchants of either republic then residing in the other 
shall be allowed to remain twelve months for those dwelling in the 
interior, and sLx months for those dwelling at tlie seaports, to collect 
their debts and settle their affairs, during which periods they shall 
enjoy the same protection, and be on the same footing, in aU respects, 
as the citizens or subjects of the most friendly nations ; and, at the 
expiration thereof, or any time before, they shall have fuU liberty to 
depart, carrj-ing off all their effects wthout molestation or hinderance ; 
conforming therein to the same laws which the citizens or subjects of 
the most friendly nations are reeiiiircd to conform to. Upon the 
entrance of the armies of either nation into the territories of the other, 
women and children, ecclesiastics, scholars of every faculty, cultiva- 
tors of the earth, merchants, artisans, manufacturers, and fishermen, 
unarmed and inhabiting unfortified towns, villages, or places, and in 
general all persons whose occupations are for the common subsistence 
and benefit of mankind, shall be allowed to continue their respective 
emploj-ments unmolested iji their persons. Nor shall their houses or 
goods be burned or otherwise destroyed, nor their cattle taken, nor 
their fields wasted, by the armed force into whose power, by the events 



which we were recently forced with a neighbouring 
nation, is the demonstration it has afforded of the mili- 
tary strength of our comitry. Before the late war with 

of war, they may happen to fall ; but If the necessity arise to take 
any thing from them for the use of such armed force, the same shall 
be paid for at an equitable price. AU churches, hospitals, schools, 
colleges, libraries, and other establishm.ents for charitable and benefi- 
cent purposes, shall be respected, and all persons connected with the 
same protected in the discharge of their duties, and the pursuit of 
their vocations. 

"II. In order that the fate of prisoners of war may be alleviated, 
all such practices as those of sending them into distant, inclement, or 
unwholesome districts, or crowding them into close and noxious 
places, shall be studiously avoided. They shall not be confined in 
dungeons, prison-sliips, or prisons, nor be put in irons, or bound, or 
otherwise restrained in the use of their limbs. The officers shall enjoy 
liberty on their paroles, within convenient districts, and have com- 
fortable quarters ; and the common soldiers shall be disposed in can- 
tonments, open and extensive chough for air and exercise, and lodged 
in barracks as roomy and good as are provided by the party in whose 
power they are for its own troops. But if any officer shall break his 
parole by leaving the district so assigned him, or any other prisoner 
shall escape from the limits of his cantonment, after they shall have 
been designated to him, such individual, officer, or other prisoner, 
shall forfeit so much of the benefit of this article* as provides for his 
liberty on parole or in cantonment. And if any officer so breaking 
his pai'ole, or any common soldier so escaping from the limits assigned 
him, shall afterwards be found in arms, previously to his being regu- 
larly exchanged, the person so offending shall be dealt with according 
to the established laws of war. The officers shall be daily furnished 
by the party in whose power they are with as many rations, and ol 
the same articles, as are allowed, either in kind or by commutation, 
to officers of equal rank in its own army ; and aU others shall be daily 
furnished with such ration as is allowed to a common soldier ui its 
own service ; the value of all which supplies shall, at the close cf the 
war, or at periods to be agreed upon between the respective com- 
manders, be paid by the other party, on a mutual adjustment of 
accounts for subsistence of prisoners ; and such accounts shall not be 
mingled with or set off against any others, nor the balance due on 
them be withheld, as a compensation or reprisal for auy cause what- 
ever, real or pretended. Each party shall be allowed to keep a com- 
missary of prisoners, appointed by itself, with every cantonment of 
prisoners, in possession of the other ; which commissary shall see the • 
prisoners as often as he pleases j shall be allowed to receive, exempt 
from all duties or ta.xes, and to distribute whatever comforts may be 
sent to them by their friends ; and shall be free to transmit his reports 
in open letters to the party by whom he is employed. 

" And it is declared that neither the pretence that war dissolves all 
treaties, nor any other whatever, shall be considered as annulling or 
suspending the solemn covenant contained in this article. On the 
contrary, the state of war is precisely that for which it is provided ; 
and during which, its stipulations are to be as sacredly observed 
as the most acknowledged obligations under the law of natui'e or . 
nations. 

" Article XXIII. This treaty shall be ratified by the president 
of the United States of America, by and with the ad'^-ice and consent 
of the senate thereof, and by the president of the Mexican republic, 
with the previous approbation of its general congress ; and the ratifi- 
cations-shall be exchanged in the city of Washington, or at the seat 
of government in Mexico, in four months from the date of the signa- 
ture thereof, or sooner if practicable. 

" In faith whereof, we, the respective plenipotentiaries, have signed 
this treaty of peace, friendship, limits, and settlement, and have 
hereunto affixed our seals respectively. Done in quintuplicate, 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



507 



Mexico, European and other foreign powers entertained 
imperfect and erroneous views of our physical strength 
ag a nation, and of our ability to prosecute war, and 
especially a war waged out of our own country. They 
saw that our standing army on the peace establishment 
did not exceed ten thousand men. Accustomed them- 
selves to maintain in peace large standing armies, for 
the protection of thrones against their own subjects, as 
well as against foreign enemies, they had not conceived 
that it was possible for a nation without such an army, 
well disciplined and of long service, to wage war suc- 
cessfully. They held in low repute our militia, and 
were far ipom regarding them as an effective force, un- 
less it might be for temporary defensive operations 
when invaded on our own soil. The events of the 
late war with Mexico have not only undeceived them, 
but have removed erroneous impressions which pre- 
vailed to some extent even among a portion of our own 
countrymen. That war has demonstrated, that upon 
the breaking out of hostilities not anticipated, and for 
which no previous preparation had been made, a vol- 
unteer army of citizen soldiers equal to veteran troops, 
and in numbers equal to any emergency, can in a short 
period be brought into the field. Unlike what would 
have occurred in any other country, we were under no 
necessity of resorting to draughts or conscriptions. On 
the contrary, such was the number of volunteers who 



at the city of Guadalupe Hidalgo, on the 2d day of February, in the 
year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty-eight. 

" N. P. Trist, [l. s.] 

" Luis G. Cuevas, [l. s.] 
" Bernardo Couto, [l. s.] 
" MiGL. Atristain. [l. s.] 

" And whereas, the sjud treaty, as amended, has been duly ratified 
on both parts, and the respective ratifications of the 'same ■were ex- 
changed at Queretaro on the thirtieth day of May last, by Ambrose 
H. Sevier and Nathan Clifford, commissioners on the pai't of the gov- 
ernment of the United States, and by SeSor Don Louis de la Rosa, 
minister of relations of the Mexican republic, on the part of that gov- 
ernment, — 

" Now, therefore, be it known, that I, James K. Polk, president of 
the United States of America, have caused the said treaty to be made 
public, to the end that the same, and every clause and article thereof, 
may be observed and fulfilled \vith good faith by the United States 
and the citizens thereof. 

" In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the 
teal of the United States to be affixed. 

" Done at the city of Washington, this fourth day of July, one 

Jb. 3.] thousand eight hundred and forty-eight, and o'f the inde- 
pendence of the United .States the seventy- third. 

" James K. Polk. 
•■By the President: 

' James. Buchanan, Secretary of State." 



patriotically tendered their services, that the chief dif- 
ficulty was in making selections, and determming who 
should be disappointed and compelled to remain at 
home. Our citizen-soldiers are unlike those drawn 
from tlie population of any other country. They 
are composed" mdiscriminately of all professions and 
pursuits; of farmers, lawyers, physicians, merchants, 
manufacturers, mechanics, and labourers ; and this, 
not only among the officers, but the private soldiers 
in 'the ranks. Our citizen-soldiers are unlike those 
of any other country in other respects. They are 
armed, and have been accustomed from their youth up 
to handle and use fire-arms ; and a large proportion 
of them, especially in the western and more newly- 
settled states, are expert marksmen. They are men 
who have a reputation to maintain at home by their 
good conduct in the field. They are intelligent, and 
there is an individuality of character which is found in 
the ranks of no other army. In battle, each private 
man, as well as every officer, fights not only for his 
country, but for glory and distinction among his fellow- 
citizens when he shall return to civil life. 

" The war with Mexico has demonstrated not only 
the ability of the government to organize a numerous 
army upon a sudden call, but also to provide it wUh 
all the munitions and necessary supplies with despatch, 
convenience, and ease, and to direct its opierations with 
efficiency. The strength of our institutions has not 
only been displayed in the valour and skill of our 
troops engaged in active service in the field, but in 
the organization of those executive branches which 
were charged with the general direction and conduct 
of the war. While too great praise cannot be bestowed 
uport the officers and men who fought our battles, it 
would be unjust to withhold from those officers neces- 
sarily stationed at home, who were charged with the 
duty of furnishing the army, in proper time and at 
proper places, with all the munitions of war and other 
supplies so necessary to make it efficient, the commen- 
dation to which they are entitled. The credit due to 
this class of our officers is the greater, when it is con- 
sidered that no army in ancient or modern times was 
ever better appointed or provided than our army in 
Mexico. Operating in an enemy's country, removed 
two thousand miles from the seat of the federal govern- 
ment, its diiferent corps spread over a vast extent of 
territory, hundreds, and even thousands of miles apart 
from each other, nothing short of the untiring vigilance 
and extraordinary energy of these officers could have 
enabled them to provide the army at all points, and in 



508 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



proper season, with all that was required for the most 
elticieiit service. 

" The war with Mexico has thus fully developed 
the capacity of republican governments to prosecute 
successfully a just and necessary foreign war with all 
the vigour usually attributed to more arbitrary forms 
of government. It has been usual for writers on public 
law to impute to republics a want of that unity, con- 
cejitration of purpose, and vigour of execution, which 
are generally admitted to belong to the monarchical 
aiid aristocratic forms ; and this feature of popular, gov- 
ernment has been supposed to display itself more par- 
ticularly in the conduct of a war carried on in an 
enemy's territory. The war with Great Britain, in 
1812, \\-as, to a great extent, confined within our own 
limits, and shed but little light on this subject. But 
the war which we have just closed by an honourable 
peace evinces, beyond all doubt, that a popular repre- 
sentative government is equal to any emergency which 
is likely to arise in the atfairs of a nation. 

" The war with Mexico has developed most strikingly 
and conspicuously another feature in our institutions. 
It is that, without cost to the government or danger to 
our liberties, we have in the bosom of our society of 
freemen, available in a just and necessary war, virtually 
a standing army of two millions of armed citizen-sol- 
diers, such as fought the battles of Mexico. 

" But our military strength docs not consist alone in 
our capacity for extended and successful operations on 
laud. The navy is an important arm of the national 
defence. If the services of the navy were not so bril- 
liant as those of the army in the late war with Mexico, 
it was because they had no enemy to meet on their 
own element. While the army had opportunity of per- 
forming more conspicuous service, the navy largely 
participated in the conduct of the war. Both branches 
of the service performed their whola duty to the coun- 
try. For the able and gallant services of the officers 
and men of the navy — acting independently as well 
as in cooperation with our troops — in the conquest of 
the Californias, the capture of Vera Cruz, and the seiz- 
ure and occupation of other important positions on the 
Gulf and Pacific coasts, the highest praise is due. 
Theii- vigilance, energy, and skill rendered the most 
etfective service in excluding munitions of war and 
other supplies from the enemy, while they secured a 
safe entrance for abimdant supplies for our own army. 
Our extended commerce was nowhere interrupted ; 
and for this immunity from the evils of war, the coun- 
try is indebted to the navy 



" The great results which have been developed and 
brought to light by this war will be of immeasurable 
importance in the future progress of our country. 
They will tend powerfully to preserve us from foreign 
collisions, and to enable us to pursue uninterruptedly 
our cherished policy of 'peace with all nations, en- 
tangling alliances with none.' 

" Occupying, as we do, a more commanding position 
among nations than at any former period, our duties 
and our responsibilities to ourselves and to posterity 
are correspondingly increased. This will be the more 
obvious when we consider the vast additions which 
have been recently made to our territorial possessions, 
and their great importance and value. 

" Within less than four years, the annexation of 
Texas to the Union has been consummated ; all con- 
tiicting title to the Oregon Territory south of the forty- 
ninth degree of north latitude, being all that was 
insisted on by any of my predecessors, has been ad- 
justed ; and New Mexico and Upper California have 
been acquired by treaty. The area of these several 
territories, according to a report carefully prepared by 
the commissioner of the general land office from the 
most authentic information ifi his possession, and which 
is herewith transmitted, contains one million one hun- 
dred and ninety-three thousand and sixty-one square 
miles, or seven hundred and sixty-three million five 
hundred and fifty-nine thousand and forty acres ; while 
the area of the remaining twenty-nine states, and the 
territory not yet organized into states, east of the 
Rocky Mountains, contains two million fifty-nine thou- 
sand five hundred and thirteen square miles, or thir- 
teen hundred and eighteen million one hundred and 
twenty-six thousand and fifty-eight acres. These es- 
timates show that tlie territories recently acquired, and 
over which our exclusive jurisdiction and dominion 
have been extended, constitute a country more than 
half as large as all that which was held by the United 
States before their acquisition. If Oregon be excluded 
from the estimate, there will still remain within the 
limits of Texas, New Mexico, and California, eight 
hundred and fifty-one thousand five hundred and 
ninety-eight square miles, or five hundred and forty- 
five million twelve thousand seven hundred and twenty 
acres ; being an addition equal to more than one third 
of all the territory owned by the United States before 
their acquisition ; and, including Oregon, nearly as 
great an extent of territory as the whole of Europe, 
Russia only excepted. The Mississippi, so lately tho 
frontier of our country, is now only its centre. With the 



HISTORY OP THE UNITED STATES. 



509 



addition of the late acquisitions, the United States are 
now estimated to be nearly as large as the whole of 
Europe. It is estimated by the superintendent of the 
coast survey, in the accompanying report, that the ex- 
tent of the sea-coast of Texas, on the Gulf of Mexico, 
is upwards of four hundred miles ; of the coast of Up- 
per California, on the Pacific, of nine hundred and 
seventy miles ; and of Oregon, including the Straits of 
Fuca, of six hundred and fifty miles ; making the 
whole extent of sea-coast on the Pacific one thousand 
six hundred and twenty miles, and the whole extent 
on both the Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico two thou- 
sand and twenty miles. The length of the coast on 
the Atlantic, from the northern limits of the United 
States, around the capes of Florida to the Sabine, on 
tlie eastern boundary of Texas, is estimated to be three 
thousand one hundred miles ; so that the addition of 
sea-coast, including Oregon, is very nearly two thirds 
as great as all we possessed before ; and, excluding 
Oregon, is an addition of one thousand three hundred 
and seventy miles ; being nearly equal to one half of 
the extent of coast which we possessed before these 
acquisitions. We have now three great maritime 
fronts, — on the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, and the 
Pacific, — making in the whole an extent of sea-coast 
exceeding five thousand miles. This is the extent of 
the sea-coast of the United States, not including bays, 
sounds, and small irregularities of the main shore, and 
of the sea islands. If these be included, the length of 
the shore line of coast, as estimated by the superin- 
tendent of the coast survey in his report, would be 
thirty-three thousand and sixty-three miles. 

" It would be difficult to calculate the value of these 
immense additions to our territorial possessions. Texas, 
lying contiguous to the western boundary of Louisiana, 
embracing within its limits a part of the navigable trib- 
utary waters of the Mississippi and an extensive sea- 
coast, could not long have remained in the hands of a 
foreign power without endangering the peace of our 
south-western frontier. Her products in the vicinity 
of the tributaries of the Mississippi must have sought 
a market through these streams, running into and 
through our territory ; and the danger of irritation and 
collision of interests between Texas, as a foreign state, 
and ourselves would have been imminent, while the 
embarrassments in the commercial intercourse between 
them must have been constant and unavoidable. Had 
Texas fallen into the hands, or under the influence and 
control, of a strong maritime or military foreign power. 



as she might have done, these dangers would have 
been still greater. They have been avoided by her 
voluntary and peaceful annexation to the United States. 
Texas, from her position, was a natural and almost in- 
dispensable part of our territories. Fortunately, she 
has been restored to our country, and now constitutes 
one of the states of our confederacy, ' upon an equal 
footing with the original states.' The salubrity of 
climate, the fertility of soil, peculiarly adapted to the 
production of some of our most valuable staple com- 
modities, and her commercial advantages, must soon 
make her one of our most populous states. 

" New Mexico, though situated in the interior and 
without a sea-coast, is known to contain much fer- 
tile land, to abound in rich mines of the precious met- 
als, and to be capable of sustaining a large population. 
From its position, it is the intermediate and connecting 
territory between our settlements and our possessions 
in Texas, and those on the Pacific coast. 

" Upper California, irrespective of the vast mineral 
wealth recently developed there, holds at this day, in 
point of value and importance to the rest of the Union, 
the same relation that Louisiana did when that fine 
territory was acquired from France forty-five years 
ago. Extending nearly ten degrees of latitude along 
the Pacific, and embracing the only safe and commo- 
dious harbors on that coast, for many hundred miles, 
with a temperate climate and an extensive interior of 
fertile lands, it is scarcely possible to estimate its wealth 
until it shall be brought under the government of our 
laws, and its resources fully developed. From its po- 
sition, it must command the rich commerce of China, 
of Asia, of the islands of the Pacific, of Western Mexi- 
co, of Central America, the South American States, 
and of the Russian possessions bordering on that ocean. 
A great emporium will doubtless speedily arise on the 
Californian coast, which may be destined to rival in 
importance New Orleans itself The depot of the vast 
commerce which must exist on the Pacific will proba- 
bly be at some point on the Bay of San Francisco, and 
will occupy the same relation to the whole we§tern 
coast of that ocean as New Orleans does to the Valley 
of the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico. To this 
depot our numerous whale ships will resort with their 
cargoes, to trade, refit, and obtain supplies. This, of 
itself, will largely contribute to build up a city, which 
would soon become the centre of a great and rapidly 
increasing commerce. Situated on a safe harbour, suf- 
ficiently capacious for all the navies as well as the 



510 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



marine of the world, and convenient to excellent tim- 
ber for ship-buildiiig, owned by the United States, it 
must become our great western naval depot. 

" It was known that mines of the precious metals 
existed to a considerable extent in California at the 
time of its acquisition. Recent discoveries render it 
probable that these mines are more extensive and val- 
uable than was anticipated. The accounts of the 
abundance of gold in that territory are of such an 
extraordinary character as would scarcely command 
belief, were they not corroborated by the authentic 
reports of ofiicers in the public service, who have vis- 
ited the mineral district, and derived the facts which 
they detail from personal observation. Reluctant to 
credit the reports in general circulation as to the quan- 
tity of gold, the officer commanding our forces in Cali- 
fornia visited the mineral district in July last, for the 
purpose of obtaining accurate information on the sub- 
ject. His report to the war department of the result 
of his examination, and the facts obtained on the spot, 
is herewith laid before congress. When he visited the 
country, there were about four thousand perons en- 
gaged in collecting gold. There is every reason to 
believe that the number of persons so employed has 
since been augmented. The explorations already made 
warrant the belief that the supply is very large, and 
that gold is found at various places in an extensive 
district of country. 

" Information received from officers of the navy and 
other sources, though not so full and minute, confirm 
the accounts of the commander of our military force 
in California. It appears, also, from these reports, that 
mines of quicksilver are found in the vicinity of the 
gold region. One of them is now being worked, and 
is believed to be among the most productive in the 
world." 

The discovery and partial development of the im- 
mense mineral wealth of California, at the very mo- 
ment when it was passing into the possession of the 
United States, promised to produce as powerful an 
effect upon the American mind as that of the New 
World did upon the Old, when its marvellous riches 
were exposed by Columbus. From east to west, from 
north to south, the spirit of emigration moved on the 
hearts of the people. It seized the old as well as the 
young. It pervaded city and country, mountain, glen, 
and valley. It decimated the ranks of every profes- 
sion. In almost every town and village, throughout 
the land, adventurers started up, associations were 
formed, and eager companies, of hopeful, ardent, en- 



! thusiastic pioneers, who resolved on seeing for them- 
selves the modern El Dorado. The highways and 
thoroughfares in every part of the land were alive with 
the moving multitudes, seeking a place of depart- 
ure. The wharves of the seaports were thronged 
with impatient expectants, who were willing to pay 
any price for a passage, and submit to any privations 
and hardships by the way, so that, by some means, 
they could reach the golden shore. Ships were every 
where in the greatest demand. A system of crowding 
and packing, second only to that so notorious in the 
African trade, did not deter or dishearten the adven- 
turers. Band after band they hurried away, some for 
the short cut by the Isthmus of Panama, some for the 
dreary and exhausting overland route, and some to 
double the cape, with all the tedium and discomfort 
of a five months' voyage. Their name was legion. 
Inexperienced in travel, uninured to the hardships and 
privations of a pioneer life, poorly provided with even 
the necessaries for the voyage, thousands left their 
homes only to die by the way, or to seize the first op- 
portunity to return. Of two hundred thousand, who 
are estimated to have gone to California from Ihe United 
States, about foity thousand have died, and twenty- 
five thousand returned sick, or - discouraged by the 
hardships of a life of which they had not only no ex- 
perience, but no idea. 

The war in Mexico, while productive of great ad- 
vantages to the United States, was also fruitful in 
difficult problems and troublesome political questions. 
An immense territory had been acquired. It was 
now to be organized and governed. In effecting this, 
sectional interests M^ere to be adjusted, and political 
differences harmonized, the management of which re- 
quired more tact, wisdom, and true generalship, than 
the conquest of a world. Every element of discord in 
the nation was to be stirred up, agitated, and invested 
with individuality and life. The integrity of the 
Union was to be threatened, and all the blessings and 
privileges purchased by the revolution of '76, and 
secured and consolidated by a career of national pros- 
perity and happiness unparalleled in the history of the 
world, were to be jeoparded in the strife of party. 
The insatiable appetite for territory, over which to 
spread the dcjminion of slavery, was only to be ap- 
peased by the monopoly of every acre of the conquered 
.provinces. No sooner was peace established in Mexi- 
co, than the gauntlet was thrown down at Washing- 
ton, for a three years' war of words. 

In his message of December, 1848, the president 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



511 



urged upon congress the immediate establishment of 
territorial governments, in all the newly-acquired pos- 
sessions. 

'• The existing condition of California," said he, 
"and of that part of New Mexico lying west of the 
Rio Grande, and without the limits of Texas, imperi- 
ously demand that congress should, at its present ses- 
sion, organize territorial governments over them. 

" Upon the exchange of ratifications of the treaty of 
peace with Mexico, on the 30th of May last, the tem- 
porary governments which had been established over 
New Mexico and California by our military and naval 
commanders, by virtue of the rights of war, ceased to 
derive any obligatory force from that source of authori- 
ty; and having been ceded to the United States, all 
government and control over them under the authority 
of Mexico had ceased to exist. Impressed with the 
necessity of establishing territorial governments over 
them, I recommended the subject to the favourable 
consideration of congress in my message communi- 
cating the ratified treaty of peace, on the 6t[i of July 
last, and invoked their action at that session. Con- 
gress adjourned without making any provision for their 
government. The inhabitants, by the transfer of their 
country, had become entitled to the benefits of our 
laws and constitution, and yet were left without any 
regularly-organized government. Since that time, the 
very limited power possessed by the executive has 
been exercised to preserve and protect them from the 
inevitable consequences of a state of anarchy. The 
only government which remained was that established 
by the military authority during the war. Regarding 
♦his to be a de facto government, and that by the pre- 
umed consent of the inhabitants it might be continued 
temporarily, they were advised to conform and sub- 
mit to it for the short intervening period before con- 
gress would again assemble and could legislate on the 
subject. 

" It is our solemn duty to provide, with the least 
practicable delay, for New Mexico and California, reg- 
ularly-organized territorial governments. The causes 
of the failure to do this at the last session of congress 
are well known, and deeply to be regretted. With 
the opening prospects of increased prosperity and na- 
tional greatness which the acquisition of these rich and 
extensive territorial possessions affords, how irrational 
it would be to forego or to reject these advantages, by 
the agitation of a domestic question which is coeval 
with the existence of our government itself, and to en- 
danger by internal strifes, geographical divisions, and 

65 



heated contests for political power, or for any other 
cause, the harmony of the glorious Union of our con- 
federated states ; that Union which binds us together 
as one people, and which for sixty years has been our 
shield and protection agahist every danger. In the 
eyes of the world, and of posterity, how trivial and in- 
significant will be all our internal divisions and strug- 
gles, compared with the preservation of this Union of 
the states in all its vigour and with all its countless 
blessings! No patriot would foment and excite geo- 
graphical and sectional divisions. No lover of his 
country would deliberately calculate the value of the 
Union. Future generations would look in amazement 
upon the folly of such a course. Other nations of the 
present day would look upon it with astonishment, 
and such of them as desire to maintain and perpetuate 
thrones and monarchical or aristocratical principles 
will view it with exultation and delight, because in it 
they will see the elements of faction, which they hope 
must ultimately overturn our system. Ours is the 
great example of a prosperous and free self-governed 
republic, commanding the admiration and the imita- 
tion ot all the lovers of freedom throughout the world. 
How solemn, therefore, is the duty, how impressive 
the call upon us, and upon all parts of our country, to 
cultivate a patriotic spirit of harniQuy, of good fellow- 
ship, of compromise and mutual concession, in the 
administration of the incomparable system of govern- 
ment formed by our fathers in the midst of almost in- 
superable difficulties, and transmitted to us, with the 
injunction that we should enjoy its blessings and hand 
it down unimpaired to those who may come after us ! 

"In view of the hich and responsible duties which 
we owe to ourselves and to mankind, I trust you may 
be able, at your present session, to approach the adjust- 
ment of the only doiViestic question which seriously 
threatens, or probably ever caa threaten, to disturb the 
harmony and successful operations of our system. 

" The immensely valuable possessions of New Mex- 
ico and California are already inhabited by a considera- 
ble population. Attracted by their great fertility, their 
mineral wealth, their commercial advantages, and the 
salubrity of the climate, emigrants from the older states, 
in great numbers, are already preparing to seek, new 
homes in these inviting regions." 

Pending the settlement of these difficult questions, 
others of a more ordinary character were to be adjust- 
ed. Absorbed as the government and the nation had 
been in the prosecution of the war, it moved quietly 
on in the ordinary channels of legislation and business. 



512 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



The sub-treasury of Mr. Van Buren's administration, 
which had been repealed at the extra session, in 1841, 
was revived and reestablished in 1846. In the same 
year, a warehousing system, arranged and adjusted by 
Mr. Walker, then secretary of the treasury, was brought 
forward and adopted. It provided that the duties on 
all imported goods, wares, or merchandise, should be 
paid in cash ; and that goods upon which the duties 
were not paid should be taken possession of by the 
collector, and deposited in public stores at the risk of 
the owner, and subject at all times to his order, upon 
the payment of the proper duties and expenses. In 
case the goods should remain in the storehouse more 
than one year without the payment of the duties, then 
they are to be appraised, and sold by the collector at 
public auction. Within one year after the goods are 
deposited in the public storehouse, they may be with- 
drawn and transported to any other port of entry. 

Previous to the passage of that act, the warehouse 
sy«tem was in existence, although the laws which 
regulated it were not so simple and well defined as the 
bill of 1846. Indeed, the principle was established as 
early as 1799, and was enlarged or contracted at vari- 
ous periods since the adoption of the constitution, for 
the benefit of the commercial interest. The eifect of 
the bill is to give an extension of credit to the importer, 
who would otherwise, under the new system of cash 
duties, be required to pay the duties upon his merchan- 
dise as soon as it was landed. 

The subject of internal improvements was another 
question which vexed the legislation of this period, 
and called forth an executive veto. To facilitate the 
vast internal commerce of the country, it was neces- 
sary to remove obstructions from many of its rivers, 
and to improve, in various ways, many of the harbours 
upon its extended sea and lake coast. To effect these 
objects in the most unexceptionable manner, repre- 
senting equally and harmoniously all the interests of 
every section, a great convention had been held at 
Chicago. .The subject had, also, been thoroughly 
discussed in the papers ; and the people were fully 
convinced and ready to act. A well-adjusted bill, 
passed after ample deliberation and discussion, by large 
majorities of both houses of congress, in 1846, was 
defeated by the act of the president. 

In the following year, another bill, appropriating 
nearly a million of dollars to the same object, passed 
both houses by large majorities, and was defeated in 
the same manner, by an executive veto. 

The postal arrangements of the United States under- 



went large alterations during the administration of 
Mr. Polk. In imitation of the great Englisli reform, 
though yet far behind it, the rates of postage were 
reduced, in 1845, to five cents on every single letter, 
of half an ounce, for any distance under three hundred 
miles, and ten cents for any greater distance. This 
change, which is most acceptable to the people, has 
more than realized the anticipations of its supporters. 
It met with great opposition, on the ground that, in a 
country of such vast extent, and having so much 
sparsely-occupied territory, the receipts of the depart- 
ment would fall short of its expenses. The result has 
already proved the futility of this objection ; and 
there can be no doubt that a still further reduction 
would be followed by a similar result. We look to 
see the postage reduced to a uniform rate of two cents 
per half ounce, for all distances. It can be done, be- 
yond a question, without risk to the department. And, 
even if it could not, the great public benefit would 
more than justify the experiment. The post-office de- 
partment is but one branch of the public service, and, 
when the public good demands it, is as well entitled 
to an appropriation from the treasury, as the army or 
the navy. It is an arbitrary maxim, intelligible only 
to statesmen and legislators, that the post-office depart- 
ment should pay its own expenses. To the common 
sense of the common people, who here are the true 
sovereigns, the only rule applicable to the case is that 
which recognizes the government, in all its depart- 
ments alike, as a mere agency for the general good, 
and bound only to consult the greatest good of the 
greatest number. To require any part of the system 
to support itself, by taxing the people, while all the 
other parts are only a tax upon the common treasury, 
is to make a distinction without a difference. 

At the same time that this important step was taken 
in the reduction of the rates of postage, arrangements 
were also made for the regular transmission of the 
mails — to Great Britain, France, Germany, and other 
foreign countries. Contracts were entered into, by 
the department, with the principal merchants engaged 
in the packet lines to various parts of the world, who 
immediately undertook to carry the arrangement into 
effect. The result has been, an entire new class of 
ocean steamers, which are an honour to the country 
and the age. A noble competition for speed, regularity, 
and system, in the departure and return of these levia- 
than carriers, has arisen betAveen the English and 
American lines, which insures to the public, on both 
sides of the Atlantic, the best results which ample 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



513 



means, well-directed energy, and a laudable ambition 
to excel, can achieve. 

The claims of American citizens for French spolia- 
tions, prior to 1800, were revived at this period. The 
history of those claims is brief and simple. In conse- 
quence of the ready aid which France afforded the 
United States in the struggle for independence, a treaty 
was entered into between the two nations, by the 
terms of which the United States were bound to assist 
in protecting the French colonies from aggressions. 
Soon after the adoption of the constitution, and before 
the government had acquired the means of maintain- 
ing a naval \varfare, England declared war against 
France, and attacked her West India possessions. 
France called upon the United States to fulfil the 
treaty stipulations, and come to her defence ; in other 
words, to make war upon England. Without a navy, 
and almost without a treasury, this was impossible. 
It was deemed wiser and better to break an engage- 
ment with an ally, than to involve the country in a 
fresh war, without any sufficient means of carrying it 
on. The United States, therefore, abandoned the 
treaty, as the best choice between two evils. France, 
in retaliation, made large reprisals upon American com- 
merce, which had then begun to whiten the Atlantic. 
These spoliations were afterwards ascertained to amount 
to about ten millions of dollars. Thousands of mer- 
chants, just started in a career of prosperity, were ruined, 
having lost their all at a single blow. Commerce was 
paralyzed for a time. At the close of the war, an ad- 
justment was attempted between the two nations. 
The whole subject was ably and thoroughly canvassed, 
and the result was, a relinquishment, on the part of 
France, of her claims upon the United States, on con- 
dition that the United- States should assume and pay 
the claims of he)- own citizens against Fra7ice. This 
was solemnly agreed to, and France was honourably 
released from all obligation to make good these heavy 
spoliations. Having by her own act, and for her own 
benefit, deprived the sufferers of all right to seek re- 
dress from France, it was but common honesty that the 
United States government should pay the debt out of 
her own treasury. Her treasury was then exceedingly 
low. A heavy debt, incurred in the war of the revo- 
lution, embarrassed it, and this act of justice to her 
own citizens was consequently delayed. It has often 
been revived. Fourteen times a report has been made, 
by the appropriate committee, in favor. of redeeming 
the national promise. Bill after bill, for this purpose, 
has passed one house of congress, and been defeated 



or overlooked in the other. By what show of argu- 
ment, or pretence of honesty, it has been so long de- 
layed, and so often set aside, it is difficult to imagine. 
All similar claims have been adjusted and paid, almost 
without discussion. This alone, seemingly for no 
other reason than because it is an old one, has been 
refused. A subsequent claim of precisely the same 
nature against France has been urged and insisted on, 
even to an open menace of war in case of further de- 
lay. And there can be no room for doubt, that every 
dollar of this claim, if it had still remained good against 
the original spoiler, would long since have been en- 
forced at the cannon's mouth. By what system of 
ethics our American legislators justify their refusal in 
this case to pay a debt which they voluntarily, and for 
their own benefit, assumed, and from which, without 
the consent of the creditors, they released the original 
debtor, has never been made to appear. During the 
administration of Mr. Polk, a new attempt was made 
to do justice to the claimants, who, for half a century, 
had been seeking redress in vain. A bill was carried 
through both houses of congress, authorizing the pay- 
ment of five millions of dollars, in public lands. 
Though this sum was less than half the original claim, 
and though the mode of payrtient was but giving a 
stone where bread was due, the eager claimants, who 
had long despaired of even a hearing for their case, 
were willing to accept it. But they had yet another 
disappointment to meet. The president vetoed the 
bill. His only reason for so doing was, that being 
then at war with a foreign nation, all the resources of 
the government were required to carry it on ; thus not 
only withholding from those who had grown gray in 
want a mere acknowledgment of their claim, but 
making one wrong an apology and pretext for doing 
another. 

The treaty of peace, and th^ acquisition of a large 
portion of Mexican territory had not put an end to the 
war. It had only transferred it from the Mexican to 
the American soil. Even before peace was "con- 
quered," and territory acquired, a warm party strife 
arose with reference to the due division of the spoils. 
The acquisition had been sought by the administra- 
tion, mainly with a view to the extension of slavery, 
and the southern interest wished to swallow it all up. 
This the north felt bound to prevent, if possible, hav- 
ing a sound and immovable position in the fact, that, 
as slavery had been abolished in Mexico, the territory 
was then free, and the inhabitants all opposed to a 
change. The agitation was great, and constantly in- 



su 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



creasing in violence. It gave rise, in 1846, to the 
celebrated " Wilmot Proviso," which has not only 
given a world-wide notoriety to an otherwise undis- 
tinguished individual, but furnished an inexhaustible 
theme for party declamation and bitter personal invec- 
tive. During the first session of the twenty-ninth 
congress, a bill was introduced into the house of repre- 
sentatives, appropriating two million dollars for the 
purpose of defraying any extraordinary expenses which 
might be incurred in the intercourse between the 
United States and foreign nations. This appropriation 
was desired to enable the president to obtain California 
in any treaty which might be concluded between .the 
two countries. To this bill Mr. David Wilmot, of 
Pennsylvania, proposed the following proviso : — 

" Provided, That, as an express and fundamental 
condition to the acquisition of any territory from the 
republic of Mexico by the United States, by virtue of 
any treaty that may be negotiated between them, and 
to the use by the executive of the moneys herein ap- 
propriated, neither slavery nor involuntary servitude 
shall ever exist in any part of said territory, except for 
crime, whereof the party shall first be duly convicted." 

This, though sustained in the house, was rejected in 
the senate, and caused the defeat of the bill. An ap- 
propriation of three million dollars, for the same object, 
was proposed at the subsequent session, to which the 
same proviso was again attached by the house, and re- 
jected by the senate. The bill, thus amended, was 
returned to the house, which receded from its position, 
and passed the appropriation without restriction. 

This was but the beginning of a conflict of unparal- 
leled bitterness and severity in the history of America. 
It destroyed some valuable lives. It threatened more, 
even in the senate-house. And more than that, it 
threatened the dissolution of the Union. But it will 
pass away, and be fofgotten, — like one of those blus- 
tering wind-clouds, which sweep over the land in 
summer, having all the fierceness and blackness of a 
thunder-cloud, but none of its terrific flashes or irre- 
sistible bolts. 

During the administration of Mr. Polk, two new 
states were admitted into the Union — Iowa on the 28th 
of December, 1846, and Wisconsin on the 3d of March, 
1847. A territorial government was also established 
in Oregon ia August, 1848. In this the Wilmot Pro- 
viso was inserted. An effort was made in the sen- 
ate to assign, as a reason for this concession, the fact 
that the country lay north of 36° 30', and thus to re- 
cognize, if not to reenact, the Missouri compromise. 



But it was unsuccessful. The bill passed, and was 
approved, with the dreaded clause in full effect. How 
the president could answer it to his conscience to 
approve a bill containing a provision, which he, in 
common with all the south, declared to be flagrantly un- 
constitutional, it is difficult to comprehend. If slavery 
has "natural boundaries" and local limits, conscience 
and the constitution have none. To exclude any insti- 
tution, or any branch of business, from one section, by 
legislative enactment, and to hold it treason to the con- 
stitution even to attempt the same exclusion in another 
section, is a puerile evasion of the whole question at 
issue. The tone and temper of the parties, in this dis- 
cussion, may be gathered from a brief extract from the 
speeches of their two great leaders. 

Mr. Webster admitted the propriety of the establish- 
ment of a territorial government in Oregon, and was 
willing to vote for this bill as it came from the house. 
If amended as now proposed, he would not be able to 
vote for it. He recited the words of the section, and 
said, the amendment proposed gave a reason for the ap- 
plication of the principle of the ordinance of 1787 to the 
territory of Oregon. When a single reason was given for 
any act, it was intended to be inferred that there were 
no other reasons. The territory of Oregon was above 
the line of the Missouri compromise. His objection to 
slavery was irrespective of lines and points of latitude : it 
took in the whole country and the whole question. He 
was opposed to it in every shape and in every qualifica- 
tion, and was against any compromise of the question. 

Mr. Calhoun said he should vote against the amend- 
ment, because he regarded it as ambiguous, and he was 
against all ambiguity. Again, he opposed it because 
the north could not be more determined to exclude 
the south, than he was to resist such exclusion. He 
would be as firm in maintaining his ground as northern 
senators were in maintaining theirs. A majority would 
always be able to carry their views ; but here a minori- 
ty, aided by a few of the majority, attempted to impose 
on the south restrictions which could not be submit- 
ted to. 

In July, 1846, the county and town of Alexandria, 
embracing all that portion of the District of Columbia 
which lay south of the Potomac, except so much as 
was covered by buildings belonging to the United 
States, was retroceded to the state of Virginia. 

The election of 1848 was one of deep and pervading 
interest, and was warmly contested. All the exciting 
questions Avhich had so recently agitated the country 
were involved in it. Among them, that of slavery 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



515 



extension was the most absorbing. Mr. Cass, of Michi- 
gan, for president, and General Butler, of Georgia, for 
vice-president, were the democratic candidates ; and 
General Taylor, of Louisiana, for president, and Mr. 
Fillmore, of New York, for vice-president, were the 
candidates of the whig party. It is a singular circum- 
stance, in this contest, that the whigs, who, as a party, 
were opposed to the extension of slavery in the new 
territories, should have selected for theii' candidate a 
slaveholder, from the far south, while the other party 
selected a man from the free states. It shows strongly 
their confidence in the men they had respectively 
chosen, and illustrated the fact, which, in the heat of 
discussion, is too often overlooked, that northern men 
are not all ultra abolitionists, nor southern slaveholders 
all slavery propagandists. The rabid abolitionists are 
few and far between, at the north. The real lovers of 
slavery, in the abstract, are not more numerous at the 
south. Abolish party names, lay aside violent personal 
and sectional denunciation, and the true majority in 
the greater part of the Southern States would be found 
to sympathize more with the northern views, than 
with those of the champions of their own section, and 
slavery itself would die of consumption. 

The whig candidates were successful, in this con- 
test, by large majorities, and, on the 4th of March, 
1849, General Zachary Taylor took the oath of office 
as president, and Millard Fillmore entered upon his 
duties as vice-president of the United States. 

Mr. Fillmore was born at Summer Hill, Cayuga 
county, New York, on January 7, ISOO, and is, accord- 
ingly, now a little over fifty years old. His father 
was a farmer, in very limited circumstances. The fam- 
ily removed to Aurora, Erie county, in 1819, where the 
father still carries on a farm of moderate dimensions : 
the traveller has often passed the modest house where 
reside the family of the president, in a style not more 
pretending than is common to thriving farmers of that 
prosperous district. The narrow means of the father 
did not permit the bestowal on the son of any other 
than a most limited common school education. When 
fifteen years old, he was sent to learn the trade of a 
clothier, at which he worked for four years, improving 
all his spare time in reading books from a little library 
in the village where he lived. At the age of nineteen, 
he made the acquaintance of Judge Wood, of Cayuga 
county, who detected the latent talents of the young 
man, and induced him to study law, for which he 
generously furnished the means. Mr. Fillmore re- 
mained in Judge Wood's office above two years, study- ; 



ing with that industry and perseverance which have 
distinguished him through life : during this time, he 
also taught school in the winter months, in order him- 
self to provide for his expenses as far as possible. In 
]S22, he entered a law office at Buffalo, and passed a 
year studying and teaching, when he was admitted to 
the bar, and removed to Aurora, to commence the prac- 
tice of his profession. In 1826, he married Abigail, the 
daughter of Rev. Lemuel Powers. Several years were 
now mainly employed by Mr. Fillmore in diligent 
judicial studies, and in the limited legal practice of a 
country town. In 1S29, he was elected to the assem- 
bly of New York, and for three years (during which 
time he removed his residence to Buffiilo) held a seat 
in that body. Here he was remarkable for constant 
devotion to and unwearied industry in his duties. 
He took a prominent and influential part in the enact- 
ment of the law abolishing imprisonment for debt. In 
1832, he was elected to the twenty-third congress, and 
served creditably. In the fall of 1S36, he was again 
returned for the same office, and acted as a member of 
the committee on elections, in the famous New Jersey 
" broad-seal " case, and in that capacity established his 
reputation in the house. He was reelected to the next 
congress, and now assumed the responsible position of 
chairman of the committee of ways and means. In 
the duties of this post, at a trying crisis, he manifested 
the industry, dignity of bearing, efficient practical tal- 
ent, and ability to secure the confidence of his col- 
leagues which had before distinguished him. His 
public reputation perhaps rested more upon the manner 
in which he filled this post in the twenty-seventh con- 
gress, than on any other portion of his career, at the 
time of his election as vice-president. 

.After this, resisting the importunities of his friends 
and the whig convention of his district, Mr. Fillmore 
returned to Buffalo, to the practice of his profession. 
In 1844, he was run by the whigs of New York for 
governor, and was beaten by Silas Wright, at the same 
time that the so-called Liberty party gave the vote of the 
state for Polk, Texas, the Mexican war, and the exten- 
sion of slavery. In 1847, he was elected controller of 
the state, and removed to Albany to discharge the du- 
ties of that office, which he held till February, 1849, 
when he resigned it, prior to his induction into the 
vice-presidency. 

It was a period of intense sectional animosity and 
political difficulty, requiring, in the executive and tlie 
cabinet, an unusual degree of firmness, moderation, and 
wisdom. From General Taylor's want of experience 



516 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



in political matters, and of acquaintance with the prac- 
tical workings of the great machine, it was apprehended 
some serious mistakes might be made, which would 
give the opposition a temporary advantage. It was 
found, however, that he had the qualifications de- 
manded by the crisis. He was eminently character- 
ized by firmness, in which there was no trait of obsti- 
nacy, an undeviating integrity of purpose, and a sound 
practical common sense, which, in great emergencies, 
is often superior to the largest experience. His course 
of administration, though brief, reflects credit upon his 
name. His cabinet was well selected, not only with 
reference to the ability with which the several depart- 
ments were filled, but to the wise adjustment and fair 
representations of the great sectional interests in its 
composition. 

John M. Clayton, of Delaware, Secretary of State. 
William M. Meredith, of Penn., Sec'y of the Treasury. 
George W. Crawford, of Ga., . " " War. 

Wm. Ballard Preston, of Va., . " " Navy. 

Thomas Ewing, of Ohio, ... " " " Interior. 
Jacob Collamer, of Vermont, . . . Postmaster-General. 
Reverdy Johnson, of Maryland, . Attorney-General. 

The same spirit of sectional extension, which led to 
the annexation of Texas, and the dismemberment of 
Mexico, turned with an evil eye upon " the brightest 
gem in the crown of Castile," — the queen of the An- 
tilles. The government which Spain sees fit to exer- 
cise over Cuba is not wisely calculated to make her 
subjects easy, especially in their near vicinity to, and 
large intercourse with, their free and prosperous neigh- 
boius on the north. For many years there has been 
fomenting, slowly and noiselessly, a spirit of discon- 
tent, which only seeks occasion to make it a spirit of 
revolution. This sentiment has been liberally en- 
couraged by some of the American presses, and largely 
countenanced and aided by the substantial sympathy of 
individuals and private associations, in both sections 
of the country, but more especially at the south. 

The great fear of the politicians of the Southern 
States is, that, in " extending the area of freedom," the 
area of slavery will lose its relative importance. Hence 
the deep interest with which many among them have 
viewed the probable, or possible, future annexation of 
Cuba. Hence, also, the readiness with which " the 
sinews of war" have been provided for bands of des- 
perate adventurers, who have sought to make a crisis 
by actual invasion, and, in a manner, to compel the 
latent spirit of revolution in the island to a premature 
eruption. 



^1 



In August, 1849, President Taylor received informa- 
tion that a large body of men was gathering from vari- 
ous directions on Round Island, in Mobile Bay. They 
were well provided with arms, <fcc., and evidently had 
some secret object in view, as no reasonable account 
could be given of their coming together in that place. 
Impressed with the idea, which was well confirmed by 
information derived from the most reliable sources, 
that the design of this secret expedition was to make 
a warlike demonstration on the coast of Cuba, the 
president ordered a lieutenant of the navy, in a steamer, 
to proceed to the spot, and disperse them. This was 
accomplished without resistance, though not without a 
few rounds of harmless newspaper musketry, at which 
the president neither flinched nor winked. 

The young volcano was smothered, but not quenched. 
Early in 1850, its rumbling, faint and far, was heard 
in diff'erent parts of the country. Men not suspected 
of business abroad mysteriously left their homes for 
parts unknown, and, drawn by soyie unseen influence, 
met at some distant point, and found themselves sud- 
denly acquainted. General Lopez, a Spanish officer 
of some notoriety, seemed to be cognizant of these 
movements, if not to have the principal direction of 
them. The president and his oflicers were watchful 
and suspicious. But nothing was seen or disclosed 
from any quarter, to justify the direct interposition of 
the executive power, till after General Lopez had em- 
barked, with a considerable force, at New Orleans, with 
a clearance for Chagres. Then it was made known at 
Washington, that such an armament had been fitted 
out in the United States, and that, in the opinion of 
the Spanish minister, it was clearly and unquestionably 
destined to the invasion of Cuba. 

On receiving this information, the president gave 
instant orders to despatch all ' the vessels in commis- 
sion, then within reach of orders, to the coast of Cuba, 
to prevent, if possible, any hostile movement on the 
part of the secret expedition. But the order was tofi 
late. The buccaneer squadron, consisting of a steamer 
and two sailing vessels, and comprising about six hun- 
dred men, eff'ected a landing at Cardenas. 

Cardenas is a small port, containing about twenty- 
five hundred inhabitants, somewhat more than one 
hundred miles east of Havana. It is not fortified 
against an attack from without. The onset was suc- 
cessful. The invaders landed without molestation, 
and marched immediately to the attack. With trifling 
resistance, the few soldiers at the command of the 
governor gave way. Three lives were lost on the 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



517 



'part of the Spaniards, and six on that of the aggressors. 
The town was soon in possession of Lopez, who hoisted 
the flag of freedom and Cuban independence, and 
called for a rally. But no one joined his standard. 
He made preparations for a march upon Matanzas, and 
promised his men to be master of the island, with all 
its wealth, in three days. These promises, however, 
soon began to fade. Instead of a general rush of the 
inhabitants to join the ranks of insurrection, there was 
an entire absence of sympathy in the movement. 
Whether it sprung from fear, and the consciousness 
that the time had not arrived for such a movement, or 
from want of confidence in the men and means em- 
ployed, does not appear. It was probably, to a large 
extent, the latter. The Cubans were not prepared. 
The invading general and his secret counsellors had 
not counted the cost. The government of the island 
was stronger than they imagined — strong, not, as in 
our happy land, in the love of its subjects, but in 
their fears. 

The preparations for an advance upon Matanzas 
were but half completed, when the signs of resistance, 
on the part of the Cubans, became too serious to be 
overlooked. General Lopez suddenly countermanded 
the order, and directed the armament to be reshipped, 
with all despatch. This done, he reembarked with 
his entire band, and a few prisoners, one of whom was 
the governor of Cardenas, and stood out to sea. Thus 
ended the invasion of Cuba — the paltriest piece of 
open piracy recorded in modern history. To give the 
enterprise a more perfect title to this distinction, the 
invading general rifled the treasury of Cardenas, and 
carried away about fifteen hundred dollars. 

California and New Mexico, still undei* the military 
government, which the exigencies of war had estab- 
lished, were beginning to be impatient for the enjoy- 
ment of civil institutions. The territory of Deseret, or 
Utah, on the north of California, where the fugitive 
Mormons had recently pitched their tents, claimed also 
a shelter under the national a^gis. The population and 
commerce of California had increased with unprece- 
■ dented rapidity. It had already attained the growth 
of a sovereign state, and movements were immediately 
commenced to organize and ask admission to the 
Union. To watch, and, so far as might be needful, to 
guide this movement, Hon. Thomas Butler King, of 
Georgia, an able and honourable man, was commis- 
sioned by the president to proceed thither, under secret 
instructions, as confidential agent of the government. 
What part he took in the ultimate organization of the 



government there, or whether any part at all, does not 
appear. But the president was severely censured, by 
the opposition, for attempting to interfere in the matter. 

New Mexico, also, began to feel that she had out- 
grown the territorial minority, and had a right to claim 
the maturity of a state. To this Texas set up a coun- 
ter claim to her entire territory, contending that they 
were originally one province, and that, by the treaty 
with Mexico, she had a right to embrace the whole. 
Here a question of great difiiculty arose. Texas was 
a slave state. New Mexico was free. And the ques- 
tion of territory, which was comparatively of little im- 
portance, became involved with that of the extension 
and perpetuation of slavery, which was vital to " the 
peculiar institution " of the south. New Mexico was 
recognized by the government as a distinct territory, 
and was held, as such, under military rule, awaiting 
the action of congress, to establish a republican or- 
ganization. 

Availing themselves of the rights of freemen, the 
people of these sections assembled in convention, and 
adopted the necessary measures to secure their political 
rights. California and New Mexico, adopting each a 
constitution after the model of the older states, and 
choosing their senators and representatives, asked im- 
mediate admission into the Union, as independent 
states. Utah organized as a territory, and chose her 
delegate, to represent her interests in congress. Three 
applicants were thus found knocking for admission at 
the door of the Capitol, on the opening of the thirty- 
first congress. Instead of receiving a cordial welcome 
as they should have done, from the hands of a people 
who had expended so much blood and treasure to 
obtain them, for the sole purpose, as they avowed, of 
" extending the area of freedom," they were kept 
waiting eight long months at the door, and visited, 
meanwhile, with every species of vituperation and re- 
proach, for having presumed to claim the natural and 
inalienable right of choosing how their political insti- 
tutions should be organized, and preferring freedom to 
slavery. Upon the question of the admission of these 
states to the Union ensued the most violent and bitter 
partisan discussion that has ever characterized Ameri- 
can legislation. The ardent temper of the south was 
roused to madness by the attempt, as they argued, to 
exclude from the new possessions them and their 
property. It was with their blood and their treasure, 
in common with that of the free states, that these pos- 
sessions were purchased ; consequently, as they viewed 
the case, they had a right to carry their institutions 



518 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



ajid laws there. No power on earth should exclude 
them. Denunciations the most severe and sweeping 
were hurled at the reju'esentatives and people of the 
free states. Tin-eats of receding from the Union were 
liberally indulged in ; and all the resources of argu- 
ment and persuasion, of menace and abuse, of personal 
invective and political address, were exhausted, in the 
determined endeavour to force upon the new territories 
the institution of slavery. 

The simple answer to all this was, that the territory 
was known to be free, and its people opposed to slavery, 
before it was acquired ; that they exercised only a 
natural right in determining to remain free, and ar- 
ranging their constitution accordingly ; that Louisi- 
ana, and Florida, and Texas had exercised the same 
right in the opposite direction, and that right had been 
conceded to them, as a matter which tltcy alone had 
power to control ; and that slavery could not be forced 
upon them, or the door for its introduction thrust open 
against their will, without a gross violation of the fun- 
damental law of republicanism, which recognizes all 
sovereignty as residing in the people. The debate 
was animated, fierce, powerful, and long-continued. It 
was a war, not of the pygmies only, but of the giants. 
The two great speeches of the session were those of 
John 0. Calhoun, of South Carolina, and Daniel Web- 
ster, of Massachusetts. These comprise the better part 
of the argument on both sides. Mr. Clay, though far 
advanced in years, brought all the maturity and vigour 
of his great mind to hear upon the question. He 
sought, with Mr. Webster, to allay excitement and 
conciliate opposing parties. To this end he gave his 
support to a bill, which, from the heterogeneous ele- 
ments of which it was composed, received the name 
of the omnibus, intended to settle, by one decisive 
vote, all the vexed questions arising out of the great 
subject of agitation. It provided, 1. For the admis- 
sion of California, under her own constitution ; 2. For 
organizing territorial governments for New Mexico and 
Utah, without any provision on the subject of slavery ; 
and, 3. For paying Texas a sum which should be 
acceptable to her, for relinquishing her claims to a part 
of New Mexico. These measures were united in one 
bill, in order to compel the northern members, who 
were in favour of the admission of California, to waive 
the Wilmot Proviso in the other measures. 

This measure, which was deemed by Mr. Clay and 
Mr. Webster a fair compromise between the north and 
the south, engrossed the entire attention of the senate 
for many weeks. No other business was done. Amend- 



ment was piled upon amendment, and speech followed 
speech, till the combatants were as weary with talking, 
as the people with hearing, the wordy debate. When, 
at length, and with exceeding difficulty, it was brought 
to a vote, it was defeated, and lost. 

In the midst of this important debate, and very soon 
after he had put forth a great and exhausting effort in 
defence of the " peculiar institutions " and principles of 
the south, Mr. Calhoun, of South Carolina, was called 
to his last account. He died at his post, on the 1st of 
April, 18-50, giving his last energies of body and mind 
to the great interests committed to his triiSt. 

There were so many brilliant and attractive points 
in Mr. Calhoun's character, — so much personal excel- 
lence, simplicity, and purity, such unquestioned genius, 
and such claims of long and patriotic public service, — 
that his sudden exit in the midst of his labours, and so 
soon after a signal public eifort, evoked a feeling of 
sympathy which was quite as general and sincere 
among northern as among southern men. 

Mr. Calhoun was born in the Abbeville district, 
South Carolina, upon the homestead of his father, 
Patrick Calhoun, who was born in Ireland. At the age 
of thirteen, he was placed in an academy at Georgia. At 
nineteen, he concluded to secure for himself a classical 
education. At twenty-three, he was graduated at Yale, 
and immediately entered upon service at the Litchfield 
law school. In 1807, he was admitted to the bar of 
.South Carolina. In 1808, he was sent to the legislature, 
where he served two sessions. In 1811, he was sent 
to congress, where he was placed on the committee on 
foreign relations, and as chairman after the retirement 
of Peter B. Porter. He brought in the bill declaring 
war against Great Britain. He was greatly instru- 
mental in reorganizing the army, reviving the West 
Point Academy, and in originating the coast survey. 
He was twice elected vice-president, in 1825 and in 
1829. 

Mr. Calhoun was seven years in the cabinet, and as 
many years vice-president. From 1808 to 1850, he has 
hardly been out of the public service, and in it he has 
been one of the most conspicuous of our public men, 
and one who has contributed vastly to the reputation 
of the country. 

The senate presented an imposing spectacle at the 
time his decease was announced. Mr. Butler, his col- 
league, rose with evident emotion, and in a solemn, 
impressive manner, eulogized the deceased in terms 
which, while they are free from exaggeration, portrayed 
the outlines of a great and pure statesman. Some of 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



519 



his remarks on Mr. Calhoun's last hours have a deep 
interest. He said he was conscious^of his approaching 
end, and met death with fortitude and uncommon se- 
renity. He had many admonitions of its approach, and, 
without doubt, he had not been indifferent to them. 
With his usual aversion to profession, he said little for 
effect on the world, and his last hours were an exem- 
plification of his life and character — truth and sim- 
plicity. 

Mr. Calhoun for some years had been labouring un- 
der a pulmonary complaint, and, under its effects, could 
not have reckoned on a long existence ; such was his 
own conviction. The immediate cause of his death 
was an affection of the heart. A few hour^ before he 
expired, he became sensible of his situation, and when 
he was unable to speak, his eye and look evinced 
recognition and intelligence of what was passing. One 
of the last directions he gave was to a dutiful son, who 
had been attending him, to put away some manu- 
scripts, which had been written some time before, un- 
der his dictation. 

Mr. Calhoun was the least dependent man he ever 
knew ; and he had, in an eminent degree, the .self-sus- 
taining power of intellect. His last days and his last 
remarks were an exemplification of this. Mental deter- 
mination sustained him when all others were in despair. 
Mr. Butler saw him a few days ago in the senate which 
he had so long occupied. He saw the struggle of a 
great mind exerting itself to sustain and overcome the 
weakness and infirmities of a sinking body. It was 
the exhibition of a wounded eagle, with his eyes turned 
to the heavens in whicli he had soared, but unto which 
his wings could never carry him again. 

Mr. Butler was followed by Mr. Clay in a strain of 
touching remarks, which thrilled every heart. He had 
entered the house of representatives the same year with 
Mr. Calhoun — the year of the declaration of war against 
the most powerful nation on the globe, and had enjoyed 
constant intimacy with him ever since. When Mr. 
Clay alluded to the pregnant moral lesson which this 
event taught him, and his own proximity to the grave, 
his voice assumed that peculiar tone of pathos and emo- 
tion which at times makes Mr. Clay the most eloquent 
of men. 

As he sat. down, Mr. Webster rose, and added a few 
words of eulogy in a most solemn and impressive man- 
ner. He, too, had been a life-long companion in public 
life of the deceased, and could hardly speak too highly 
of the exalted genius and worth of him whom they 
mourned. Mr. W.'s emotions were expressed with 

6fi 



exquisite taste and feeling, and there were many eyes 
sufl'used with tears. 

The scene in the house was scarcely less affecting. 
Mr. Holmes moved the accustomed marks of respect, in 
a speech of some length and great eloquence, and Mr. 
Winthrop followed in his happiest manner. Mr. Vena- 
ble detailed, in simple language, some of the closing 
scenes, in a manner that affected all. 

Pending this great discussion, the warm supporters 
of slavery at the south had succeeded in carrying the 
agitation so far, as to propose a southern convention, to 
meet at Nashville, Tennessee, for the purpose of con- 
sidering what measures should be adopted, to preserve 
the national, or rather, the sectional equilibrium. The 
rapid growth of the free states was gradually under- 
mining the power of the south, and rendering it im- 
possible for her longer to hold the entire predominance 
in the administration of the federal government. Forty- 
eight years, out of sixty, the slave states had monopolized 
the entire executive control, and with it, had carried all 
the power and patronage of the government. By this 
means, they had seldom failed in carrying any of their 
favorite measures, or bringing in new states to their 
aid, whenever it became necessary to overbalance the 
advance of the free states. The newly-acquired terri- 
tory was now free. Should it be suffered to remain 
so, the slave interest would be thrown into a hopeless 
minority, and consequently be in danger of utter anni- 
hilation. To prevent this, and save the darling insti- 
tution from the ruthless hands of the abolitionists, it 
was proposed to recede from the Union altogether, and 
establish a southern confederacy. This was the end 
of the Nashville convention, which, in case of the ad- 
mission of new states opposed to slavery, was to devise 
and promulgate measures of defence for the south. It 
contemplated either an absolute withdrawal from the 
Union, or a sort of imperivm in imperio, in which, 
while enjoying the general advantages of the Union, 
they should resist and nullify any such legislation as 
they might disapprove. In the same spirit, the gov- 
ernment of Texas assumed to forestall the action of 
congress in respect to her claim to the whole of New 
Mexico. She not only asserted her right, as one be- 
yond a doubt, but declared her determination to enforce 
it at the point of the bayonet, and in spite of any de- 
cision to the contrary, on the part of the powers at 
Washington. The militia was ordered out. The gov- 
ernor issued a strong proclamation, and the movement 
of open collision seemed close at hand. It was sus- 
pended, however, by the decided tone and action of 



620 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



the president, who was resolved, at all hazards, to 
maintain the integrity of the government, and hold the 
constitution unimpaired. 

Just at this crisis, when all the firmness and decision 
of the executive were required to balance, and hold in 
check, not only the volcanic elements of popular and 
sectional parties throughout the country, but the dis- 
organizing tendencies of the coordinate branches of 
government, the hand of death was suddenly laid 
upon the president, and he was called from his high 
station and arduous duties, to render an account of his 
stewardship. After an illness of a few days only, Gen- 
eral Taylor died, at Washington, on the 9th of July, 
1850, in the sixty-sixth year of his age. The impres- 
sion produced upon the national mind was deep and 
solemn : the country monrned the loss of a brave 
soldier, and all parties believed tliat their late president 
was an honest man. 

It was a spectacle of which Americans might well be 
proud, to see the supreme power of one of the mighti- 
est nations on earth passing quietly from the dead to 
the living ; not by hereditary descent, but by virtue of 
the sovereign will of the people, designating, but a few 
months before, the proper succession. No convulsion, 
no agitation, no pageantry attended the transfer. Ev- 

* Department op State, ) 
"Washington, August 5, 1850. 5 
To his Excellency P. H. Bell, Governor of Texas : 

SiK : A letter addressed by you to the late president of the United 
States, and dated on the 14th of June last, has, since his lamented de- 
cease, been transferred to the hands of his successor, by whom I am 
directed to address to you the following answer : — 

In that letter you say that, by the authority of the legislature of 
Texas, the executive of that state, in February last, despatched a spe- 
cial commissioner, with full power and instructions to extend the 
civil jurisdiction of that state over the unorganized counties of El 
Paso, Worth, Presidio, and Santa Fe, situated upon its north-western 
limits ; and that the commissioner has rejiorted to you, in an official 
form, that the military officers employed in the service of the United 
States, stationed at Santa Fc, interposed adversely with the inhabit- 
ants to the fulfilment of his object, by employing their influence in 
favour of the establishment of a separate state government east of the 
Rio Grande, and within the rightful limits of the state of Texas. You 
also transmit a copy of the proclamation of ColonSl John Munroe, 
acting under the orders of the government of the United States, under 
the designation of civil and military governor of the territory of New 
Mexico, and respectfully request the president to cause you to be in- 
formed whether or not this officer has acted in this matter under the 
orders of his government, and whether his proclamation meets with 
the approval of the president of the United States. 

In the events which have occurred, the president hardly knows 
whether your excellency would naturally expect an answer to this 
letter from him. His predecessor in office, to whom it was addressed, 
and under whose authority and direction the proclamation of Colonel 
Munroe was issued, is no more ; and at this time, that proclamation, 
whatever may be regarded as its true character, has ceased to have 



ery thing moved on as before. Not even the ceremony 
of induction, beyond the simple taking of an oath to 
sustain the constitution. This done, with solemn dig- 
nity, and Millard Fillmore was president of the United 
States. 

Mr. Fillmore succeeded to the cares and responsi- 
bilities, as well as to the honours, of the chief magis- 
tracy. The complicated duties of the office, made 
doubly arduous by the exciting questions then agitating 
and convulsing the body politic, demanded, at this 
crisis, not only the wisdom of an experienced states- 
man, but the courage and firmness of an old soldier. 
The factious and reckless hoped to gain an advantage 
by the change. They counted on a comparatively 
easy victory over the mere civilian, where, but now, 
they had begun to despair of accomplishing any 
thing with the hardy veteran, who had " never surren- 
dered," and never been beaten. But they reckoned 
without their host. The first act of the new presi- 
dent showed clearly that he was a man of calm pur- 
pose and decision. The attitude assumed by Texas 
was boldly and manfully met by a proclamation, which 
left no doubt on any mind that the supreme law 
would be sustained and executed, at any cost. The 
able, temperate, but firm letter of Mr. Webster,* the 

influence or effect. The meeting of the people of New Mexico, by 
their reiiresentatives, which it invited, is understood to have taken 
place, although this government has as yet received no official infor- 
mation of it. 

Partaking, however, in the fullest degree, in that liigh respect 
which the executive government of the United States always enter- 
tains towards the governors and the governments of the states, the 
president thinks it his duty, nevertheless, to manifest that feeling of 
respect by acknowledging and answering 5'our letter. And this duty, 
let me assure your excellency, has been so long delayed only by un- 
controllable circumstances, and is now performed at the earliest prac- 
ticable moment, after the appomtment of those heads of departments, 
and their acceptance of office, with whom it is usual, on important 
occasions, for the president of the United States to advise. 

In answer, therefore, to your first interrogatory, viz., whether 
Colonel Munroe, in issuing the proclamation referred to, acted under 
the orders of this government, the president directs me to state that 
Colonel Munroe's proclamation appears to have been issued in pur- 
suance or in consequence of an order or letter of instructions given by 
the late secretary of war, under the authority of the late president, to 
Lieutenant-Colonel McCall. Of this order, which bears date on the 
lyth of November, 1819, your excellency was undoubtedly informed 
at the date of your letter. A full and accurate copy, however, is 
attached to this communication. Colonel McCall is therein instructed, 
that if the people of New Mexico, for whom congress" had provided 
no government, should manifest any wish to take any steps to estab- 
lish a government for themselves, and apijly for an admission into the 
Union, it will be his duty, and the duty of others mth whom he is 
associated, not to thwart, but to advance, their wishes. This order 
does not appear to authorize any exertion of military authority, or of 
any official or even personal interference to control, or affect in any 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



521 



new secretary of state, to the governor of Texas, if 
it did not put an end to the controversy, demolished 
every show of argument by which the opposition had 
sought to prosecute it. The country was satisfied 
with the decision. The factionists were driven to des- 
peration, and even talked loudly of impeaching the 

way, the primary action of the people in the formation of a govern- 
ment, nor to permit any such interference by subordinate officers. 
Colonel McCall and his associates were not called upon to take a lead 
in any measures, or even to recommend any thing as iit to be adopted 
by the people. Their whole duty was confined to what they might 
be able to perf<jrm, subordinate to the wishes of the people. In this 
matter it was evidently contemplated that they were to act as the 
agents of the inhabitants, and not as officers of this government. It 
must be recollected that the only government then existing in the 
territory was a quasi military government ; and as congress has made 
no provision for the establishment of any form of civil government, 
and as the president doubtless beUeved that, under these circum- 
stances, the people had a right to frame a government for themselves, 
and submit it to congress for its approval, the order was a direction that 
the then e.xisiting military government should not stand in the way 
of the accomplishment of the wishes of the people, nor thwart those 
wishes, if the people entertained them, for the establishment of a free, 
popular, republican, civil government, for their own protection and 
benefit. Tliis is evidently the whole purpose and object of the order. 
The military officer in command, and his associates, were American 
citizens, acquainted with the forms of civil and popular proceedings, 
and it was expected tliey would aid the inhabitants of the territory, 
by their advice and assistance, in their proceedings for establishing a 
government of their own. There is no reason to suppose that Colonel 
Munroe, an officer as much distinguished for prudence and discretion 
as for gallant conduct in arms, meant to act, or did act, otherwise than 
in entire subordination and subserviency to the will of the people 
among whom he was placed. He was not authorized to do, nor does 
the president imderstand him as intending to do, any tiling whatever 
in his military character, nor to represent in any way the wishes of 
the executive government of the United States. 

To judge intelligently and fairly of these transactions, we must 
recall to our recollection the cu-cumstances of the case as they then 
existed. 

Previous to the war with Mexico, which commenced in May, 18i6, 
and received the sanction of congress on the 13th of that mouth, the 
territory of New Me.xico formed a department or state of the Me.xican 
republic, and was governed by her laws. 

General Kearney, acting under orders from this government, invaded 
this depai'tment with an armed force ; the governor fled at his ap- 
proach, and the troops under his command dispersed, and General 
Kearney entered Santa Ffe, the capital, on the ISth of August, 1816, 
.and took possession of the territory in the name of the United States. 
On the 22d of that month he issued a proclamation to the inhabitants, 
stating the fact that he had taken possession of Santa Fe, at the head 
of his troops, and announcing " his intention to hold the department 
with its original boundaries, (on both sides of the Del Norte,) and un- 
der the name of New Mexico." 

By that proclamation he promised to protect the inhabitants of New 
Mexico in their persons and property, against their Indian enemies, 
and all others ; and assured them that the United States intended to 
provide for them a free government, when the people would be called 
upon to exercise the rights of freemen in electing their own repre- 
sentatives to the territorial legislature. On the same day he estab- 
lished a territorial constitution by an organic law, which provided for 
executive, legislative, and judicial departments of the government; 



president. It ended in talk, however, as did also the 
great debate in congress upon the omnibus, which, 
after lumbering all the avenues of legislation for more 
than six months, and raising such a dust as had never 
been seen in Washington, was upset and dashed in 
pieces, not for want of a skilful and able driver, but 

defined the right of suffrage, and provided for trial by jury, and at the 
same time established a code of laws. The constitution declared that 
" the country heretofore known as New Mexico shall be known here- 
after and designated as the territory of New Mexico, in the United 
States of America ; " and the members of the lower house of the legis- 
lature were apportioned among the counties estabUshed by the decree 
of the department of New Mexico, of June 17, 1814, which counties, 
it is understood, included all the territory over which Texas has lately 
attempted to organize counties and establish her own jurisdiction. 

On the 22d of December, 1846, a copy of this constitution and code 
was transmitted by President Polk to the house of representatives, in 
pursuance of a call on him by that body. In the message transmitting 
the constitution, he says, that 

" Portions of it purport to establish and organize a permanent terri- 
torial government over the territory, and to impart to its inhabitants 
political rights which, under the constitution of the United States, can 
be enjoyed, permanently, only by citizens of the United States. They 
have not been approved and recognized by me. Such organized regu- 
lations as have been established in any of the conquered territories for 
the security of our conquest, for the preservation of order, for the 
protection of the rights of the inhabitants, and for depriving the ene- 
my of the advantages of these territories while the military possession 
of them by the forces of the United States continues, will be reeog- 
nized and approi'ed." 

Near four years have now elapsed since the i/uasi military govern- 
ment was es^blished by military authority, and received, with the 
exceptions mentioned, the approval of President Polk. In the mean 
time, a treaty of peace has been concluded with Mexico, by which a 
boundary line was established that left this territory within the United 
States, by treaty, what we had before acquired by conquest. The 
treaty, in perfect accordance \vith the proclamation of General Kear- 
ney, declared that the Mexicans remaining in this territory should be 
incorporated into the Union of the United States, and be admitted at 
the proper time, (to be judged of by the congress of the states,) to 
an enjojTnent of all the rights of citizens of the United States, accord- 
ing to the principles of the constitution ; " and in the mean time should 
be maintained and protected in the free enjojinent of their liberty and 
property, and secured in the free exercise of their religion without 
restriction." 

Thus it will be perceived that the authority of the United States 
over New Jlexico was the result of conquest ; and the possession held 
of it, in the first place, was of course a military possession. The treaty 
added the title by cession to the already existing title by successful 
achievements in arms. With the peace there arose a natural expecta- 
tion that, as early as possible, there would come a civil government 
to supersede the military. But until some such form of government 
should come into existence, it was matter of absolute necessity that 
the military government should continue, as otherwise the country 
must faU into absolute anarchy. And this has been the course gen- 
erally, in the practice of civilized nations, when colonies or territories 
have been acquired by war, and their acquisition confii-med by treaty. 

The military government, therefore, existing in New Mexico at the 
date of the order, existed there of inevitable necessity. It existed 
as much against the will of the e.xecutive government of the United 
States, as against the will of the people. The late president had 
adopted the opinion, that it was justifiable in the people of the terri- 



522 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



from a certain top-heaviness in its structure, and the 
unexpected roughness of the road. 

The loss of this bill was not so severely felt, even 
by some of its warmest advocates, as would have been 
supposed from the zeal with which they contended 

tory, under the circumstances, to form a constitution or government, 
without any previous authority conferred by congress, and thereupon 
to apply for admission into the Union. It was under this state of 
things, and under the infiuence of these opinions, that the order of the 
19th November last was given, and executed in the manner we have 
seen. The order indicates no boundary, and defines no territory, ex- 
cept by the name of New Mexico ; and so far as that indicated any 
thing, it referred to a knowTi territory, which had been organized un- 
der military authority, approved by the executive, and left without 
remonstrance or alteration by congress for more than three years. It 
appears to the president, that such an order could not have been in- 
tended to invade the rights of Texas. 

Secondly, you ask whether the proclamation of Colonel Munroe 
meets with the approval of the president of the United States .' 

To determine this question, it is necessary to look at the object of the 
proclamation, and the effect of the proceedings had under it. If the 
object was to assume the authority to settle the disputed boundary 
with Texas, then the president has no hesitation in saying such 
object does not meet his approbation, because he does not believe 
that the executive branch of this government, or the inhabitants of 
New Mexico, or both combined, have any constitutional authority to 
settle that question. That belongs either to the judicial department 
of the federal government, or to the concurrent action by agreement 
of the legislative departments of the governments of the United States 
and Texas. But it has been sufficiently shown that Colonel Mumroe 
could have had no such object, and that his intention was merely to 
act in aid of the people in forming a state constitution, to be submitted 
to congress. Assuming then that such a constitution has been formed, 
what is its effect uj^on the disputed boundary ? If it compromits the 
rights of either party to that question, then it does not meet the presi- 
dent's approbation, for he deems it his duty to leave the settlement of 
that question to the tribunal to which it constitutionally belongs. It 
is sufficient for him that this boundary is in dispute ; that the territory 
east of the Kio del Norte seems 'to be claimed in good faith both by 
Texas and New Mexico, or rather, by the United States. ^Vhatever 
might be his judgment in regai'd to their respective rights, he has no 
power to decide upon them, or even to negotiate in regard to them ; 
and, therefore, it would be iu^roper for him to express any opinion. 
The subject matter of dispute is between the United States and Texas, 
and not between the inhabitants of New Mexico and Texas. If those 
people should voluntarily consent to come under the jurisdiction of 
Texas, such consent would not bind the United States, or take away 
their title to the territory. So, on the other hand, if they should vol- 
untarily claim the title for the United States, it would not deprive 
Texas of her rights, whatever those rights may be. They can only be 
affected by her own acts, or a judicial decision. The state constitu- 
tion formed by New Mexico can have no legal validity until it is rec- 
ognized and adopted by the law-making power of the United States. 
Until that is done, it has no sanction, and can have no effect upon the 
rights of Texas, or of the United States, to the territory in dispute. 
And it is not to be presumed that congress wUl ever give its sanction 
to that constitution, without first providing for the settlement of this 
boundary. Indeed, no government, either territorial or state, can be 
formed for New Mexico without providing for the settling this boun- 
dary. Hence he regards the formation of this state constitution as a 
mere nullity. It may be regarded, indeed, as a petition to congress 
to be admitted as a state ; but, until congress shall grant the prayer 
of such petition by legal enactments, it affects the rights of neither 



for it, and the time and labour they bestowed upon it. 
Its defeat and abandonment were not, as they predicted, 
a signal for agitations, disunion, and war. The several 
measures, embraced in its ample drapery, were subse- 
quently digested into separate bills, and passed into 



party. But as it is the right of all to petition congress for any law 
which it may constitutionally pass, this people were in the exercise of 
a common right when they formed their constitution, with a view of 
applying to congress for admission as a state ; and as he thinks the 
act can prejudice no one, he feels bound to approve of the conduct 
of Colonel Munroe, in issuing the proclamation. 

I am directed, also, to state that in the president's opinion it would 
not be just to suppose that the late president desired to manifest any 
unfriendly attitude or aspect towards Texas or the claims of Te.xas. 
The boundary between Texas and New Mexico was known to be dis- 
puted ; and it was equally well known that the executive government 
of the United States had no power to settle that dispute. It is believed 
that the executive power has not wished — it certainly does not now 
wish — to interfere with that question, in any manner whatever, as a 
question of title. 

In one of his last communications to congress, — that of the 17th ot 
June last, — the late president repeated the declaration that he had no 
power to decide the question of boundary, and no desire to interfere 
with it ; and that the authority to settle that question resided else- 
where. The object of the executive government has been, as I believe, 
and as I am authorized to say it certainly now is, to secure the peace 
of the country ; to maintain, as far as practicable, the state of things as 
it existed at the date of the treaty ; and to uphold and preserve the 
rights of the respective parties as they were under the solemn guaran- 
tee of the treaty, until the highly interesting question of boundary 
should be finally settled by competent authority. Tiiis treaty, which 
is now a supreme law of the land, declares, as before stated, that the 
inhabitants shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoj-ment 
of their liberty and property, and secured in the free exercise of 
their religion. It will, of course, be the president's duty to see that 
this law is sustained, and the protection which it guarantees made 
effectual — and this is the plain and open path of executive duty, in 
which he proposes to tread. 

Other transactions of a very grave character are alluded to, and 
recited in your excellency's letter. To those transactions I am now 
dh'ected not more partictdarly to advert, because the only questions 
propounded by you respect the authority under which Colonel Mun- 
roe acted, and the approval or disapproval of liis proclamation. Your 
excellency's communication and the answer will be immediately laid 
before congress, and the president will take that occasion to bring to 
its notice the transactions alluded to above. 

It is known to your excellency that the questions growing out of 
the acquisition of California and New Mexico, and among them the 
higlily important one of the boundary of Texas, have steadily engaged 
tlie attention of both houses of congress for many months, and still 
engage it, with intense interest. It is understood that the legislature 
of Te.xas will be shortly in session, and iTill have the boundary ques- 
tion also before it. It is a delicate crisis in our public affairs, not 
free certainly from possible dangers ; but let us confidently trust that 
justice, moderation, patriotism, and the love of the Union, may inspire 
such counsels, both in the government of the United States and that 
of Texas, as shall carry the country through these dangers, and bring 
it safely out of them all. And with renewed assm-ances of the con- 
tinuance of mutual respect and hai'mony in the great family of states, 
I have the honour to be, ■nith entu-e regard. 

Your excellency's most obedient servant, 

Daniel Websxeh, Secretary of Stat*. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



laws. California was admitted as an independent state, 
with a constitution prohibiting involuntary slavery 
within her territories. Texas was paid ten millions of 
dollars for relinquishing her doubtful claim to a por- 
tion of New Mexico. New Mexico and Utah were 

• The Boundaries. — As the newly-acquired territory is at length 
definitely parcelled out and arranged, it may be well to state the boun- 
daries of each separate jurisdiction. Fu-st, we have the boundary 
between Texas and New Mexico. It is beUeved that Texas wUl readily 
assent to it. 

It begins at the intersection of the 100th parallel of longitude with 
latitude 36"^ 30', and thence runs due west on said parallel of latitude 
to longitude 103^ ; thence south along said meridian of longitude to 
latitude 32" ; thence west along said parallel of latitude to the Kio 
Grande ; thence southerly down the Rio Grande to the Gulf of 
Mexico. 

Territory of New Mexico. — Beginning at a point in the Colorado 
River, where the boundary line ■\\'ith the republic of ilexico crosses the 
same ; thence eastwardly with the said boundary line to the Rio 
Grande ; thence following the main channel of said river to the paral- 
lel of the thirty-second degree of north latitude ; thence east with said 
degree to its intersection with the one hundred and third degree of 
longitude west of Greenwich ; thence north with said degree of longi- 
tude to the parallel of the thirty-eighth degree of north latitude ; thence 
west with said parallel to the summit of the Sierra Madre ; thence 
south with the crest of said mountains to the thirty-seventh parallel 
of north latitude ; thence west with said parallel to its intersection 
with the boundary line of the state of California. ' 

Territory of Utah. — Bounded on the west by the state of California ; 



provided with territorial governments,* and a bill was 
passed to enforce the arrest and recovery, in the free 
states, of slaves escajiing, or havmg escaped, from tlie 
south. 



on the north by the territory of Oregon ; on the east by the sumniil 
of the Rocky Mountains ; on the south by latitude 37". 

The acts of congress, providing for the organization of those territo- 
ries, expressly stipulate that when admitted into the Union as states, 
they shall be admitted with or without slavery, as their constitutions 
may prescribe at the time of their admission. They may each bo 
divided into two or more territories, should congress so determine ; 
or any portion of either or both of them may be attached to any otlitr 
state or territory of the United States, according to the judgment of tlio 
same authority. 

State of California. — Bounded on the north by (latitude 42") Oregon 
territory, on the west by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by Mexico, 
and on the rtist as follows, viz. : beginning at the intersection of lati- 
tude 42° with longitude 120°, thence running southerly along said me- 
ridian of longitude to latitude 39° ; thence south-easterly in a straight 
line to the River Colorado, at the point where it intersects latitude io- ; 
thence down the middle of the channel of said river to the Mexican 
boundary. * 

Thus it will be seen that the state of California occupies all the 
Pacifip coast from Oregon to Mexico, some eight hundred mUes, with 
an average breadth of probably two hundred and fifty miles. The 
temtory of Utah lies between the state of California and the territory 
of New Mexico, but extends southward oidy to latitude 37". South 
of that parallel, the territory of New Mexico extends to the stale of 
California. Utah is therefore bounded south and east by New Mexico, 




The administration of Mr. Fillmore, as was intimat- 
ed at the close of the last chapter, was commenced 
under circumstances of great embarrassment. The 
high and deserved popularity of General Taylor with 
the masses of the people rendered it a difficult and 
hazardous experiment for any one to occupy his seat. 
The agitating subjects which, at that time, engrossed 
the attention of the Congress and the people, arous- 
ing the strongest sectional jealousies and party ani- 
mosities, made it especially difficult for a northern 
man to stand at the helm and attempt to guide the 
ship of state. There were breakers on all sides, and 
wreckers on all the reefs, eagerly watching for their 
shares of the salvage, or the monopoly of the plun- 
der. A few violent and unreasonable agitators at the 
north, and a few equally violent and unreasonable 
agitators at the south, had, for many years, been la- 
boring to disturb the harmony and arrest the progress 
of "the model republic." The number of these Mar- 
plots, on each side of the line, was exceedingly small, 
but each believed the other a legion, and invincible, 
except on the sole gi'ound of a dissolution of the 
union — a consummation equally desired by the aboli- 
tionists at the north and the secessionists at the 
gouth. Par nobile fratrum. 

General Taylor's last illness was of very short du- 
ration. He was but a few days withdrawn from his 
public duties, and but a few hours regarded as dan- 
gerously ill, before the scene of his earthly honors and 
duties was closed forever. Mr. Fillmore was taken 
by surprise. With no time for reflection, or prepara- 
tion for its high responsibilities, he found himself sud- 
denly raised to the chief magistracy. To add to the 
embarrassments growing out of the slavery agitation, 
and the bitter sectional jealousies already arrayed on 
both sides, all the members of the cabinet immediately 
tendered their resignation. Though this was done 
from no want of confidence in the new president, or 



of sympathy with his political views, but simply from 
a desire to leave him more entirely free to mark out 
his own course, and select his own advisers, it never- 
theless greatly enhanced the difficulties of his posi- 
tion. It was immediately seized upon, by the oppo- 
sition, as an indication that he could not rely upon 
the entire strength of General Taylor's friends to 
sustain his administration. To them it ofl'ered a 
slight hope of a division in the whig ranks. And 
Mr. -Fillmore could not certainly know that it did not 
foreshadow such a division, or at least intimate a 
want of confidence in the ability of a northern man 
to rally and retain the entire strength of the party 
then in the ascendant. 

It was a question of no small delicacy and diffi- 
culty, but requiring an immediate decision, whether 
these resignations should be returned, and the former ' 
cabinet be requested to retain their places, or a new 
one be appointed. The "omnibus" bill was still 
under discussion in the Senate, its ultimate fate 
shrouded in dread uncertainty. To this bill it was 
understood that General Taylor's cabinet was op- 
posed ; while Mr. Fillmore concurred in its main fea- 
tures, and was inclined to favor its adoption, as a 
measure of peace. Feeling it necessary that he 
should have a cabinet to sustain him in that course, 
if called upon to pursue it, he decided to select a new 
one. This was arranged as follows : — 

Daniel Webster, of Massachusetts, Secretary of 
State ; Thomas Corwin, of Ohio, Secretary of the 
Treasury ; Charles M. Conrad, of Louisiana, Secre- 
tary of War; William A. Graham, of North Caroli- 
na, Secretary of the Navy; Alexander H. Stuart, 
of Virginia, Secretary of the Interior; .Tohn J. Crit- 
tenden, of Kentucky, Attorney General ; Nathan K. 
Hall, of New York, Postmaster General. 

When the omnibus bill was brought to a vote in 
the Senate, it was rejected by a majority vote, and 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



525 



thus the apple of discord was again thrown down to 
the political athletes. To many of the best men on 
both sides of the question it was a great disappoint- 
ment. Mr. Clay had given to this measure all his 
heart, and had expended upon it all his yet undecayed 
energies. Mr. Calhoun had fallen at his post, in the 
very act of defending the southern intrenchments of 
slavery against the inevitable and crushing advance 
of freedom and justice. And now, as the master 
spirits were passing away, the conflict was to be com- 
menced de novo. A new plan of operations was to 
be devised, a new disposition of forces arranged, and 
a new leader found for the ultra south. California 
was still standing at the door of the Union, knocking 
for admission, its boundaries self-defined, its constitu- 
tion self-formed, and hostile to slavery. It was a bit- 
ter pill to the south, that this dearly-bought extension 
of area should so soon, contrary to all their designs 
and purposes in securing it, prove an enlargement of 
the " area of freedom." They were resolved to resist 
her admission, hoping, by delay, to bring about a 
change of policy, and the ultimate admission of sla- 
very. But they had no solid grounds for a refusal. 
Their opposition was purely technical. The only ar- 
gument they could urge against her admission was, 
that her application was premature, — that she had 
not gone through the usual pupilage of a territorial 
government, and consequently had not had a fair op- 
portunity to test the comparative advantages of free- 
dom and slavery. They were afraid of a free giant 
springing, full grown, to birth. They wanted to have 
a hand in his nursing and education, and to keep him 
in leading strings, till, shorn of his strength by the 
demoralizing influences of slavery, they could put 
out his eyes, bind him with their own fetters, and set 
him to grinding in the prison house of a system, 
which makes slaves equally of the servant and the 
served. 

This agitating question was complicated with an- 
other of no sHght moment and difficulty. Utah and 
New Mexico were preparing to follow the example of 
California, by claiming a place in the great constella- 
tion of states, the former wishing admission as a 
territory, the latter as a state. To this last Texas 
set up a strong and angry opposition. She claimed 
New Mexico as a part of her own territory, and re- 
solved to resist any effort for an independent organi- 
zation even at the point of the bayonet. This she 
did on the sole ground that, as a Mexican province, 
she was originally entitled to all the country lying 



east of the Rio Grande, including Santa Fe. Her 
sages forgot that, in coming into the Union, she had 
defined her own boundaries, and was received as a 
whole, and not as a maimed member. The question, 
like every other, which touches the confines of slavery, 
was rife with danger to the peace and harmony of the 
Union. Texas called out her militia, to compel the 
submission of New Mexico ; but the expedition was 
captured by the New Mexicans, who resolutely re- 
sisted any amalgamation or connection with that 
State, or with the institution of slavery. In respect 
to the latter, their negotiators, while arranging the 
terms of the treaty which was to cede their territory 
to the United States, had said that a proposal to es- 
tablish the Inquisition there would not excite more ab- 
horrence than that which now attempted to bring back, 
upon them the curse of slavery, from which they had, 
by great efforts and sacrifices, long since delivered 
themselves. 

To crush this outbreak of civil war in the south- 
west, the strong arm of the national government was 
immediately interposed. The treaty of Guadalupe 
Hidalgo clearly required that the citizens of New 
Mexico " should be maintained and protected in the 
free enjoyment of their liberty and property, and 
in the free exercise of their religion, until Congress 
should provide for their becoming citizens of the Unit- 
ed States." In the exercise of his constitutio.nal du- 
ty, "to take care that this treaty should be faithfully 
executed," the president immediately ordered the re- 
quisite military force, and munitions of war, to be 
forwarded to New Mexico, to protect her against her 
pugnacious and over-grasping neighbor. Deeming 
the danger of a collision imminent, he brought the 
matter before Congress, on the 6th of August, in a 
special message, in which he urged, in the strongest 
manner, a speedy settlement of the controversy. This 
led to a new effort in Congress, and resulted in a se- 
ries of measures, now universally known as the com- 
promise acts of 1850. By these acts California was 
admitted as a state, with a constitution forbidding 
slavery. The boundary line between Texas and New 
Mexico was defined and established; New Mexico 
and Utah were organized as territories; Texas was 
allowed $10,000,000 in offset forher assumed claim 
on New Mexico ; the slave trade in the District of 
Columbia was abolished ; and provision was made, 
by a special and stringent law, for the more effectual 
recovery of fugitive slaves. This latter bill, in the 
view of its authors and advocates, was based on a 



526 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



palpable requirement of the constitution, being a sim- 
ple reenactment, with due forms of law, of the sec- 
ond section of its fourth article. In their eagerness 
1o revive and strengthen that section, however, they 
seem to have lost sight of the sanctity of the habeas 
corpus privilege, as guarantied in the ninth section of the 
first article. Such, at least, is the view entertained 
by many of the most eminent statesmen. 

History, to be reliable and useful, must be impar- 
tial. It is incumbent, therefore, that a measure of so 
great importance as this, involving so many and op- 
posite interests, and arousing so strongly the passions 
and prejudices of contending factions, should be cool- 
ly considered, and carefully judged in the light of all 
the circumstances bearing upon the case at the time 
of its enactment. This is essential to a just appreci- 
ation of President Fillmore's position and conduct in 
reference to it. A brief resume of the facts and ar- 
guments employed in its defence will therefore be at- 
tempted. 

At the period of the formation of the constitution 
of the United States, in 1787, slavery existed in most 
of the states of the Union, as well as in all the Eng- 
' lish and French colonies. The necessity was then 
universally felt of making some provision for the sur- 
render of such slaves as might escape from one state 
to another. This was regarded not only as a matter 
of common justice to the master, but as the only 
means by which peace and harmony could be main- 
tained among the several states. It was, accordingly, 
by the unanimous consent of the convention that the 
following provision was incorporated into the second 
section of the fourth article of the constitution : " No 
person held to service or labor in one state, under the 
laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in conse- 
quence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged 
from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on 
claim of the party to whom such service or labor may 
be due." The same article of the constitution pro- 
vided for the rendition of fugitives from justice, and 
conferred on Congress the sole power of prescribing 
" by general laws the manner in which the public 
acts, records, and judicial proceedings " of one state 
"should be proved" and made efficient in another. 
In pursuance of these provisions, an act was passed, 
February 12, 1793, and approved by President Wash- 
ington, prescribing the manner in which fugitive slaves 
should be claimed and given up. By this law, the 
owner of the slave was authorized to seize or arrest 
the fugitive, and take him before a judge of the Unit- 



ed States Courts, or any magistrate of a county, city, 
or town corporate, wherein the slave was arrested, 
and, upon proof, to the satisfaction of such judge or 
magistrate, that the person so arrested did, under the 
laws of the state from which he fled, owe service to 
the person claiming him, it was made the duty of 
such judge, or magistrate, to give a certificate thereof 
to the claimant, which certificate was declared to be 
a sufficient warrant for removing the fugitive to the 
state from which he had fled. 

Subsequent to the adoption of the constitution, and 
the passage of this law to enforce it, a strong anti- 
slavery sentiment sprang up in the Northern States, 
pervading those which had retained the system after 
assuming the character of states, as well as those 
which had previously abolished it. This led, in a few 
years, to the abolition and prohibition of slavery and 
involuntary servitude in all those states, and to the 
enactment, in several of them, of state laws, proliibit- 
ing the state officers from assisting to execute these 
laws of Congress. It was also conceded by the 
highest authority, (see Story's Commentaries on the 
Constitution, Sec. 1756,) that Congress had over- 
stepped the limit of its powers in requiring this ser- 
vice from state officers over whom it could have no 
control. The consequence of these decisions was, 
that there were no persons authorized to execute 
these laws, except the judges of the United States 
Courts. These were so few in number, so far sep- 
arated, and so much occupied with the appropriate 
duties of their offices, that they were scarcely accessi- 
ble to claimants, or able to give any attention to their 
claims when presented. The law was, therefore, 
found to be insufficient to secure the end for which it 
was framed, and consequently fell into disuse. 

A case strikingly illustrating this weakness of the 
law occurred in Pennsylvania, in 1839. A slave 
from Maryland, escaped into that state, was pursued 
by the agent of her master, arrested, and brought be- 
fore a justice of the peace, who declined to take 
cognizance of the matter, or to grant the certificate 
necessary to warrant her extradition. Thereupon the 
agent took the law into his own hands, seized the 
slave, and carried her back to her master. He was 
then duly indicted, under the Pennsylvania law, for 
kidnapping, and, upon trial, convicted of that crime. 
The case was then carried before the Supreme Court 
of the United States, where the judgment was re- 
versed, and the doctrine clearly promulgated that no 
state law could deprive the owner of the right to seize 



II 



^ 



HISJORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



527 



his runaway slave, even without process, and to com- 
pel his return to servitude. 

This decision was made in 1843. In the mean 
time, since the adoption of the constitution, and the 
passage of the law of 1793, a half century, with all its 
mighty changes, had passed over the land. From a 
struggling infant, the confederated republic had 
grown to the stature and conscious power of a giant. 
The original thirteen states had grown to more than 
double that number, and the original differences, 
which had required the combined wisdom, sagacity, 
and patriotism of the race of sages and heroes who 
achieved independence, to harmonize into a system 
acceptable to all, had grown with their growth and 
strengthened with their strength, and had been ren- 
dered increasingly bitter by frequent partisan and 
sectional discussions, and in some instances by local 
laws, which seemed to repudiate the right and tram- 
ple upon the privileges guarantied by the constitu- 
tion. At times, the agitation was vehement and 
menacing ; and it cannot be denied that, in view of 
the compact into which they had entered, there was 
fault on both sides. There were fanatics at the north 
and at the south, violent, reckless, noisy agitators, 
who deemed nothing sacred but their own right to 
dictate and rule. If laws were passed or resolutions 
made public among the free states which were sub- 
versive of the right of slaveholders to what they 
claimed as property, retaliatory laws were enacted, 
and inflammatory resolutions passed at the south, ut- 
terly denying the ordinary rights of citizenship to cer- 
tain classes of northern freemen, and not only men- 
acing, but actually executing, summary vengeance, 
without the form of trial, upon any suspected persons 
passing into their territories. In Congress, the slave 
power was always in the ascendant. Of the sixty-two 
years then passed since the organization of the govern- 
ment, it had been administered fifty years by southern 
presidents, atid only twelve by northern, and one of the 
latter was avowedly a " northern man with southern 
principles." This naturally provoked the jealousy of 
the north, more especially as they regarded the prev- 
alent legislation decidedly inimical to their sectional in- 
terests, and always conducive to the predominance of 
their rivals. Moreover, while the most entire freedom 
of speech, and of the press, was guarantied to all, and 
granted to all at the north, it was a matter of martyr- 
dom to speak or write, at the south, in derogation of 
her peculiar institution. These statements might be 
illustrated by many thrilling incidents — by stormy 

67 



debates, by angry discussions, by vehement declama- 
tions in Congress, and in legislative halls, and by im- 
prisonment without charge or suspicion of crime, and 
summary execution, without form of law, or apology 
for trial. 

In addition to these things, imm"ense accessions of 
territory had been made at a vast expenditure, and 
all on Ihe side of the south. Louisiana, Florida, 
Texas, California, had been purchased at a cost of 
more than 50,000,000 of dollars, besides an expensive 
and destructive war. Several tribes of Indians had 
been violently uprooted from their ancient domains, 
which solemn treaties had guarantied to them forev- 
er, and removed to remote positions, at great expense. 
All this had been done at the instance and for the 
benefit of the south. And yet the south demanded 
more. Extension, extension, was still the cry, but 
never a word of extension in any direction which 
would enure to the well being of freedom. 

It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that, as the 
free states, by continual immigration from Europe, 
and by the natural tendency to growth and healthy 
development, increased in population and power, they 
should resist these perpetual encroachments, and feel 
a growing indisposition to aid the slaveholder in re- 
covering his fugitives. 

On the other hand, it cannot be denied, that, what- 
ever may have been the UTongs intended or produced 
by their local laws and customs, the south was enti- 
tled, under the constitution, to some protection against 
this species of loss. If that protection involves a 
moral wrong, it is the misfortune, and not the fault, 
of the constitution. It could nfever have been formed 
without it. It probably will not survive any serious 
attempt to abrogate it. There it stands, clear and 
unmistakable. And, however aggravating the ag- 
gressions of southern policy, however distasteful 
and offensive to northern ideas of freedom its local 
laws or individual actions, no man, whether presi- 
dent, senator, or representative, who had solemnly 
sworn to sustain the constitution, could fail to admit 
that the claim of the pouth, for a surrender of "fugi- 
tives from labor" should, by some means, be provided 
for. But how should it be done, so as not to mag- 
nify, rather than diminish, the difficulties already ex- 
isting? Hoc opus, hie labor est. 

The period at which our history has amved was a 
crisis in this great political question, a culminating 
point in the progress of American slavery. The large 
accession just made of territory on the Pacific and 



528 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



in Central America would, it was generally supposed, 
greatly increase the political importance of the south, 
so as entirely to overbalance the recent growth of 
freedom in the north-west. 

The sudden appearance of California at the door 
of Congress, asking admission into the Union as a 
free state, and the open and defiant repugnance of 
New Mexico to the attempt of Texas to fasten the 
"peculiar institution" upon her, were alarming symp- 
toms of a serious disappointment in their calcula- 
tions, and tended greatly to complicate the position 
of parties, by giving an unexpected weight to the 
northern views. Instead of taking a merely partisan 
advantage of this acquisition, however, the moderate, 
or conservative portion of the north, which has al- 
ways constituted a large majority, made use of it to 
secure a compromise, which should guaranty mutual 
advantages to both sides. Of this compromise the 
fugitive slave law formed a part. Its object was merely 
to provide for the proper carrying into effect of the pro- 
visions of the constitution above quoted, by designat- 
ing suitable officers to execute the law, and prescrib- 
ing " the manner in which the public, acts, records, 
and judicial proceedings of one state should be 
proved and made efficient in another." To this, the 
north, by its representatives and president, assented, 
in offset for the advantage gained by the admission of 
California, and the abolition of the slave marts in the 
District of Columbia. It is not improbable that Mr. 
Fillmore would have preferred to gain these without 
the necessity of reviving and reanimating this old law. 
But he had no choice. They were all passed by 
Congress, and placed before him for approval As 
sworn to sustain the constitution, he, on the advice of 
the attorney general, to whom the question was re- 
ferred, deemed it his duty to sanction the bill, and 
make it a law, by his signature. The law of 1793 
was still as binding as ever, and the decision of the 
Supreme Court in 1843, above alluded to, had con- 
firmed it. That law was manifestly defective in 
its details, and demanded amendment. It did not 
provide a sufficient number of United States offi- 
cers, authorized and required to execute it It made 
no provision for the legal arrest of the fugitive, ex- 
cept by the claimant himself. It furnished no ef- 
fective means of resisting the enemies of the law 
in their efforts to rescue the slave from his owner. 
It was also further deficient in defining the kind of 
proof necessary to justify, on the part of the magis- 
trate, a certificate for the surrender of the slave. 



These defects were intended to be remedied by the 
nevi' law, which provided for the appointment of a 
suitable number of commissioners, having concur- 
rent jurisdiction, in these cases, with the judges of 
the United States courts. Process for the arrest of the 
fugitive was to be executed by the marshal of the dis- 
trict in which the arrest was to be made, who was 
empowered to call to his assistance the requisite aid 
to enforce the process. Proofs might be taken by a 
court in the state from which the fugitive had fled, to 
establish these facts — that he owed service, and that 
he had fled from it. In case resistance to his removal 
was apprehended, the commissioner was authorized 
to direct the marshal to see him safely returned to 
bondage. 

In considering the details of this law, after it was 
presented to him for his signature, the president had 
some doubt, in his own mind, whether the provision 
which declared the certificate of the magistrate final, 
and that the persons executing it should not be mo- 
lested by any process issued by any court, might not 
be an infringement of that clause of the constitution 
which declares that " the privilege of the writ of ha- 
beas corpus shall not be suspended," unless when, in 
cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may 
■require it. These doubts were removed by the opin- 
ion of the attorney general, but they still exist in 
the minds of a great majority of the northern people. 
Notwithstanding this, however, the law would, in 
most cases, have been faithfully executed — the great 
mass of the people of the country, being a law-abid- 
ing people, were fast yielding to its requirements a 
loyal, though unwilling, respect — if a new project 
of slave extension and slave tyranny had not been 
suddenly started, and precipitately driven through, by 
which the Missouri compromise of 1820 was ruth- 
lessly repealed. From the date of that bill, the exe- 
cution of the fugitive slave law became irnpossible in 
most of the free states, except under such an array 
of civil and military force as metamorphosed the 
court into a Star Chamber, and the surrounding city, 
or country, into a theatre of civil war. This repeal, it 
will be remembered, took place under the administra- 
tion of General Pierce. 

The passage of the "compromise acts" was vigor- 
ously resisted by a powerful minority in both houses 
of Congress, sustained by all the anti-slavery feeling 
in the country. The excitement ran very high, and 
it required the utmost power of the south, aided by 
the best talent of the north, and the undisguised fa- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



329 



vor of the administration, to carry through the obnox- 
ious measures, which required any and all northern 
men, under heavy penalties and fear of imprison- 
ment, to assist in capturing and restoring a fugitive 
from slaverj' — an act which any respectable slave- 
holder would feel it a disgrace to perform, except in 
the case of his own slaves. In some of the northern 
cities the opposition to this law was exceedingly vio- 
lent, and threatened the most serious consequences. 
At Boston, in Massachusetts, Syracuse, in New 
York, and Christiana, in Pennsylvania, the law was 
openly resisted by the populace, and the captured fu- 
gitives rescued from the hands of the marshals, and 
effectually shielded from further pursuit. In some 
places the conflict assumed a very alarming aspect, 
and several lives were sacrificed in the popular deter- 
mination to resist the tyrannical application of an 
odious law. Mr. Fillmore did all in his power to 
carry out faithfully the provisions of the law. He is- 
sued a special proclamation, calling upon the officers 
to do their duty fearlessly, and cautioning all persons 
from interposing any obstacles thereto. The rioters 
were prosecuted before the courts, with all the force 
of the government to sustain the prosecutions; but 
such was the state of public sentiment on the all- 
engrossing subject, that it was almost impossible to 
find a jury, in any part of the country, who could be 
induced to bring in a verdict of guilty. One such ver- 
dict was rendered at Syracuse, under peculiar circum- 
stances, but death stepped in and claimed the victim 
before sentence was pronounced. 

It was claimed by the advocates of these measures, 
and strongly hoped by the friends of peace and or- 
der throughout the country, that they would quiet 
the prevailing agitation on the subject of slavery, 
and effectually exclude that subject from future con- 
gressional discussions. The admission of California 
as a free state, and the abolition of the slave mart 
in the District of Columbia, were enough, it was 
thought, to satisfy the anti-slavery demands of the 
north ; while the south received its portion in a 
$10,000,000 bonus to slavery in Texas, and a national 
guaranty for the return of their fugitive slaves. 
No effort was wanting to make this arrangement 
satisfactory to both sections. The administration 
gave it the whole weight of its influence, and pledged 
to its rigid enforcement the entire civil and military 
force at its disposal. But neither political patronage 
nor executive power could make slave-catching either 
popular, or, to any great extent, possible, in the free 



states. The idea was abhorrent to ne settled convic- 
tions and most cherished principles of the people. It 
was an invasion of their own soil with some of the 
worst and most hateful features of the slave code — 
the denial of a trial by jury, the suspension of habeas 
corpus, the non-admission of slave testimony, and 
the irresponsibility of the judges to the people. In 
addition to this, the entire odium and burden of the 
process was thrown upon the citizens of the free 
states, while all the expenses of the pursuit, the pros- 
ecution, and the recovery, were paid from the nation- 
al treasury, to which the free states are by far the 
largest contributors. In a majority of cases the ex- 
ecution of the law was prevented or evaded by pop- 
ular interposition ; and, whenever it was executed, 
the expenses exceeded many times — often many 
hundred times — the value of the slave recovered. 

Notwithstanding these difficulties, and the violence 
with which the abolitionists waged the war v.'ith this 
enactment, the majority of the northern people en- 
deavored to acquiesce in the compromises, and to 
regard them as a final settlement of all sectional diffi- 
culties. They hoped for peace, for a reasonable res- 
pite from agitation. As a whole, they resolved to 
stand by the president, in the position he had taken, 
and overcome their own prejudices, as he had over- 
come his, to sustain the majesty of the law. And, 
though the calm conservatism of the majority was 
scarcely a match for the fiery and determined energy 
of the resistants, and though, in special cases and in 
some sections of the country, it would have been im- 
possible for the ]a.\v to secure its victim, it is quite 
certain that the north would never have repudiated 
any part of the compromise, so long as it should be 
held sacred by the pro-slavery party. 

Mr. Fillmore, being called suddenly to the presi- 
dency in the midst of a session of Congress, had no 
immediate opportunity to declare himself on the great 
questions of the day, or to foreshadow the policy of his 
administration. He took occasion, therefore,- in hia 
annual message, at the opening of the short session 
of Congress, in December, 18-50, to expound at some 
length the general principles by which he would be 
governed, and to recommend some specific objects 
which, in his view, demanded the immediate action 
of Congress. 

One of the most prominent of these objects was 
the reduction of the inland postage on letters. This 
reform, already successfully inaugurated in Great 
Britain, was loudly demanded from every quarter of 



530 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



the United States, but especially from the north, and 
the people were now ripe for the experiment. Strong 
objections were urged, on the ground that so great a 
reduction would bani^rupt the department, and make 
it a charge upon the treasury. But the measure 
was carried against all objections, and provision made 
to supply from the treasury any deficiency in the re- 
ceipts of the department. 

For the greater safety of the public buildings and 
records in Washington, and for the improvement of 
the health of the city, Mr. Fillmore also recommend- 
ed that Congress should provide for an abundant sup- 
ply of water from the Falls of the Potomac. This 
suggestion was adopted, the necessary surveys were 
ordered, and the works are now advancing rapidly 
towards completion, by which an ample supply of 
good water will be secured. 

Other measures brought forward under the sanc- 
tion of this administration, and illustrative of the ex- 
pansive views and practical wisdom of the president, 
were — the establishment of an agricultural bureau ; 
the improvement of rivers and harbors, by which 
the facilities of internal commerce would be greatly 
increased; the establishment of an asylum for dis- 
abled and destitute seamen ; a moderate but perma- 
nent tariff; a restoration of specific duties for the 
prevention of fraud, with a just discrimination in fa- 
vor of American industry; a line of communication 
with the Pacific; a provision for settling disputed 
land titles in California ; an extension of the land 
laws over newly acquired territories, with suitable 
provisions to prevent a monopoly of the auriferous 
mineral lands ; a law to increase the efficiency of the 
army and navy, by providing for retiring from active 
service of such officers as had become superannuated ; 
a board of commissioners for the adjustment of 
private claims against the government; and, finally, 
"an adherence to the adjustment by the compromise 
measures, until time and experience should demon- 
strate the necessity for further legislation to guard 
against evasion or abuse." As Congress was then 
constituted, a large majority of both houses being 
politically opposed to the president, it was scarcely to 
be hoped that all these wise and prudent measures, 
involving long contested principles and questions of 
party strife, would be consummated at that time. 
Those which had no party bearing, and which could 
not be met except upon their simple merits, were duly 
considered and acted upon. The demand for jus- 
tice to disabled and destitute seamen, by the estab- 



lishment of an asylum for their relief, was responded 
to, and the preliminary measures adopted for carry- 
ing it into effect. The institution, which is to be 
conducted on a liberal scale, is situated in Harrods- 
burgh, Kentucky, and is already in an advanced state 
of progress. It will open for the reception of pa- 
tients at an early period. 

As several of the subjects recommended in this 
first message of Mr. Fillmore are among those which 
have divided the two political parties of the country, 
and called forth the ablest disputants on both sides 
and on all occasions, and as the measures so recom- 
mended were defeated by a majority opposed to the 
views of the administration, it seems only just that 
we should allow the president to speak for himself 
in proposing and expounding those views. 

On the tariff he thus argued : ■ " All experience 
has demonstrated the wisdom and policy of raising a 
large portion of revenue for the support of the gov- 
ernment from duties on goods imported. The power 
to lay these duties is unquestionable, and its chief 
object, of course, is to replenish the treasury. But 
if, in doing this, an incidental advantage may be 
gained by encouraging the industry df our own citi- 
zens, it is our duty to avail ourselves of that advantage. 

" A duty laid upon an article which cannot be pro- 
duced in this country — such as tea or coffee — adds 
to the cost of the article, and is chiefly or wholly paid 
by the consumer. But a duty laid upon an article 
which may be produced here, stimulates the skill and 
industry of our own country to produce the same arti- 
cle, which is brought into the market in competition 
with the foreign article, and the importer is thus com- 
pelled to reduce his price to that at which the domestic 
article can be sold, thereby throwing a part of the duty 
upon the producer of the foreign article. The contin- 
uance of this process creates the skill and invites the 
capital which finally enable us to produce the article 
much cheaper than it can be procured from abroad, 
thereby benefiting both the producer and the consumer 
at home. The consequence of this is, that the artisan 
and the agriculturist are brought together, each af- 
fords a ready market for the produce of the other, and 
the whole country becomes prosperous ; and the abil- 
ity to produce every necessary of life renders us inde- 
pendent in war as well as in peace. 

" A high tariff can never be permanent. * * • 
What the manufacturer wants is uniformity and per- 
manency. * * * To effect this all duties should be 
specific, wherever the nature of the article is such as to 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



531 



admit of it. Ad valorem duties fluctuate with the 
price, and offer strong temptations to fraud and perjury. 
Specific duties, on the contrary, are equal and uni- 
form in all ports, and at all times, and offer a strong 
inducement to the importer to bring the best article, 
as he pays no more duty upon that than upon one of 
inferior quality." 

In reference to appropriations for internal improve- 
ments, he said, " I entertain no doubt of the authority 
of Congress to make appropriations for leading ob- 
jects in that class of public works. This author- 
ity I suppose to be derived chiefly from the power 
of regulating commerce with foreign nations and 
among the states, and the power of laying and col- 
lecting imposts. Where commerce is to be carried 
on, and imposts collected, there must be ports and 
harbors, as well as wharves and custom houses. If 
ships laden with valuable cargoes approach the shore, 
or sail along the coast, lighthouses are necessary at 
suitable points for the protection of life and property. 
Other facilities and securities for commerce and nav- 
igation are hardly less important ; and those clauses 
of the constitution, to which I have referred, have re- 
ceived, from the origin of the government, a liberal 
and beneficial construction. Not only have light- 
houses, buoys, and beacons been established, and float- 
ing lights maintained, but harbors have been cleared 
and improved, piers constructed, and even breakwaters 
for the safety of shipping, and sea walls to protect har- 
bors from being filled and rendered useless by the ac- 
tion of the ocean, have been erected at very great 
expense. And this construction of the constitution 
appears the more reasonable from the consideration 
that if these works, of such evident importance and 
utility, are not to be accomplished by Congress, they 
cannot be accomplished at all. By the adoption of 
the constitution the several states voluntarily parted 
with the power of collecting duties on imposts in their 
own ports ; and it is not to be expected that they 
should raise money by internal taxation, direct or in- 
direct, for the benefit of that commerce, the revenues 
derived from which do not, either in whole or in part, 
go into their own treasuries. Nor do I perceive any 
difference between the power of Congress to make 
appropriations for objects of this kind on the ocean, 
and the power to make appropriations for similar ob- 
jects on lakes and rivers, wherever they are large 
enough to bear on their waters an extensive traffic. 
The magnificent Mississippi and its tributaries, and 
the vast lakes of the north and north-west, appear to 



me to fall within the exercise of the power as justly 
and as clearly as the ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. 
It is a mistake to regard expenditures judiciously 
made for these objects as expenditures for local ob- 
jects. The position, or site, of the work would be 
necessarily local ; but its utility is general. A ship 
canal around the Falls of St. Mary of less than a 
mile in length, though local in its construction, would 
yet be national in its purpose and benefits, as it would 
remove the only obstruction to a navigation of more 
than a thousand miles, affecting several states, as well 
as our commercial relations with Canada. So, too, 
the breakwater at the mouth of the Delaware is erected 
not for the exclusive benefit of the states on the bay 
and river of that name, but for that of the whole 
coastwise navigation of the United States, and, to a 
considerable extent also, of foreign commerce. If a 
ship be lost on the bar at the entrance of a southern 
port, for want of sufficient dejjth of water, it is very 
likely to be a northern ship; and if a steamboat be 
sunk in any part of the Mississippi, on account of its 
channel not havin.«T been properly cleared of obstruc- 
tions, it may be a boat belonging to either of eight or 
ten states. I may add, as somewhat remarkable, that 
among all the thirty-one states there is none that is 
not, to a greater or less extent, bounded on the ocean, 
or the Gulf of Mexico, or one of the great lakes, or 
some navigable river. 

" In fulfilling our constitutional duties on this sub- 
ject, as in carrying into effect all other powers con- 
ferred by the constitution, we should consider our- 
selves as deliberating and acting for one and the 
same country, and bear constantly in mind that our 
regard and our duty are due not to a particular part 
only, but to the whole." 

Such are the right reasonings of far-sighted polit- 
ical sagacity on two long and severely-controverted 
topics, which nothing but the physical mig-ht of a mere 
political majority has ever been able to answer or re- 
sist. And, strange as it may seem, though the history 
of American commerce perfectly illustrates and con- 
firms the truth and profitableness of one set of views, 
and the fallacy and destructive tendency of the other, 
it has never been possible to obtain for " the Amer- 
ican system " a fair experimental trial. The slave 
power, which has dictated and controlled the entire 
foreign policy of the country, has opposed it with un- 
broken front, always finding a party of impracticablea 
in the free states to aid them in breaking down home in- 
dustry, and fettering the internal commerce of the states. 



532 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



A bill making appropriation for the improvement 
of rivers and harbors, in accordance with the recom- 
mendation of the president, passed the House of 
Representatives, and was favored by a majority of 
the Senate. It was defeated, however, by a well- 
drilled minority, who, talking against time, on the 
very last day of the session, spun out the discussion- 
till the expiring hour of Congress, and thus prevented 
a vote. This ruse — which is resorted to on all occa- 
sions by the (so called) democratic party, whose fun- 
damental principle is, that the majority must always 
govern — is deemed little short of high treason if at- 
tempted by the opposing party. 

The Capitol being found insufficient for the con- 
venient accommodation of the government, an appro- 
priation was made at this session to extend it according 
to such plan as might be approved by the president. 
Having adopted a plan by which the original building 
■would be more than doubled in size, by the addition 
of two extensive wings, the work was immediately 
commenced, and the corner stone laid by the presi- 
dent, on the 4th of July, amid a large concourse of 
people. Mr. Webster made one of his eloquent ad- 
dresses on this occasion. 

Not satisfied with the inglorious issue of his first 
piratical invasion of Cuba, General liopez — whose 
cowardly retreat and "hair-breadth 'scape" are themes 
of merriment with the ladies of Key West, to whom 
the flying filibusters appealed for protection — had 
now organized another buccaneering expedition, which, 
like the former, sailed in open day from New Orleans, 
aided and abetted by many prominent persons there, 
and plainly connived at by the collector of the port — 
for which he was removed from office. Rumors of 
this project, which, for some time, were rife in the 
commnnity, assumed at length so much of substance 
and form, that the president deemed it necessary to 
interpose his constitutional power to prevent it. Ac- 
cordingly, on the 25th of April, 1851, he issued a 
|)roclaiiiation, reciting a portion of the neutrality law 
bearing upon the subject, and warning all persons of 
the consequences of such an infringement of that law. 
He also made such disposition of the naval force at 
his command as seemed best calculated to arrest these 
treasonable movements, and save the honor of the 
government. Whatever effect this might have had 
to delay proceedings, it did not effectually arrest 
them. Preparations were proceeded with cautiously, 
through the summer, until on the 4th of August, when 
the ill-fated expedition sailed. Its result was no less 



inglorious, and far more unfortunate, than that of the 
preceding one. A landing was effected at Playtas, 
about sixty miles from Havana, on the night of the_ 
11th of August. Between four and five hundred men 
were involved in this expedition — most of them young 
and ill informed. The main body of them, under com- 
mand of General Lopez, proceeded inland at once, 
and took- possession of a small village, some eighteen 
miles from the coast. The remainder were left be- 
hind to bring up the baggage, as soon as means of 
transportation could be found. Having made all 
necessary arrangements, and taken up their line of 
march, they had proceeded about twelve miles, when, 
on the morning of the 13th, they were attacked by a 
body of Spanish troops. A bloody conflict ensued. 
Those of the invaders who escaped death in this con- 
flict retreated to the shore, where about fifty of them 
found boats, in which they put out to sea. They 
were, however, intercepted among the islands by a 
Spanish steamer cruising on the coast, captured, and 
carried into Havana ; where, after a summary military 
trial, they were condemned and executed as pirates 
on the 16th. The main body, under Lopez, was at- 
tacked on the 24th, and put to rout. Lopez escaped, 
but was captured in the mountains some days after, 
and executed on the 1st of September. Many of his 
followers were killed, or died of hunger and fatigue ; 
and the rest, some one hundred and seventy in num- 
ber, were made prisoners. Of these, several were par- 
doned on the intercession of friends. About one hun- 
dred and sixty of them were sent to Spain, but were 
subsequently, by the clemency of the queen, at the 
urgent request of the president, permitted to return 
to their homes. 

The president, in his annual messE^e to Congress, 
thus comments upon "this illegal and ill-fated expe- 
dition : " " Too severe a judgment can hardly be 
passed by the indignant sense of the community 
upon those, who, being better informed them.^elves, 
have led away the ardor of youth and ill-directed 
love of political liberty." He also expresses the hope 
" that the interposition of the government to procure 
the release of such citizens of the United States, en- 
gaged in this unlawful enterprise, as are now in con- 
finement in Spain, may not be considered as affording 
any ground of expectation that government would 
hereafter feel itself under any obligation to intercede 
for the liberation or pardon of such persons as are 
flagi-ant offenders against the law of nations and the 
laws of the United States." 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



533 



In addition to the strong inherent tendency of sla- 
very to extend its area, there were at this period some 
peculiar elements at work in America which favored 
designs of this character. The disbanding of the Mex- 
ican army had thrown upon the community a vast 
number of idle, demoralized men, who were ready for 
any plausible expedition which promised excitement, 
glory, or plunder. The discovery of rich deposits of 
gold ill California, while it offered a vent for a por- 
tion of this restless and explosive material, greatly 
aggravated the difficulty by unsettling the minds of 
an immense number of those who had remained at 
home, and arousing, on every side, a spirit of almost 
reckless adventure. The calm, even course of indus- 
try and patient endeavor for the support of life and 
the accumulation of wealth was abandoned by thou- 
sands in all sections of the country. The regular 
channels of business were, to some extent, interrupted 
and broken up, and the whole country seemed run- 
ning wild in the chase of golden phantoms. To af- 
ford exercise to some part of this restless spirit, and 
divert the feckless from further marauding expeditions 
against peaceful neighbors, it seemed good to the pres- 
ident to suggest and open new objects of public in- 
terest, and new fields of individual enterprise. With 
this .view, he proposed the fitting out of exploring ex- 
peditions to foreign countries, which should add to 
our geographical knowledge, extend our commerce, 
and increase our facilities of communication with dis- 
tant parts of our own country and the world. One 
of the first and principal objects of this class was, to 
secure a shorter and convenient route to California; 
and great eflbrts were made to negotiate the Tehuan- 
tepec route through Mexico, and the Nicaragua route 
through Central America. 

.Japan, Ihe recluse of the Northern Pacific, also at- 
tracted attention, and invited an effort to initiate her 
into the community of nations. The ostensible mo- 
tive for present action in this quarter was found in 
the fact that several American sailors had been ship- 
wrecked, cast upon the shores of Japan, and there 
treated with great severity. Information of their un- 
happy condition having been communicated to Com- 
modore Geisinger, then cruising in the Pacific, he de- 
spatched the United States ship Preble, Commander 
James Glynn, to demand their release and bring them 
away. This service was ably and manfully performed, 
and an impression made upon the Japanese govern- 
ment that the United States of America could not be 
trifled with. Having fulfilled his benevolent mission, 



and returned to the United States, Commander Glynn 
addressed a letter to the president, recommending an 
early and a vigorous effort to draw or drive Japan from 
her unsocial position, and to obtain, in some part of 
her territory, a depot for our Pacific steamers. The 
following extract will fully explain the design of the 
letter, and the subsequent action of the government: — 

" Washington, June 10, 1851. 

"Sir: I have the honor to submit herewith, in 
writing, by your direction, the substance of my re- 
marks to you a few days since upon the project of 
opening an intercourse between the United States 
and the empire of Japan. Soon a commercial treaty 
between the two countries will be demanded by our 
people ; and already a depot to stop at in Japan is 
absolutely necessary for the accommodation of a line 
of steamships contemplated to be established between 
California and China. These arrangements must be 
effected soon or late, and if not peaceably, then by 
force ; the progress of civilization demands them, and 
every humane man must desire that the necessary 
changes in the relations existing between the two 
governments should be effected with as little violence 
as'possible, and also with as little delay. 

" The present appears a favorable time for entering 
upon a negotiation with Japan. Recent occurrences 
have attracted the attention of the two countries to- 
wards each other; but as yet there has been no un- 
kind feeling grown into existence between the two 
people. It is important that advantage should be 
taken of this favorable condition of things, which 
cannot, reasonably, be anticipated to continue much 
longer, at least on our part, where our interests are so 
largely involved in greater accommodation for our 
commerce; where a claim so reasonable in itself is 
met by arbitrary prohibition ; where might and right 
are resisted by imbecility and injustice. * * * 

" Having taken precautionary measures to make 
friends of those who might hkve it in their power to 
injure our cause, the next thing is to select a proper 
bearer of the communication — for on him will de- 
pend, in a great degree, the result of this first attempt 
to change the foreign policy of Japan. He should be 
a man of matured judgment, and of ready tact to 
comprehend and to extricate himself from any un- 
pleasant position he might find himself suddenly and 
unexpectedly placed in while negotiating with a peo- 
ple so pectiliarly situated, and a government so pecu- 
liarly constituted as is that of Japan. He should have 



534 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



patience to sustain himself under trying circum- 
stances not designed to annoy him, and spirit to 
repel every attempt to exact from him any humiliat- 
ing act of ceremonial deference to the native author- 
ities ; he should be a naval officer, knowing what a 
man-of-war could be made to do under any circum- 
stances, and what he should do with her in an unex- 
pected emergency, or in an unlooked-for turn in the 
character of the negotiation. While he is the peace- 
ful bearer of a friendly letter, he should be studying 
the best mode of conducting hostile operations against 
the empire, if they should ever be deemed necessary 
by his government ; and with this object he should, 
if possible, get into the country, claiming the right to 
deliver in person his letter to the highest functionary 
of the local government to whom it may be directed." 

Designs of opening a communication with Japan 
had been seriously entertained for many years. Mr. 
Livingston, secretary of state under General Jackson, 
issued a commission to that effect to Mr. Edmund 
Roberts, then United States commissioner in China. 
But it was so restricted in its instructions, and in the 
means of commanding respect, that its execution was 
never attempted. • 

In 1845, Commodore Biddle was instructed to 
" hold his squadron at the disposal of the commis- 
sioner, in case he should incline to make the effort 
of gaining access to Japan ; and if the commissioner 
declined so to do, himself to persevere in the design; 
yet not in such a manner as to excite a hostile feel- 
ing, or a distrust of the government of the United 
States." 

In pursuance of these instructions, Commodore 
Biddle, in the United States ship Columbus, pro- 
ceeded to the Bay of Yedo, where he anchored on the 
20th of July, 1846. He was, however, entirely unsuc- 
cessful in his endeavors to open the desired negotia- 
tions. The edict issued for the purpose of explaining 
the reasons of this refbsal contained the following 
very decided declarations : " It will be of no use to 
renew the attempt, as all applications of the kind, 
however numerous they may be, will be steadily re- 
jected." " The emperor positively refuses the permis- 
sion you desire. He earnestly advises you to depart 
immediately, and to consult your own safety by not 
appearing again upon our coast." 

Notwithstanding tliese peremptory repulses, Mr. 
Fillmore resolved on another and a determined effort 
to secure an object so important to the increasing 



commerce in the Pacific, and particularly to the pro- 
tection due to American seamen shipwrecked on those 
coasts. The latter was to be demanded as a right, 
and secured at any cost ; the former to be insisted 
upon by all arguments consistent with a due regard 
to the rights ■ of Japan as an independent nation. 
With these views, the following instructions were 
given to Commodore Aulick : — 



" Department of State, 

" Washington, June 10, 1851. 

" Sir : The moment is near when the last link in 
the chain of oceanic steam navigation is to be formed. 
From China and the East Indies to Egypt, thence 
through the Mediterranean and Atlantic Ocean to 
England, thence again to our happy shores, and other 
parts of this great continent ; from our own ports to 
the southernmost part of the isthmus that connects the 
two western continents ; and from its Pacific coast, 
north and southwards, as far as civilization has spread, 
the steamers of other nations and of our own carry 
intelligence, the wealth of the world, and thousands 
of travellers. 

" It is the president's opinion that steps should be 
taken at once to enable our enterprising merchants to 
supply the last link in that great chain which unites 
all nations of the world by the early establishment of 
a line of steamers from California to China. In order 
to facilitate this enterprise it is desirable that we 
should obtain from the Emperor of Japan permission 
to purchase from his subjects the necessary supplies of 
coal which our steamers, on their out and inward 
voyages, may require. The well-known jealousy with 
which the Japanese empire has, for the last two cen- 
turies, rejected all overtures from other nations to 
open its ports to their vessels, embarrasses all new at- 
tempts to change the exclusive policy of that country. 

" The interests of commerce, and even those of hu- 
manity, demand, however, that we should make an- 
other appeal to the sovereign of that country, in ask- 
ing him to sell to our steamers, not the manufactures 
of his artisans, or the results of the toil of his hus- 
bandmen, but a gift of Providence, deposited, by the 
Creator of all things, in the depths of the Japanese 
Islands for the benefit of the human family. 

" By the president's direction I now transmit to 
you a letter to the Emperor of Japan, (with an open 
copy,) which you are to carry to Yedo, his capital, in 
your flagship, accompanied by as many vessels of the 
squadron under your command as may convenientl ' 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



535 



be employed in this service. A Chinese translation 
of this letter will be furnished to you by the United 
States legation at Canton, or sent to your anchorage 
at Hong Kong or Macao. 

" At one of the latter places you will probably meet 
with a national vessel, detached by the commodore 
of the squadron in the Pacific, (as you will perceive 
by the enclosed copy of a correspondence between 
this and the navy department,) to carry to you a 
number of shipwrecked Japanese mariners, who were 
some time ago picked up at sea by the bark Auck- 
land. These men you will take with you to Yedo, 
and deliver them over to the officers of the emperor, 
giving them, through your interpreter, the assurance 
that the American government will never fail to treat 
with kindness any of the natives of Japan whom mis- 
fortune may bring to our shores, and that it expects 
similar treatment of such of its own citizens who may 
be driven on the coasts of Japan. 

" The letter of the president to the Emperor of 
Japan you will deliver to such of his high officers as 
he may appoint for the purpose of receiving it. To 
them you will also explain the main object of your 
visit. 

" Mineral coal is so abundant in Japan that the 
government of that country can have no reasonable 
objection to supply our steamers, at fair prices, with 
that great necessary of commerce. One of the east- 
ern ports of Niphon would be the most desirable place 
for this purpose. Should, however, the government 
of Japan persist in following out its system of exclu- 
siveness, you might, perhaps, induce them to consent 
to the transportation of the coal, by their own ves- 
sels, to a neighboring island, easy of access, where 
the steamers could supply their wants — avoiding thus 
the necessity of an intercourse with any large number 
of the people of the country. 

" It is considered important that you should avail 
yourself of every occasion to impress upon the Jap- 
anese officers with whom you will be brought in con- 
tact, that the government of the United States does 
not possess any power over the religion of its own 
citizens, and that there is, therefore, no cause to ap- 
prehend that it will interfere with the religion of other 
countries. 

" The president, although fully aware of the great 
reluctance hitherto shown by the Japanese government 
to enter into treaty stipulations with any foreign na- 
tion, — a feeling which it is sincerely wished that you 
may be able to overcome, — has thought it proper, in 

68 



anticipation of this latter favorable contingency, to 
invest you with full power to negotiate and sign a 
treaty of amity and commerce between the United 
States and the empire of Japan. 

" I transmit, herewith, the act of the president cloth- 
ing you with that power, as also copies of the treaty 
between the United States and China, with Siam, 
and with Muscat, which may, to a certain extent, be 
of use to you as precedents. It is important that you 
should secure to our vessels the right to enter one or 
more of the ports of Japan, and there to dispose of 
their cargoes, either by sale or by barter, without be- 
ing subjected to extravagant port charges ; and even 
more important is it that the government of Japan 
should bind itself to protect American sailors and 
property which may be wrecked on their shores. The 
second article of our treaty with Muscat, and the fifth 
article of our treatywith Siam, embrace these objects. 

" Every treaty has to be submitted to the Senate 
for ratification, as you are aware. In consideration 
of the great distance between the two countries, and 
unforeseen difficulties, it would be prudent, should you 
succeed in efl'ecting the object proposed, to fLx the 
period for the exchange of the ratifications at three 
years. 

" I am, sir, respectfully, your obedient servant, 

"DANIEL "WEBSTER. 

" Commodore John H. Aulick, &c., &c." 

" President of the United States to the Emperor of Japan. 

"MILLARD FILLMORE, PRESIDENT OF THE LTNITED 
STATES OF AMERICA, TO HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY 
THE EMPEROR OF JAPAN. 

" Great and good Friend : I send you this letter 
by an envoy of my own appointment, an officer of 
high rank in his country, who is no missionary of re- 
ligion. He goes by my command to bear to you my 
greeting and good wishes, and to promote friendship 
and commerce between the two countries. 

" You know that the United'States of America now 
extend from sea to sea ; that the great countries of 
Oregon and California are parts of the United States ; 
and that from these countries, which are rich in gold, 
and silver, and precious stones, our steamers can reach 
the shores of your happy land in less than twenty days. 

" Many of our ships will now pass in every year, 
and some, perhaps, in every week, between California 
and China ; these ships must pass along the coasts 
of your empire ; storms and winds may cause them 
to be wrecked on your shores ; and we ask and expect 



536 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



from your friendship and your greatness kindness for 
our men, and protection for our property. We wish 
that our people may be permitted to trade with your 
people ; but we shall not authorize them to break any 
laws of your empire. 

" Our object is friendly commercial intercourse, and 
nothing more. You have many productions which we 
should be glad to buy; and we have productions 
which might suit your people. 

" Your empire hath a great abundance of coal ; this 
is an article which our steamships, in going from Cal- 
ifornia to China, must use. They would be glad that 
a harbor in your empire should be appointed to which 
coal might be brought, and where they might always 
be able to purchase it. 

" In many other respects commerce between your 
empire and our country would be useful to both. 
Let us consider well what new interests arise from 
these recent events which have brought our two coun- 
tries so near together, and what purposes of friend- 
ship, amity, and intercourse they ought to inspire in 
the breasts of those who govern both countries. 
Farewell. 

" Given under my hand and seal, at the city of 
Washington, the 10th day of May, 1851, and 
[l. s.] of the independence of the United States the 
seventy-fifth. 

" By the President. 

" D. Webster, Secretary of State." 



' M. FILLMORE. 



This commission was subsequently transferred to 
Commodore Perry, who was sent out with an inde- 
pendent fleet, and clothed with full powers of negoti- 
ation. The mission was conducted with great abil- 
ity and complete success. The same jealousy and 
watchfulness, which had foiled all previous attempts 
to open negotiations with the emperor, characterized 
the movements of the officials on his first arrival. 
Every obstacle was thrown in the way of his com- 
munication with the shore. But conscious of power, 
and of a just right to demand a hearing, at least so 
far as the protection of shipwrecked seamen was con- 
cerned, Commodore Perry went boldly forward, passed 
into the forbidden harbor, cast anchor in a safe and 
convenient place, and insisted peremptorily on hav- 
ing his communication presented to the emperor, and 
duly answered. Prudent as well as courageous, and 
courteous as well as determined, he cbolly and kindly 
persisted in his demands till immemorial usage and 
Japanese obstinacy gave way, and the objects of his 



important mission were entirely accomplished. The 
details of this arrangement belong rather to the his- 
tory of the subsequent administration than to that of 
Mr. Fillmore ; but thus much is due to him, under 
whose auspices and instructions the successful mis- 
sion was originated. 

While this matter was in progress, an exploring ex- 
pedition was sent to the Chinese Seas, under command 
of Captain Ringgold, with a view to securing safe and 
convenient depots for coal for steamers employed in 
the Pacific trade, and other safeguards and facilities 
for the widely-extending commerce and enterprise of 
the states. 

Efforts were also made to open to American enter- 
prise and commerce the immense and almost unex- 
plored territories of the interior of South America. 
A favorable opportunity seemed to be afforded on the 
expulsion of Rosas from Buenos Ayres, and efforts 
were immediately made to negotiate treaties of amity 
and commerce with the new authorities, which would 
have the effect to invite American adventurers to the 
rich and extensive regions of the La Plata and its 
confluents. Investigations were also made into the 
character and facilities of the country watered by the 
Amazon and its branches ; and treaties were formed 
with Brazil, Uruguay, Costa Rica, and Peru. 

Under the strong conviction, derived from the gold 
washings of the rivers of Africa, that the mountains 
from which they take their rise would be found rich 
in metalliferous ore, and offer an inviting field for the 
enterprise of the free colored people of the states, and 
an inducement to them to emigrate to the land of 
their fathers. Lieutenant Lynch was sent thither on 
an exploring expedition, the results of which yet re- 
main to be known, 

The guano trade of the Pacific islands, the monop- 
oly of which was claimed by Peru, had now become 
very important, and an object of envy to American 
adventurers. In respect to the Islands of Lobos, a 
difference of opinion arose between Mr. Webster, 
then secretary of state, and the Peruvian minis- 
ter at Washington. The latter claimed them, per- 
emptorily, as the property of Peru, and occupied by 
Peruvian subjects ; while the former denied the right 
of Peru altogether, " considering them as desert is- 
lands, vi'hich had been discovered by a captain in the 
Afnerican service," and therefore asserting officially 
that " the government of the United States would 
protect all her subjects who might go to those islands 
for the purpose of taking guano." In pursuance of 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



537 



these views, authority was given to American cit- 
izens to send to the Lobos Islands for guano without 
recognizing or submitting to any right on the part of 
Peru to demand payment therefor; and instructions 
were issued to the American squadron in the Pacific 
to protect all such enterprises. This order was after- 
wards recalled, or rather suspended, in consideration 
of new and plausible evidence presented by the Peru- 
vian government of a presumptive title to the juris- 
diction of those islands. The matter may be regarded 
as not fully settled, though the pacific policy of the 
United States leaves no' ground of apprehension that 
the good understanding between the two governments 
will be disturbed by a question of so little importance. 
During the presidency of General Taylor, a confi- 
dential agent of the government had been sent to Eu- 
rope to examine and report upon the condition and 
prospects of the people of Hungary during their mem- 
orable, but unfortunate struggle for independence. 
This fact having transpired, the attention and jeal- 
ousy of Austria were aroused, and her charge d'affaires 
at Washington was instructed to remonstrate against 
so unprecedented and dangerous an interference in 
the political concerns of monarchical Europe. An 
animated diplomatic correspondence ensued. A se- 
vere lecture on international courtesy was read to the 
American secretary, which was probably expected to 
annihilate him, and to bring the nation on its knees. 
Mr. Webster, however, survived the attack, and soon 
satisfied the world, if not the Austrian charge, that 
the United States government fully comprehended its 
position, and that remonstrances of this nature, from 
whatever quarter they might come, were a very un- 
profitable kind of diplomacy. 

" Chevalier J. G. Huhemann to the Secretary of State. 

"Austrian Leoation, 
" Washington, September 30, 1850. 

" The undersigned, charge d'affaires of his majesty 
the Emperor of Austria, has been instructed to make 
the following communication to the secretary of 
state : — 

" As soon as the imperial government -became 
aware of the fact that a United States agent had 
been despatched to Vienna, with orders to watch for 
a favorable moment to recognize the Hungarian re- 
public, and to conclude a treaty of commerce with 
the same, the undersigned was directed to address 
Bome confidential, but pressing representations to the 
cabinet of Washington against that proceeding, which 



is so much at variance with those principles of inter- 
national law so scrupulously adhered to by Austria, 
at all times, and under all circumstances, towards the 
United States. In fact, how is it possible to recon- 
cile such a mission with the principle of non-interven- 
tion so formally announced by the United States as 
the basis of American policy, and which had just 
been sanctioned with so much solemnity by the pres- 
ident in his inaugural address of March 5, 1849 ? 
Was it in return for the friendship and confidence 
which Austria had never ceased to manifest towards 
them that the United States became so impatient for 
the downfall of the Austrian manarchy, and even 
sought to accelerate that event by the utterance of 
their wishes to that effect ? Those who did not hes- 
itate to assume the responsibility of sending Mr. 
Dudley Mann on such an errand, should, independ- 
ently of considerations of propriety, have borne in 
mind that they were exposing their emissary to be 
treated as a spy. It is to be regretted that the Amer- 
ican government was not better informed as to the 
actual resources of Austria, and her historical perse- 
verance in defending her just rights. A knowledge 
of those resources would have led to the conclusion 
that a contest of a few months' duration could nei- 
ther have exhausted the energies of that power nor 
turned aside its purpose to put down the insurrection. 
Austria has struggled against the French revolution 
for twenty-five years. The courage and perseverance 
which she exhibited in that memorable contest have 
been appreciated by the whole world. 

" To the urgent representations of the undersigned, 
Mr. Clayton answered that Mr. Mann's mission had' 
no other object in view than to obtain reliable infor- 
mation as to the true state of affairs in Hungary by 
personal observation. This explanation can hardly 
be admitted ; for it says very little as to the cause of 
the anxiety which was felt to ascertain the chances 
of the revolutionists. Unfortunately, the language in 
which Mr. Mann's instructions were drawn gives us 
a very correct idea of their scope. This language 
was offensive to the imperial cabinet ; for it desig- 
nates the Austrian government as an iron rule, and 
represents the rebel chief Kossuth as an illustrious 
man ; while improper expressions are introduced in 
regard to Russia, the intimate and faithful ally of 
Austria. Notwithstanding these hostile demonstra- 
tions, the imperial cabinet has deemed it proper to 
preserve a conciliatory deportment, making ample al- 
lowance for the ignorance of the cabinet of Wash- 



538 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, 



ington on the subject of Hungarian affairs, and its 
disposition to give credence to the mendacious ru- 
mors which are propagated by the American press. 
This extremely painful incident, therefore, might have 
been passed over without any written evidence being 
left on our part in the archives of the United States, 
had not General Taylor thought proper to revive the 
whole subject by communicating to the Senate, in his 
message of the 18th of last March, the instructions 
with which Mr. Mann had been furnished on the oc- 
casion of his mission to Vienna. The publicity which 
has been given to that document has placed the imperial 
government under the necessity of entering a formal 
protest, through its official representative, against the 
proceedings of the American government, lest that 
government should construe our silence into approba- 
tion, or toleration even, of the principles which ap- 
pear to have guided its action, and the mejns it has 
adopted. 

" In view of all these circumstances the undersigned 
has been instructed to declare that the imperial gov- 
ernment totally disapproves, and will always continue 
to disapprove, of those proceedings, so offensive to 
the laws of propriety, and that it protests against all 
interference in the internal aff'airs of its government. 
Having thus fulfilled his duty, the undersigned con- 
siders it a fortunate circumstance that he has it in his 
power to assure the secretary of state that the impe- 
rial government is disposed to cultivate relations of 
friendship and good understanding with the United 
States — relations which may have been momentarily 
weakened, but which could not again be seriously dis- 
■ turbed without placing the cardinal interests of the two 
countries in jeopardy. 

" The instructions for addressing this communica- 
tion to Mr. Clayton reached Washington at the time 
of General Taylor's death. In compliance with the 
requisitions of propriety, the undersigned deemed it 
his duty to defer the task until the new administra- 
tion had been completely organized — a delay which 
he now rejoices at, as it has given him the opportunity 
of ascertaining from the new president himself, on the 
occasion of the reception of the diplomatic corps, that 
the fundamental policy of the United States, so fre- 
quently proclaimed, would guide the relations of the 
American government with other powers. Even if 
the government of the United States were to think it 
proper to take an indirect part in the political move- 
ments of Europe, American policy would be exposed 
to acts of retaliation, and to certain inconveniences. 



which could not fail to affect the commerce and the 
industry of the two hemispheres. All countries 'are 
obliged, at some period or other, to struggle against 
internal difficulties ; all forms of government are ex- 
posed to such disagreeable episodes ; the United 
States have had some experience in this very re- 
cently. Civil war is a possible occurrei.ce every 
where ; and the encouragement which is given to the 
spirit of insurrection and of disorder most frequently 
falls back upon those who seek to aid it in its devel- 
opments in spite of justice and wise policy. 

" The undersigned avails himself of this occasion 
to renew to the secretary of state the assurance of his 

distinguished consideration. 

" HULSEMANN. . 
"To THE Hon. Daniel Webster, 

" Sea-etary of State of the United States." 

" The Sea-aary of State to Mr. Hukemann. 

"Depaktment of_ State, 
" Washington, December 21, 1850. 

" The undersigned, secretary of state of the United 
States, had the honor to receive, some time ago, the 
note of Mr. Hulsemann, charge d'affaires of his majes- 
ty the Emperor of Austria, of the 30th September. 
Causes, not arising from any want of personal regard 
for Mr. Hulsemann, or of proper respect for his gov- 
ernment, have delayed an answer until the present 
moment. Having submitted Mr. Hulsemann's letter 
to the president, the undersigned is now directed by 
him to return the following reply : — 

" The objects of Mr. Hulsemann's note are, 
first, to protest, by order of his government, against 
the steps taken by the late president of the United 
States to ascertain the progress and probable result 
of the revolutionary movements in Hungary ; and, sec- 
ondly, to complain of some expressions in the instruc- 
tions of the late secretary of state to Mr. A. Dudley 
Mann, a confidential agent of the United States, as 
communicated by President Taylor to the Senate on 
the 28th of March last. 

" The principal ground of protest is founded on the 
idea, or in the allegation, that the government of the 
United States, by the mission of Mr. Mann, and his 
instructions, has interfered in the domestic affairs of 
Austria, in a manner unjust or disrespectful towards 
that power. The president's message was a com- 
munication made by him to the Senate, transmitting 
a correspondence between the executive government 
and a confidential agent of its own. This would 
seem to be itself a domestic transaction — a mere 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



539 



instance of intercourse between the president and the 
Senate, in the manner which is usual and indispensa- 
ble in communications between the different branches 
of the government. It was not addressed either to 
Austria or Hungary; nor was it any public manifesto, 
to which any foreign state was called on to reply. It 
was an account of its transactions communicated by 
the executive government to the Senate, at the re- 
quest of that body — made public, indeed, but made 
public only because such is the common and usual 
course of proceeding; and it may be regarded as 
somewhat strange, therefore, that the Austrian cab- 
inet did not perceive, that, by the instructions given 
to Mr. Hulsemann, it was itself interfering with the 
domestic concerns of a foreign state — the very thing 
which is the ground of its complaint against the 
United States. 

" This depattment has, on former occasions, in- 
formed the ministers of foreign powers that a com- 
munication from the president to either house of 
Congress is regarded as a domestic communication, 
of which, ordinarily, no foreign state has cognizance ; 
and, in more recent instances, the great inconvenience 
of raaliing such communications subjects of diplo- 
matic correspondence and discussion has been fully 
shown. If it had been the pleasure of his majesty 
the Emperor of Austria, during the struggles in Hun- 
gary, to have admonished the provisional government, 
or the people of that country, against involving them- 
selves in disaster by following the evil and dangerous 
example of the United States of America in maidng 
efforts for the establishment of independent govern- 
ments, such an admonition from that sovereign to his 
Hungarian subjects would not have originated here 
a diplomatic correspondence. The president might, 
perhaps, on this ground, have declined to direct any 
particular reply to Mr. Hulsemann's note; but, out 
of proper respect for the Austrian government, it has 
been thought better to answer that note at length — 
and the more especially as the occasion is not unfa- 
vorable for the expression of the general sentiments 
of the government of the United States upon the 
topics which that note discusses. 

" A leading subject in Mr. Hulsemann's note is that 
of the correspondence between Mr. Hulsemann and 
the predecessor of the undersigned, in which Mr. 
Clayton, by direction of the president, informed Mr. 
Hulsemann 'that Mr. Mann's mission had no other 
object in view than to obtain reliable information as 
to the true state of affairs in Hungary by personal 



observation.' Mr. Hulsemann remarks, that ' this ex- 
planation can hardly be admitted; for it says very 
little as to the cause of the anxiety which was felt to 
ascertain the chances of the revolutionists.' As this, 
however, is the only purpose which can with any ap- 
pearance of truth be attributed to the agency, — as 
nothing whatever is alleged by Mr. Hulsemann to 
have been either done or said by the agent incon- 
sistent with such an object, — the undersigned con- 
ceives that Mr. Clayton's explanation ought to be 
deemed not only admissible, but quite satisfactory. 
Mr. HulsemaiHi states, in the course of his note, that 
his instructions to address his present communication 
to Mr. Clayton reached Washington about the time 
of the lamented death of the late president, and that 
he delayed, from a sense of propriety, the execution 
of his task until the new administration should be 
fully organized — 'a delay which he now rejoices at, 
as it has given him the opportunity of ascertaining 
from the new president himself, on the occasion of 
the reception of the diplomatic corps, that the funda- 
mental policy of the United States, so fequently pro- 
claimed, would guide the relations of the American 
government with other powers.' Mr. Hulsemann also 
observes, that it is in his power to assure the under- 
'signed 'that the imperial government is disposed to 
cultivate relations of friendship and good understand- 
ing with the United States.' The president receives 
this assurance of the disposition of the imperial gov- 
ernment with great satisfaction ; and, in considera- 
tion of the friendly relations of the two governments, 
thus mutually recognized, and of the peculiar nature 
of the incidents by which their good understanding 
is supposed by Mr. Hulsemann to have been for a 
moment disturbed or endangered, the president re- 
grets that Mr. Hulsemann did not feel himself at lib- 
erty wholly to forbear from the execution of instruc- 
tions which were of course transmitted from Vienna 
without any foresight of the state of things under 
which they would reach Washington. If Mr. Hulse- 
mann saw in the address of the president to the dip- 
lomatic corps satisfactory pledges of the sentiments 
and the policy of this government in regard to neu- 
tral rights and neutral duties, it might perhaps have 
been better not to bring on a discussion of jjast trans- 
actions. But the undersigned readily admits that this 
was a question fit only for the consideration and de- 
cision of Mr. Hulsemann himself; and although the 
president does not see that^ny good purpose can be 
answered by reopening the inquiry into the propriety 



540 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



of the steps taken by President Taylor to ascertain 
the probable issue of the late civil'war in Hungary, 
justice to his memory requires the undersigned briefly 
to restate the history of those steps, and to show their 
consistency with the neutral policy which has invari- 
ably guided the government of the United States in 
its foreign relations, as well as with the established 
and well-settled principles of national intercourse and 
the doctrines of public law. 

" The undersigned will first observe that the pres- 
ident is persuaded his majesty the Emperor of Aus- 
tria does not think that the' government of the United 
States ought to view with unconcern the extraordi- 
nary events which have occurred, not only in his do- 
minions, but in many other parts of Europe, since 
February, 1S48. The government and people of the 
United States, like other intelligent governments and 
communities, take a lively interest in the movements 
and the events of this remarkable age, in whatever 
part of the world they may be exhibited. But the 
interest taken by the United States in those events has 
not proceeded from any disposition to depart from that 
neutrality towards foreign powers which is among the 
deepest principles and the most cherished traditions of 
the political history of the Union. It has been the neces- 
sary effect of the unexampled character of the events 
themselves, which could not fail to arrest the atten- 
tion of the contemporary world, as they will doubtless 
fill a memorable page in history. But the undersigned 
goes further, and freely admits, that, in .proportion as 
these extraordinary events appeared to have their ori- 
gin in those great ideas of responsible and popular 
governments on which the American constitutions 
themselves are wholly founded, they could not but 
command the warm sympathy of the people of this 
country. 

"Well-known circumstances in their history — in- 
deed their whole history — have made them the repre- 
sentatives of purely popular principles of government. 
In this light they now stand before the world. They 
could not, if they would, conceal their character, their 
condition, or their destiny. They could not, if they 
so desired, shut out from the view of mankind the 
causes which have placed them, in so short a national 
career, in the station which they now hold among the 
civilized states of the world. They could not, if they 
desired it, suppress either the thoughts or the hopes 
which arise in men's minds, in other countries, from 
contemplating their sucgessful example of free gov- 
ernment. That very intelligent and distinguished 



personage, the Emperor Joseph II., was among the 
first to discern this necessary consequence of the 
American revolution on the sentiments and opinions 
of the people of Europe. In a letter to his minister 
in the Netherlands, in 1787, he observes, that ' it is 
remarkable that France, by the assistance which she 
afforded to the Americans, gave birth to reflections on 
freedom.' This fact, which the sagacity of that mon- 
arch perceived at so early a day, is now known and 
admitted by inteUigent powers all over the world. 
True, indeed, it is, that the prevalence on the other 
continent of sentiments favorable to republican lib- 
erty is the result of the reaction of America upon 
Europe ; and the- source and centre of this reaction 
has doubtless been, and now is, in these United 
States. The position thus belonging to the United 
States is a fact as inseparable from their history, their 
constitutional organization, and their character, as the 
opposite position of the powers composing the Euro- 
pean alliance is from the history and constitutional 
organization of the governments of those powers. 
The sovereigns who form that alliance have not un- 
frequently felt it their right to interfere with the po- 
litical movements of foreign states, and have, in their 
manifestoes and declarations, denounced the popular 
ideas of the age in terms so comprehensive as of ne- 
cessity to include the United States and their forms 
of government. It is well known that one of the 
leading principles announced by the allied sovereigns 
after the restoration of the Bourbons, is, that all pop- 
ular or constitutional rights are holden no otherwise 
than as grants and indulgences from crowned heads. 
' Useful and necessary changes in legislation and ad- 
ministration,' says the Laybach Circular of May, 
1821, ' ought only to emanate from the free will and 
intelligent conviction of those whom God has ren- 
dered responsible for power. All that deviates from 
this line necessarily leads to disorder, commotions, 
and evils far more insufferable than those which they 
pretend to remedy.' And his late Austrian majesty 
Francis I. is reported to have declared, in an address 
to the Hungarian Diet in 1820, that ' the whole world 
had become foolish, and, leaving their ancient laws, 
were in search of imaginary constitutions.' These 
declarations amount to nothing less than a denial of 
the lawfulness of the origin of the government of the 
United States, since it is certain that that government 
was established in consequence of a change which 
did not proceed from thrones or the permission of 
crowned heads. But the government of the United 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



541 



States heard these denunciations of its fundamental 
principles without remonstrance or the disturbance of 
its equanimity. This was thirty years ago. 

" The power of this republic at the present moment 
is spread over a region one of the richest and most 
fertile on the globe, and of an extent in comparison 
with which the possessions of the house of Hapsburg 
are but as a patch on the earth's surface. Its popu- 
lation — already twenty-five millions — will exceed 
that of the Austrian empire within the period during 
which it may be hoped that Mr. Huisemann may yet 
remain in the honorable discharge of his duties to his 
government. Its navigation and commerce are hardly 
exceeded by the oldest and most commercial nations; 
its maritime means and its maritime power may be 
seen by Austria herself in all seas where she has 
ports, as well as it may be seen, also, in all other 
quarters of the globe. Life, liberty, property, and all 
personal rights, are amply secured to all citizens, and 
protected by just and stable laws; and credit, public 
and private, is as well established as in any govern- 
ment of continental Europe. And the country, in all 
its interests and concerns, partakes most largely in all 
the improvements and progress which distinguish the 
age. Certainly the United States may be pardoned, 
even by those who profess adherence to the principles 
of absolute governments, if they entertain an ardent 
affection for those popular forms of political organiza- 
tion which have so rapidly advanced their own pros- 
perity and happiness, and enabled them in so short a 
period to bfing their country and the hemisphere to 
which it belongs to the notice and respectful regard — 
not to say the admiration — of the civilized world. 
Nevertheless, the United States have abstained at all 
times from acts of interference with the political 
changes of Europe. They cannot, however, fail to 
cherish always a lively interest in the fortunes of 
nations struggling for institutions like their own. 
But this sympathy, so far from being necessarily a 
hostile feeling towards any of the parties to these 
great national struggles, is quite consistent with ami- 
cable relations with them all. The Hungarian people 
are three or four times as numerous as the inhabitants 
of* these United States were when the American rev- 
olution broke out. They possess, in a distinct lan- 
guage, and in other respects, important elements of a 
separate nationality, which the Anglo-Saxon race in 
this country did not possess. And if the United 
States wish success to countries contending for pop- 
ular constitutions and national independence, it is only 



because they regard such constitutions and such na- 
tional independence not as imaginary, but as real 
blessings. They claim no right, however, to take 
part in the struggles of foreign powers in order to 
promote these ends. It is only in defence of his own 
government and its principles and character that the 
undersigned has now expressed himself on this sub- 
ject. But when the United States behold the people 
of foreign countries, without any such interference, 
spontaneously moving towards the adt)ption of insti- 
tutions like their own, it surely cannot be expected 
of them to remain wholly indifferent spectators. 

" In regard to the recent very important occurrences 
in the Austrian empire, the undersigned freely admits 
the difficulty which exists in this country, and is al- 
luded to by Mr. Huisemann, of obtaining accurate 
information. But this difficulty is by no means to 
be ascribed to what Mr. Huisemann calls — with lit- 
tle justice, as it seems to the undersigned — ' the 
mendacious rumors propagated by the American 
press.' For information on this subject, and others 
of the same kind, the American press is, of necessity, 
almost wholly dependent upon that of Europe ; and 
if 'mendacious rumors' respecting Austrian and 
Hungarian affairs have been any where propagated, 
that propagation of falsehoods has been most prolific 
on the European continent, and in countries imme- 
diately bordering on the Austrian empire. But, 
wherever these errors may have originated, they cer- 
tainly justified the late president in seeking true in- 
formation through authentic channels. His attention 
was first particularly drawn to the state of things in 
Hungary by the correspondence of Mr. Stiles, charge 
d'affaires of the United States at Vienna. In the 
autumn of 1848 an application was made to this 
gentleman on behalf of Mr. Kossuth, formerly minis- 
ter of finance for the kingdom of Hungary by impe- 
rial appointment, but, at the time fhe application was 
made, chief of the revolutionary government. The 
object of this application was to obtain the good of- 
fices of Mr. Stiles with the imperial government with 
a view to the suspension of hostilities. This appli- 
cation became the subject of a conference between 
Prince Schwarzenberg, the imperial minister for for- 
eign affairs, and Mr. Stiles. The prince commended 
the considerateness and propriety with which Mr. 
Stiles had acted, and, so far from disapproving his 
interference, advised him, in case he received a fur- 
ther communication from the revolutionary govern- 
ment in Hungary, to have an interview with Prince 



642 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Windischgratz, who was charged by the emperor 
with the proceedings determined on in relation to 
that kingdom. A week after these occurrences, Mr. 
Stiles received, through a secret channel, a communi- 
cation signed by L. Kossuth, President of the Com- 
mittee of Defence, and countersigned by Francis 
Puisky, Secretary of State. On the receipt of this 
communication Mr. Stiles had an interview with 
Prince Windischgratz, 'who received him with the 
utmost kindness, and thanked him for his efforts to- 
wards reconciling the existing difficulties.' Such were 
the incidents which first drew the attention of the gov- 
ernment of the United States particularly to the af- 
fairs of Hungary; and the conduct of Mr. Stiles, 
though acting without instructions, in a matter of 
much delicacy, having been viewed with satisfaction 
by the imperial government, was approved by that of 
the United States. 

" In the course of the year 1848 and the early part 
of 1849 a considerable number of Hungarians came 
to the United States. Among them were individuals 
representing themselves to be in the confidence of the 
revolutionary government ; and by these persons the 
president was strongly urged to recognize the exist- 
ence of that government. In these applications, and 
in the manner in which they were viewed by the 
president, there was nothing unusual ; still les.s was 
there any thing unauthorized by the law of nations. 
It is the right of every independent state to enter into 
friendly relations with every other independent state. 
Of course, questions of prudence naturally arise in 
reference to new states brought by successful revolu- 
tions into the family of nations ; but it is not to be 
required of neutral powers that they should await the 
recognition of the new government by the parent 
state. No principle of public law has been more fre- 
quently acted upon within the last thirty years by the 
great powers of tne world than this. Within that 
period eight or ten new states have established inde- 
pendent governments within the limits of the colo- 
nial dominions of Spain on this continent; and in 
Europe the same thing has been done by Belgium 
and Greece. The existence of all these governments 
was recognized by some of the leading powers of 
Europe, as well as by the United States, before it was 
acknowledged by the states from which they had sep- 
arated themselves. If, therefore, the United States 
had gone so far as formally to acknowledge the inde- 
pendence of Hungary, although, as the result has 
proved, it would have been a precipitate step, and 



one from which no benefit would have resulted to 
either party, it would not, nevertheless, have been an 
act against the law of nations, provided they took no 
part in her contest with Austria. But the United 
States did no such thing. Not only did they not 
yield to Hungary any actual countenance or succor; 
not only did they not show their ships of war in the 
Adriatic with any menacing or hostile aspect, but 
they studiously abstained from every thing which had 
not been done in other cases in times past, and con- 
tented themselves with instituting an inquiry into the 
truth and reality of alleged political occurrences. Mr. 
Hulsemann incorrectly states — unintentionally, cer- 
tainly — the nature of the mission of this agent when 
he says that ' a United States agent had been de- 
spatched to Vienna with orders to watch for a favor- 
able moment to recognize the Hungarian republic, 
and to conclude a treaty of commerce with the same.' 
This, indeed, would have been a lawful object ; but 
Mr. Mann's errand was, in the first instance, purely 
one of inquiry. He had no power to act, unless he 
had first come to the conviction that a firm and stable 
Hungarian government existed. ♦ The principal ob- 
ject the president has in view,' according to his in- 
structions, ' is to obtain minute and reliable informa- 
tion in regard to Hungary in connection with the 
affairs of adjoining countries, the probable issue of 
the present revolutionary movements, and the chances 
we may have of forming commercial arrangements 
with that power favorable to the United States.' 
Again, in the same paper, it is said, ' The object of 
the president is to obtain information in regard to 
Hungary and her resources and prospects, with a view 
to an early recognition of her independence and the 
formation of commercial relations with her.' It was 
only in the event that the new government should 
appear, in the opinion of the agent, to be firm and 
stable, that the president proposed to recommend its 
recognition. 

" Mr. Hulsemann, in qualifying these steps of Pres- 
ident Taylor with the epithet of ' hostile,' seems to 
take for granted that the inquiry could, in the ex- 
pectation of the president, have but one result, and 
that favorable to Hungary. If this vi'ere so, it would 
not change the case. But the American government 
sought for nothing but truth ; it desired to learn the 
facts through a reliable channel. It so happened, in 
the chances and vicissitudes of human affairs, that the 
result was adverse to the Hungarian revolution. The 
American agent — as was stated in his instructions 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



543 



to be not unlikely — found the condition of Hunga- 
rian affairs less prosperous than it had been, or had 
been believed to be. He did not enter Hungary, nor 
hold any direct communication with her revolutionary 
leaders. He reported against the recognition of her 
independence because he found that she had been 
unable to set up a firm and stable government. He 
carefully forbore, as his instructions required, to give 
publicity to his mission; and the undersigned sup- 
poses that the Austrian government first learned its 
existence from the communications of the president 
to the Senate. 

" Mr. Hulsemann will observe from this statement 
that Mr. Mann's mission was wholly unobjectionable, 
and strictly within the rule of the law of nations, and 
the duty of the United States as a neutral power. 
He will accordingly feel how little foundation there is 
for his remark, that ' those who did not hesitate to 
assume the respo<|sibility of sending Mr. Dudley 
Matm on such an errand, should, independently of 
considerations of propriety, have borne in mind that 
they were exposing their emissary to be treated as a 
spy.' A spy is a person sent by one belligerent to 
gain secret information of the forces and defences of 
the other, to be used for hostile purposes. According 
to practice, he may use deception, under the penalty 
of being lawfully hanged if detected. To give this 
odious name and character to a confidential agent of 
a neutral power, bearing the commission of his coun- 
try, and sent for a purpose fully warranted by the law 
of nations, is not only to abuse language, but also to 
confound all just ideas, and to announce the wildest 
and most extravagant notions, such as certainly were 
not to have been expected in a grave diplomatic 
paper ; and the president directs the undersigned to 
say to Mr. Hulsemann that the American government 
would regard such an imputation upon it by the cab- 
inet of Austria as that it employs spies, and that in a 
quarrel none of its own, as distinctly offensive, if it 
did not presume, as it is willing to presume, that the 
word used in the original German was not of equiv- 
alent meaning with ' spy ' in the English language, or 
that in some other way the employment of such an 
opprobrious term may be explained. Had the impe- 
rial government of Austria subjected Mr. Mann to the 
treatment of a spy, it would have placed itself with- 
out the pale of civilized nations ; and the cabinet of 
Vienna may be assured, that, if it had carried, or at- 
tempted to carry, any such lawless purpose into eflFect 
in the case of an authorized agent of this govern- 
. 69 



ment, the spirit of the people of this country vi'ould 
have demanded immediate hostilities to be waged by 
the utmost exertion of the power of the republic, mil- 
itary and naval. 

" Mr. Hulsemann proceeds to remark, that 'this ex- 
tremely painful incident, therefore, might have been 
passed over, without any written evidence being left 
on our part in the archives of the United States, had 
not General Taylor thought proper to revive the whole 
subject by communicating to the Senate, in his mes- 
sage of the 18th [28th] of last March, the instructions 
with which Mr. Mann had been furnished on the oc- 
casion of his mission to Vienna. The publicity which 
has been given to that document has placed the im- 
perial government under the necessity of entering a for- 
mal protest, through its official representative, against 
the proceedings of the American government, lest that 
government should construe our silence into approba- 
tion, or toleration even, of the principles which appear 
to have guided its action, and the means it has adopt- 
ed.' The undersigned reasserts to Mr. Hulsemann, 
and to the cabinet of Vienna, and in the presence 
of the world, that the steps taken by President 
Taylor, now protested against by the Austrian gov- 
ernment, were warranted by the law of nations, and 
agreeable to the usages of civilized states. With 
respect to the communication of Mr. Mann's instruc- 
tions to the Senate, and the language in which they 
are couched, it has already been said — and Mr. Hulse- 
mann must feel the justness of the remark — that these 
are domestic affairs, in reference to which the govern- 
ment of the United States cannot admit the slightest 
responsibility to the government of his imperial ma- 
jesty. No state, deserving the appeUation of inde- 
pendent, can permit the language in which it may 
instruct its own officers in the discharge of their du- 
ties to itself to be called in question, under any pre- 
text, by a foreign power. But, even if this were not 
so, Mr. Hulsemann is in an error in stating that the 
Austrian government is called an 'iron rule' in Mr. 
Mann's instructions. That phrase is not found in the 
paper ; and in respect to the honorary epithet bestowed 
in Mr. Mann's instructions on the late chief of the rev- 
olutionary government of Hungary, Mr. Hulsemann 
will bear in mind that the government of the United 
States cannot justly be expected, in a confidential 
communication to its own agent, to withhold from 
an individual an epithet of distinction of which a 
great part of the world thinks him worthy, merely on 
the ground that his own government regards him as 



544 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



a rebel. At an early stage of the American revolu- 
tion, while Washington was considered by the Eng- 
lish government as a rebel chief, he was regarded on 
the continent of Europe as an illustrious hero. But 
the undersigned will take the liberty of bringing the 
cabinet of Vienna into the presence of its own pred- 
ecessors, and of citing for its consideration the con- 
duct of the imperial government itself. In the year 
.1777 the war of the American revolution was raging 
all over these United States; England was prosecut- 
ing that war with a most resolute determination, and 
by the exertion of her military means to the fullest 
extent. Germany was at that time at peace with 
England; and yet an agent of that Congress which 
was looked upon by England in no other light than 
that of a body in open rebellion was not only received 
with great respect by the ambassador of the empress 
queen at Paris, and by the minister of the Grand 
Duke of Tuscany, who afterwards mounted the im- 
perial throne, but resided in Vienna for a consider- 
able time — not, indeed, officially acknowledged, but 
treated with courtesy and respect ; and the emperor 
suffered himself to be persuaded by that agent to 
exert himself to prevent the German powers from 
furnishing troops to England to enable her to sup- 
press the rebellion in America. Neither Mr. Hulse- 
raann nor the cabinet of Vienna, it is presumed, will 
undertake to say that any thing said or done by this 
government in regard to the recent war between Aus- 
tria and Hungary is not borne out, and much more 
than borne out, by this example of the imperial court. 
It is believed that the Emperor Joseph II. habitually 
spoke in terms of respect and admiration of the char- 
acter of Washington, as he is known to have done of 
that of Franklin ; and he deemed it no infraction of 
neutrality to inform himself of the progress of the 
revolutionary struggle in America, or to express his 
deep sense of the merits and the talents of those illus- 
trious men who were then leading their country to 
independence and renown. The undersigned may 
add, that, in 1781, the courts of Russia and Austria 
proposed a diplomatic congress of the belligerent 
powers, to which the commissioners of the United 
States should be admitted. 

" Mr. Hulsemann thinks that in Mr. Mann's in- 
structions improper expressions are introduced in re- 
gard to Russia; but the undersigned has no reason to 
suppose that Russia herself is of that opinion. The 
only observation made in those instructions about 
Russia is, that she ' has chosen to assume an attitude 



of interference; and her immense preparations for in- 
vading and reducing the Hungarians to the rule of 
Austria — from which they desire to be released — 
give so serious a character to the contest as to awaken 
the most painful solicitude in the minds of Americans.' 
The undersigned cannot but consider the Austrian 
cabinet as unnecessarily susceptible in looking upon 
language like this as a ' hostile demonstration.' If 
we remember that it was addressed by the govern- 
ment to its own agent, and has received publicity 
only through a communication from one department 
of the American government to another, the language 
quoted must be deemed moderate and inoffensive. 
The comity of nations would hardly forbid its being 
addressed to the two imperial powers themselves. It 
is scarcely necessary for the undersigned to say that 
the relations of the United States with Russia have 
always been of the most friendly kind, and have never 
been deemed by either party to require any compro- 
mise of their peculiar views upon subjects of domes- 
tic or foreign polity, or the true origin of govern- 
ments. At any rate, the fact that Austria, in her 
contest with Hungary, had an intimate and faithful 
ally in Russia, cannot alter the real nature of the 
question between Austria and Hungary, or in any 
way affect the neutral rights and duties of the gov- 
ernment of the United States, or the justifiable sym- 
pathies of the American people. It is, indeed, easy 
to conceive that favor towards struggling Hungary 
would not be diminished, but increased, when it was 
seen that the arm of Austria was strengthened and 
upheld by a power whose assistance threatened to 
be, and which in the end proved to be, overwhelm- 
ingly destructive of all her hopes. 

" Towards the conclusion of his note, Mr. Hulse- 
mann remarks, that 'if the government of the United 
States were to think it proper to take an indirect part 
in the political movements of Europe, American pol- 
icy would be exposed to acts of retaliation, and to 
certain inconveniences, which would not fail to affect 
the commerce and the industry of the two hemi- 
spheres.' As to this possible fortune, this hypothet- 
ical retaliation, the government and people of the 
United States are quite willing to take their chances, 
and abide their destiny. Taking neither a direct nor 
an indirect part in the domestic or intestine move- 
ments of Europe, they have no fear of events of the 
nature alluded to by Mr. Hulsemann. It would be 
idle now to discuss with Mr. Hulsemann those acts 
of retaliation which he imagines may possibly take 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



545 



place at some indefinite time hereafter. Those ques- 
tions will be discussed when they arise ; and Mr. 
Hulsemann and the cabinet at Vienna may rest 
assured that, in the mean time, while performing with 
strict and exact fidelity all their neutral duties, noth- 
ing will deter either the government or the people of 
the United States from exercising, at their own dis- 
cretion, the rights belonging to them as an inde- 
pendent nation, and of forming and expressing their 
own opinions, freely and at all times, upon the great 
political events which may transpire among the civ- 
ilized nations of the earth. Their own institutions 
stand upon the broadest principles of civil liberty ; 
and, believing those principles and the fundamental 
laws in which they are imbodied to be eminently 
favorable to the prosperity of States, — to be, in fact, 
the only principles of government which meet the 
demands of the present enlightened age, — the presi- 
dent has perceived with great satisfaction that, in 
the constitution recently introduced into the Austrian 
empir<>, many of these great principles are recognized 
and applied, and he cherishes a sincere wish that they 
may produce the same happy effects throughout his 
Austrian Majesty's extensive dominions that they 
have done in the United States. 

" The undersigned has the honor to repeat to Mr. 
Hulsemann the assurance of his high consideration. 

"DANIEL WEBSTER." 

Allusion has already been made to a demonstra- 
tion of jealousy, on the part of Austria, on account 
of the interest taken by the American people and 
government in the effort of Hungary to shake off the 
yoke of the Hapsburgs. This sentiment received a 
new and stronger impulse in the following year. 

Kossuth, the able and illustrious Magyar chief, 
having arrived in the country towards the close of 
the year 1851, was every where hailed with acclama- 
tions of welcome, and listened to by admiring mil- 
lions, in his masterly advocacy of the cause he 
represented. The people every where sympathized 
in his desire and request for active intervention in 
favor of republican freedom in Europe. The gov- 
ernment, on the contrary, bound by precedent and 
traditional maxims of political prudence, carefully 
abstained from any action which could by any means 
lead to " entangling alliances " in the old world, or 
awaken suspicion, on the part of the despotisms 
there, that substantial encouragement, or material aid, 
would be proffered, or given, to the revolutionary 



spirit which threatened the stability of their thrones. 
The matter was earnestly discussed in Congress, and 
in the legislative halls of the states, and ready active 
intervention in behalf of struggling freedom was ably 
and urgently advocated by many of the most eminent 
and influential men in the country. Members of the 
cabinet, senators, judges, legislators, and persons in 
all ranks and stations were loud in their encomiums 
of. the exalted character and services of Kossuth, and 
liberal in their expressions of sympathy with him and 
his cause. He was received with public, civic, and 
military honors in all the principal cities and towns 
through which he passed, was escorted from place to 
place with the honors of a conqueror, and feted every 
where, as if he were the nation's guest. At Wash- 
ington, he was assigned an honorary seat in the Cap- 
itol during the session of Congress, and invited to a 
public dinner got up by private subscription, at which 
most of the leading men of both houses of Congress 
were present. On this, as on similar occasions, 
throughout the country, he addressed the people in 
advocacy of the cause of the oppressed people of 
Europe, and was freely responded to by men of all 
parties and from all sections. It was here that Dan- 
iel Webster, then secretary of state, gave him, in his 
capacity of a private citizen, the right hand of fellow- 
ship, and proclaimed his entire and cordial sympathy 
with the cause he represented. This speech gave 
great offence to the Austrian representative, Chevalier 
Hulsemann, who had been all but annihilated in his 
official controversy with " the great secretary," some 
months before. He now renewed the onset by calling 
Mr. Webster to account for the revolutionary senti- 
ments uttered in his speech at the Kossuth dinner. 
Accustomed to entire freedom of thought and speech, 
as a private individual, the secretary paid no attention 
to the call. This only offended the chevalier's dignity 
the more. Annoyed, at the same time, by the free- 
dom with which the public press discussed him and 
his affairs, he appealed personally to the president, 
which was contrary to all diplomatic usage and cour- 
tesy. Finding no satisfaction from any quarter, and 
worsted in every conflict with the constitutional Her- 
cules, he petulantly withdrew from the country, and 
remained absent until after Mr. Webster's decease — 
a commendable exhibition of "the better part of 
valor," which, if earlier made, would have saved him 
no little mortification. The following correspondence 
will more fully illustrate this ridiculous episode in 
diplomacy. 



546 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



" The Chevalier Hidsemarm to the Secretary of State. 

■ " Atjstkian Legation, 
" 'Washington, April 29, 1852. 

" Mr. Secretary of State : On my return from 
Havana, very lately, I found that the moment had 
arrived for carrying out the intentions of my govern- 
ment in regard to my official relations with the gov- 
ernment of the United States. The secretary of 
state has not thought proper to reply to the note, 
which I deemed it my duty to address him, under 
date of December 13, relative to the reception and 
military honors which had been paid to Kossuth by 
the federal authorities. 

" The secretary of state had induced me to hope that 
my interviews with him at the department of state 
would no longer be commented upon in a style of 
derision, in certain newspapers of Baltimore and 
Philadelphia. These assurances, which had been 
given me in writing even, were immediately bur- 
lesqued in those very sheets, and have only led to 
fresh virulent attacks, which have been continued in 
a journal very largely circulated in New Orleans ; and 
during my passage through that city, I was made the 
subject of demonstrations of an extremely disagree- 
able character. 

" I thought it my duty then (the 21st of November 
last) to inform the president of these improprieties, 
so singularly countenanced ; and thereupon the sec- 
retary of state declared to me, (on the 28th of No- 
vember) that henceforth his intercourse with me must 
be exclusively in writing. 

" On the 7th of January last, the secretary of state 
thought it fit to deliver publicly, and in the presence 
of Kossuth, a revolutionary address, in which he 
openly held out encouragement to Hungary, spurring 
her on to a new rebellion, and formally proposed a 
toast for the speedy emancipation of that kingdom. 
This demonstration partook of so strange a charac- 
ter, it was so much at variance with the most com- 
mon international courtesy, and the positive promises 
you had given me at the department of state, that I 
thought it incumbent on me to apply at once to the 
highest authority of the republic, in order to ascertain 
whether the address in question imbodied the senti- 
ment of the government of the United States. 

" I consider myself fortunate in being able to say 
that the imperial government, approving of the step 
I had taken, has fully appreciated the declaration 
the president thought proper to make to me, on 
the 12th of January last, in favor of maintaining 



friendly relations between Austria and the United 
States. 

" These verbal assurances have not been followed 
since by any action on the part of the secretary of state 
in order to corroborate, officially, the declaration of the 
president, and to effect a satisfactory reconciliation. 

" After having specified with a great deal of caution 
the hostile proceedings of the secretary of state, and 
after having demonstrated the false and disagreeable 
position which has been the result of such proceed- 
ings, I think it my duty to declare, from motives of 
propriety very palpable, that rny government could 
not allow me to remain here any longer, to continue 
an official intercourse with the principal promoters of 
the much to be lamented Kossuth episode. 

" I avail myself of this occasion to tender my re- 
spectful thanks to the president for his invariably 
obliging conduct towards me. M. August Belmont, 
consul general of Austria in New York, will continue 
to perform his functions until further orders. 

" Please to accept, Mr. Secretary of State, the ex- 
pression of my distinguished consideration. 

" HULSEMANN. 

"To Hon. Daniel Webstek, 

" Secretary of State of the United States." 

^^ Mr. Hunter to the Chevalier Hithemann. 

" Department of State, * 

" Washington, May 3, 18.32. 

" Sir: Your communication to the secretary of state 
of the 29th ult., announcing your intention to leave 
the United States, and stating that Mr. August Bel- 
mont, the consul general of Austria, at New York, 
will continue in the discharge of his functions until 
further orders, has been received. 

" In reply, I have the honor to inform you that Mr. 
Belmont is well known to the secretary of state, as a 
gentleman of much respectability; any communica- 
tion which it may be proper for him to address to the 
department in his official character will be received 
with entire respect. I avail myself of this occasion 
to offer to you, sir, the assurance of my high con- 
sideration. 

"W. nUNTEK, 
'.' Acting Secretary. 
" To Chevaljee Hulsemanh, cJ-c, ^c, Austria." 

" ITie Secretary of State to Mr. Mc Curdy. 

" Department of State, 

" Washington, June S, 1852. 

" Sir : I transmit a copy of a note of the 29th April 
last, addressed to me by the Chevalier Hulsemann, 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



547 



announcing his intention of returning to Austria. 
This note reached me in Baltimore, I being then 
bound on a visit to Massachusetts, from which I have 
now lately returned. On receiving it, I directed Mr. 
Hunter to return the answer, a copy of which is also 
herewith enclosed. 

" It is obvious from the tenor of all his recent com- 
munications to this department, that the Chevalier 
Hulsemann's experience in the diplomatic service of 
his government has not instructed him accurately in 
the nature and limits of his official functions, and 
that, notwithstanding his long residence in this coun- 
try, he is quite uninformed as to the character of our 
institutions and the responsibilities of public men in 
the United States, for their acts or their sentiments in 
a private capacity in regard to foreign powers. 

" The Chevalier Hulsemann came hither in 1838, as 
secretary of legation under the highly accomplished 
Baron de Mareschall, who was accredited as envoy 
extraordinary of his imperial majesty. Ever since the 
retirement of that gentleman he has acted as charge 
d'affaires, but, so far as we are aware, without any 
regular commission from his government. It is cer- 
tain that he has never been accredited to this depart- 
ment by the Austrian minister for foreign aflkirs. 

" The Chevalier Hulsemann, it appears, has yet to 
learn that no foreign government or its representative 
can take just offence at any thing which an officer of 
this government may say in his private capacity. 
Official communications only are to be regarded as 
indicating the sentiments and views of the govern- 
ment of the United States. If those communications 
are friendly in their character, the foreign government 
has no right or reason to infer that there is any insin- 
cerity in them, or to point to other matters as showing 
the real sentiments of the government. 

" You will see from the Chevalier Hulsemann's note 
that he made an appeal to the president against what 
he calls ne<\'^spaper improprieties, and unofficial re- 
marks of the head of this department. The president, 
actuated by a benevolent desire to preserve unimpaired 
the friendly relations between the two governments, 
waived ceremony, and unofficially listened to his re- 
marks. In pursuing this course, however, he by no 
means intended to allow the Chevalier Hulsemann to 
suppose that he was not well aware of his official 
position. The Chevalier Hulsemann should know 
that a charge d'affaires, whether regularly commis- 
eioned or acting as such without commission, can 
hold official intercourse only with the department of 



state. He has no right even to converse with the 
president on matters of business, and may consider it 
as a liberal courtesy that he is presented to him at 
all. I take it for granted that if you should imagine 
the Austrian minister for foreign affairs had offended 
you, you would claim no right of appeal to the 
emperor. Although usually we are not rigid in these 
matters, yet a marked disregard of ordinary forms 
implies disrespect to the government itself. 

" I shall not, of course, notice the specific subjects 
of complaint of Chevalier Hulsemann. Whatever is 
personal to him must be allowed to pass without 
observation. You are at liberty to read this despatch 
to the Austrian minister for foreign affairs. 

" I am, sir, respectfully your obedient servant, 

" DANIEL WEBSTER. 

" C. J. McCuKDT, 4-c., 4-c., Vienna:' 

About this period another effort was made, from 
another quarter, to obtain the official intervention of 
the American government in the political affairs of 
Europe. This was in the form of a petition from the 
Irish citizens, of whom there were many thousands in 
the states, requesting the president to solicit from the 
British crown a pardon for Smith O'Brien and his 
associates, who were then under conviction for high 
treason, for the part they took in the Irish rebellion. 
This was evidently a political move, intended for 
effect at home rather than abroad. The president 
understood it as such, and, while he would not have 
shrunk, as an individual, from any service which 
humanity might reasonably have demanded from 
him, respectfully declined to interfere officially in the 
matter. 

In November, 1851, " a little cloud, no bigger than 
a man's hand," but such a one as wars are often 
made out of, darkened the political horizon on the 
side towards Great Britain. 

The American steamer Prometheus, the property 
of the American Atlantic and Pacific Ship Canal 
Company, having on board some five hundred pas- 
sengers, being about to leave the harbor of San Juan 
de Nicaragua, or Greytown, was boarded by a police 
force, and served with a process of attachment on the 
ship and captain, for certain charges claimed as port 
dues, which the captain refused to pay. Thereupon, 
the English brig of war Express, lying in the harbor, 
immediately got under weigh, made sail for the 
steamer, and, when within a quarter of a mile of her 
fired a shot over her forecastle, and a few minutes 



548 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



afterwards another over her stern, which passed so 
near that the force of the ball was distinctly felt by 
several persons on board. The captain of the steamer 
then sent a boat on board the brig to inquire the 
cause of the firing. The captain of the brig replied, 
that it was to jirotect the authorities of Greytown in 
their demands ; that, if the steamer did not imme- 
diately anchor, he would fire a bombshell into her; 
and he ordered his guns to be loaded with grape and 
canister shot. The steamer then proceeded to the 
anchorage and anchored. The brig anchored very 
near the steamer, sent a boat on board the latter with 
orders that the fires should be extinguished, and to 
say that an officer would be sent to see that this was 
done. The authorities then came on board, the 
amount demanded was paid under protest, and the 
steamer was permitted to proceed to sea. 

This matter being duly represented to the American 
government, an explanation on the part of Great 
Britain was promptly demanded. Immediately upon 
receipt of official intelligence of the facts in the case, 
her majesty's government entirely disavowed the pro- 
ceeding of the commander of the Express, as an act 
of violence and an infraction of treaty engagements. 

During the presidency of Mr. Fillmore a very im- 
portant question between the government of the 
United States and that of Great Britain underwent a 
thorough examination, in an able and voluminous 
diplomatic correspondence, the results of which have 
since been realized in a reciprocity treaty with the 
British North American colonies, and the favorable 
adjustment of the fisheries on the Banks of New- 
foundland, and the waters adjacent thereto. 

The Congress of 18-51-2, in pursuance of a sug- 
gestion of the president, passed a bill for the erection 
of a Lunatic Asylum in the city of Washington, and 
appropriated $100,000 to carry it into effect. In the 
course of the same year, the site was selected, plans 
adopted, and the work commenced. 

* IIexrt Clay, born in Hanover county, Virginia, on the 12th 
of April, 1777, died at Washington, District of Columbia, on the 
28th of June, 1852, aged 75 years. He was the son of a poor Bap- 
tist clergyman, John Clay, who died when Henry was but five years 
old, leaving seven children to the care of a most excellent mother, 
who married again ten years afterwards, and removed to Kentucky. 
Henry remained some years in Virginia, and at fourteen years of age 
was employed in a small store in Kichmond, whence he was soon 
transferred to a law office, where he attracted the notice of Chancel- 
lor Wythe. He left Richmond in 1797, with a license to practise 
law, and emigrated to Lexington, Kentucky, where he opened an 
office as a lawyer, and, though poor and friendless, rapidly acquired 
au extensive and lucrative practice. He was very soon attracted to 



The second session of the 31st Congress was 
marked by one of those solemn and impressive events 
which twice before had stirred the heart of Congress 
and of the nation to its centre, silencing all conflicts, 
harmonizing all opinions, and mingling all voices in 
eulogy over fallen greatness, and mourning for na- 
tional loss. As Adams and Calhoun, after a long life 
of public service, had fallen at their posts, spending 
their last breath in the service of their country, and 
lying down to die under the dome of the Capitol, so 
fell, in his turn, their noble compeer, Plenry Clay, his 
last expiring energies devoted to the interests of a 
country he had honored no less than he had loved. 
His health had been long declining, and he had not 
been able to take much active part in the duties of 
the session. He had come to Washington, in the 
faint hope that, weak as he was, his influence might 
avail something to the public weal, which was dearer 
to him than his own personal repose or comfort. He 
died on the 28th of June, 1852, a little before the 
hour of noon. 

Congress was just meeting as the news of his 
decease sped over Washington. The fact was sim- 
ply announced on either floor, and an adjournment, 
therefore, moved and carried. The next day was de- 
voted to eulogies and appointments for the funeral. 
The ashes of the great commoner were committed to 
the charge of a strong committee of members of each 
house, and so conveyed through Baltimore, Philadel- 
phia, Trenton, New York, Albany, Rochester, Buffalo, 
Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, (k-c, &.c., to Lex- 
ington, and there deposited in the tomb at Ashland 
which Mr. Clay had previously provided. There let 
them rest forever, and thither let reverent steps be 
turned from every quarter of our Union, to gaze on 
the earth enfolding the dust which once enshrined the 
wise legislator, the fearless orator, the fervent patriot, 
and the unpretending champion of justice, truth, and 
humanity.* 

the political arena by the agitation prece(Jing the exchange of a ter- 
ritorial for a state government, in which he bore an active fart, 
distinguishing himself by his public efforts in favor of affixing a con- 
stitutional limit to the existence of slavery in the embryo state. 
Defeated on this point, he embarked most heartily in the cause of 
the party then mustering under the banner of Thomas Jefferson, in 
opposition to the alien and sedition acts of John Adams's administra- 
tion. Here he had the popular current on his side, Kentucky being 
almost unanimous in its adhesion to Mr. Jefferson and the republican 
party. 

His first public station was that of representative in the state legis- 
lature, to which he was nominated and elected while absent from the 
county. He served two years in the assembly, and was, in 1806, 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



549 



The quadrennial election of 1852 was one which, 
though it moved the country to its centre as usual, 
illustrated beautifully the peacefui^suprenmacy of the 
ballot box. The number of candidates for the presi- 
dency was unusually large, and public sentiment was 

chosen by the two houses to fill a short vacancy in the Senate of the 
United States, where he took his seat on the 29th of December, 1806, 
serving but a single term, in which he proposed a resolve looking to 
a comprehensive system of internal improvement by the Federal gov- 
ernment, M'hich passed the Senate with only three dissenting voices. 

The next summer he was chosen again to the state legislature, 
where he served two years more, submitting a series of resolves ap- 
proving the embargo and the general course of President Jefferson, 
which were adopted in the house by a vote of sixty-four to one. 
He also introduced a resolve proposing that each member should 
clothe himself entirely in American fabrics, which likewise pre- 
vailed, but was so acrimoniously denounced as to involve him in a 
duel with its chief antagonist, Mr. Humphrej' Marshall, in which 
both combatants were slightly wounded. , 

Mr. Clay returned to the United States Senate in December, 1809, 
having been again elected to fill a vacancy ; and again distinguished 
himself by his efforts in favor of the encouragement of home man- 
ufactures. He spoke and voted in favor of assuming the River Per- 
dido as the true line between Louisiana and Florida, in opposition 
to the pretensions of Spain ; and at the following session earnestly 
opposed tlie recharter of the first United States Bank. He remained 
in the Senate but two sessions, but left it with a reputation as a de- 
bater and legislator which few have attained so early in life. 

In 1811 ho was for the first time elected to the House of Repre- 
sentatives, whereof he was, on its assembling, chosen speaker by a 
large majority. He was one of the master spirits of the majority 
by which war with Great Britain was urged ujion President Mad- 
ison, and finally carried. He remained in the house as a leading 
advocate of war measures, having been rechosen speaker on the as- 
sembling of a new Congress iu May, 1813, until January 19, 1814, 
when he resigned in order to proceed to Europe as one of five com- 
missioners to negotiate a treaty of peace — meeting the British com- 
missioners first at Gottingen, and afterwards at Ghent, where a peace 
was signed on the 18th of December, 18H, though the battle of New 
Orleans, which practically closed the war, was fought three weeks 
afterwards. Mr. Clay remained some months in Europe, returning 
in September, 181.5, to learn that he had been unanimously reelected 
to Congress some weeks before. When Congress assembled, in De- 
cember, he was rechosen speaker by a nearly unanimous vote. 

The labors of that Congress were necessarily arduous. The war 
had disordered the finances, and deranged the industry of the coun- 
try, leaving every thing in chaos. Congress proceeded to readjust 
the tariff with avowed regard to the encouragement of home man- 
ufactures, and to charter a new national bank, both with the hearty 
concurrence of Mr. Clay, who frankly corrfessed that the experience 
of the war had convinced him that such an institution was desirable, 
and even necessary, and to this opinion he evermore adhered. The 
same Congress passed a bill increasing the compensation of members 
of both houses, wliich excited great dissatisfaction, and defeated 
most of those who stood for reelection. Mr. Clay was, therefore, 
■warmly opposed, for the first time in several years, but defeated his 
opponent, (John Pope,) after a severe and animated struggle. 

Mr. Clay remained a member of the house, and its speaker, up to 
the 4th of March, 1825, save a short period when pecuniary embar- 
lassments, caused by the failure of a &iend for whom he was a heavy 



so divided between them, that any choice by the peo- 
ple seemed utterly hopeless. 

The democratic national convention assembled at 
Baltimore on the 1st of June, and after a vehement 
struggle between the partisans of General Cass, of 

indorser, constrained him to resign, and devote his attention to his 
private affairs. Returning to the next Congress, he was forthwith 
chosen speaker, by a large majority, over Mr. P. P. Barbour, of Vir- 
ginia, who had been elected in his absence. He signalized himself, 
throughout these ten years, by his earnest and persistent advocacy 
of protection to home industry, national internal improvement, the 
recognition of South American and Greek independence, &c. The 
fierce excitement which overspread the country upon the question 
of admitting Missouri into the Union as a slave state, with a consti- 
tution peculiarly offensive to the free north, was finallj' calmed bv 
his exertions, the constitution modified, and the state admitted, 
though by a very small majority. He succeeded in carrying through 
the house a more protective tariff bill in 1820, but it was lost in the 
Senate ; and in 1824 a similar bill was piloted by him through the 
house, (one hundred and seven to one hundred and two,) which 
was concurred in by the Senate, and thus became a law. 

In 1824 five candidates for president were presented — Messrs. 
John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, William H. Crawford, Henry 
Clay, and John C. Calhoun. The latter soon withdrew, and became 
a candidate for vice president, throwing his own strength into the 
Jackson scale. Mr. Crawford had been nomin.ited by a meagre con- 
gressional caucus, and was thereupon commended as the regu- 
lar republican candidate. The anti-caucus votes in the northern 
states were mainly concentrated on Mr. Adams ; in the south and 
west on General Jackson. Mr. Clay was much the youngest of the 
candidates remaining in nomination, and received only the votes of 
Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri, and four from Now York — thirty-seven 
in all. Six more would have carried him into the house, over which 
he presided, and where his popularity was unbounded. As it was, 
the constitutional candidates were Messrs. Adams, Jackson, and 
Crawford — the latter prostrate by a disease which soon after closed 
his mortal career. Mr. Clay and his friends were obliged to choose 
between Messrs. Adams and Jackson, neither of them personally 
acceptable to Mr. Clay, and the latter at bitter feud with him on ac- 
count of Mr. Clay's unsparing denunciation of his course in invading 
Florida and capturing its chief posts without authority. Mr. Clay 
decided in favor of Mr. Adams, as he had months before informed 
Lafayette that he should do if compelled to choose between him 
and Jackson : so Lafayette testified in a letter to Mr. Clay written 
iu 1832. 

Mr. Clay's choice, and the consequent election of Adams, were 
deeply resented, by the partisans of the disappointed candidates; and 
the acceptance of the office of secretary of state by the speaker (who 
bade adieu to the house on the 3d of March, 1825, never to return 
as a member) was made the pretext for a concerted outcry of " bar- 
gain and corruption " against him and the new president. The sup- 
porters of Jackson, Crawford, and Calhoun coalesced to form aR 
opposition, which embarrassed Mr. Adams's administration through- 
out, controlled the action ol Congress, and elected General Jackson 
president in 1828 by a large majority. Mr. Calhoun was rechosen 
vice president, and Mr. Clay retired to private life. 

Mr. Clay was returned to the United States Senate in December, 
1831, after an absence of more than twenty years, having been elected 
over Colonel Richard M. Johnson. He there advocated internal im- 
provement, the recharter of the United States Bank, and a distribu- 



r)50 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Michigan, Mr. Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, Judge 
Douglass, of Illinois, Governor Marcy, of New York, 
and some other less prominent names, finally united 
in nominating General Franklin Peirce, of New 
Hampshire, for president, and Hon. William Rufus 

tion among the states of the proceeds of sales of public lands for 
purposes of education and internal improvement — a proposition he 
originated at this time. He was presented as a candidate for pres- 
ident against General Jackson ; but the opposition was distracted by 
antimasonry and other questions, and Mr. Clay received only the 
votes of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, Ken- 
tucky, and part of Maryland — in all, forty- nine. Vermont voted for 
AVilliam Wirt, the antimasonic candidate, .South Carolina for John 
Floyd, of Virginia, and all the rest for General Jackson, who had an 
overwhelming majority. 

Mr. Clay remained in the Senate, whore he proposed and carried 
the tariff compromise of 1834, and put forth his utmost exertions in 
opposition to the removal of the deposits, specie circular, and other 
arbitrary measures of General Jackson, but without success. In 
1836 he was rechosen to the Senate, but was not a candidate for 
president. General Harrison received most of the anti-Jackson 
votes, but Mr. Webster took that of Massachusetts, and those of 
Georgia and Tennessee were thrown for Judge White, of Tennessee. 
Mr. Van Buren was elected by a majority over all ; but the com- 
mercial disasters which speedily ensued rendered his administration 
a stormy one, witli a dubious ascendency iu Congrefis. Mr. Clay's 
name, in connection with the presidency, was presented to the whig 
national convention which met at Harrisburg in December, 18.39, 
and a very large plurality of the delegates favored his nomination ; 
but a majority finally united on General Harrison, who was elected 
over Mr. Van Buren in November ensuing by a very great majority. 

Mr. Clay still kept his seat in the Senate, and was its master ^irit 
during the greater part of the memorable twenty-seventh Congress. 
The two successive bills chartering a new national bank, the bankrupt 
law, land distribution, &c., received his ardent support ; and ho was 
among the first to denounce the duplicity and treachery of the ca- 
lamity whom the death of General Harrison had elevated to the 
presidency. On the 31st of March, 1812, believing that there was 
no further need of his remaining in the public service, he took a formal 
and affecting farewell of the Senate, and returned to his home, in 
Kentucky. He spent the two following winters in the south, mainly 
at New Orleans, returning in the spring of 1844 to the Southern At- 
lantic States, and writing from llaleigh, North Carolina, a letter in 
■which he took ground strongly against the annexatioir of Texas — a 
measure then pending before the Senate on a treaty negotiated under 
the auspices of President Tyler and his foreign secretary, John C. Cal- 
houn. Mr. Clay was unanimously nominated for president by the 
■whig national convention which assembled at Baltimore in May, and 
the nomination was received with enthusiasm by the whigs of the 
Union. It was not destined, however, to be successful. The dem- 
ocratic national convention met at the same place four weeks later, 
and proceeded to throw over Mr. Van Buren, whom a majority of 
its member* were pledged to support, and finally, after a stormy sit- 
ting or two, nominated James K. Polk, of Tennessee, formerly 
speaker of the house, a man of very moderate ability, but a fair 
stump speaker, of good personal character, and an unhesitating 
champion of annexation and every kindred measure. Mr. Van 
Buren had sealed his own doom by taking ground against annex- 
ation. Mr. Polk carried most of the Soutlieru States, on the assump- 
tion that the acquisition of Texas would strengthen the power of 



King, of Alabama, for vice president. The first nom 
ination was a surprise to the country and the world, 
General Pierce having never been named before for 
such a distinction, or made in any way so conspicu- 
ous as to be thought of in connection with it. 

slavery, and improve the market for slaves ; while New York and 
other states hostile to that policy were lost to Mr. Clay by the anti- 
Texas votes thrown away on James G. Bimey. Mr. Polk received 
one hundred and seventy electoral votes, Mr. Clay one hundred and 
five. New York alone would have changed the result ; and her 
electors were secured to Polk by a plurality of five thousand one 
hundred and six, while more than fifteen thousand votes were 
squandered on the Birney abolition ticket. 

The annexation of Texas was the first result of Mr. Polk's elec- 
tion, accomplished even before he had nominally assumed the reins 
of government. The marching of troops down to the Rio Grande, 
in the heart of a Mexican province, and the consequent breaking 
out of ho.stilities, speedily and naturally followed. The protective 
tariff of 1842, under which the country had steadily and rapidly 
increased in industry, prosperity, and wealth, was overthrown, and 
the present ad vahrem revenue tariff enacted in its stead — a tariff 
under which we are this day running in debt to Europe at least fifty 
millions per annum for iron and fabrics ■which we should have made 
for ourselves had the tariff of 1842 been left undisturbed. For 
whatever of disaster and demoralization has resulted or shall result 
from the career of aggression and lust of dominion on which the 
United States have now entered, the initial cause may be found in 
the defeat of Henry Clay in the presidential contest of 1844. 

Mr. Clay deprecated and condemned the w.ar on Mexico through- 
out, and on the 13th of November, 1847, made a speech at Le.xing- 
ton, urging the abandonment of all projects of conquest, and the 
■withdrawal of our armies from Mexico, as an earnest of our desire 
for peace. His recommendations were warmly responded to by the 
great mass of the whigs, and doubtless did much to hasten the nego- 
tiation of a treaty the following autumn. Meantime, his own most 
promising and beloved son, Henry Clay, Jr., had been killed at the 
battle of Buena Vista, as Lieutenant Colonel of the Kentucky regi- 
ment, February 22, 1847. 

Four months thereafter, Mr. Clay, ■who had always been a believer 
in the Christian religion, and had often borne impressive testimony 
to its divine origin, united with the Protestant Episcopal church in 
Lexington, and received the rite of baptism. 

During the winter and spring of 1848, Mr. Clay's name was again 
presented in connection with the whig nomination for the presiden- 
cy, and was very warmly hailed by the great niass of the people ; 
but the leading politicians, believing that the prejudice against him 
in the minds of a majority of the voters, however unjust, was rooted 
and invincible, were generally in favor of nominating General Tay- 
lor, who was accordingly selected as the whig standard bearer by 
the national convention which met at Philadelphia. General Taylor 
received one hundred and eleven votes on the first ballot to ninety- 
seven for Mr. Clay, and some eighty for General Scott, Mr. Webster, 
and others. General Taylor gained on every ballot till the fourth, 
when he was nominated by a decisive majority. Mr. Clay, cousid- 
ering thSt General Taylor had given no clear assurance of his devo- 
tion to whig principles, and had never consented to abide the choice 
of the convention, could not feel justified in rendering him an active 
support, but he peremptorily refused to allow his own name to be 
used in opposition. 

Kentucky revised her state constitution in 1849, and Mr. Clay 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



551 



The whig national convention was also held at 
Baltimore, on the 17th of the same month, having 
three prominent and highly distinguished candidates, 
President Fillmore, of New York, Daniel Webster, 
of Massachusetts, and General Winlield Scott, of 



made another effort to ingraft on it a gradual emancipation of slaves, 
but was again baffled, 

Mr. Clay was reelected to the Senate in December, 1818, by the 
legislature of Kentucky, by a vote nearly or quite unanimous. He 
did not take his seat at the March session, called to act on General 
Taylor's appointments, but the opening of the regular session found 
him, despite his advanced age, erect, buoyant, and active, to an ex- 
tent which few young men could exceed. His labors, through that 
long and memorable session, were unsurpassed, and his attempts to 
effect a qpmpromise or adjustment of the perilous questions respect- 
ing slavery in the territories, the admission of California, &c., though 
baffled at the outset, were ultimately crowned with success. On the 
merits of these measures, taken as a whole, we here express no opin- 
ion ; but that Mr. Clay believed in the existence of an imperative 
necessity for some such adjustment, and urged it under the impulse 
of an ardent patriotism, we cannot consider doubtful. 

Mr. Clay served through the following session, (closing the thirty- 
first Congress,) urging upon Congress the duty of further protection 
to home industry, and making a gallant but unsuccessful struggle 
for the passage of a river and harbor improvement bill. He was de- 
feated in this, not by votes, but by parliamentary strategy — by talk- 
' ing against time, until the session had been talked to death. He 
went home to Kentucky in the spring, remained at Ashland, in fee- 
ble health, through the warm season, and in December returned to 
Washington to die. His health was so broken and evidently failing 
that he scarcely took his seat in the Senate at all, and was soon 
obliged to keep his room, and ultimately his bed. Finally, after a 
protracted struggle between the native vigor of his constitution and 
the relentless progress of disease, his mortal career was closed by 
death a little before noon on the 28th of June, 1852. 

* That President Fillmore and his secretary, Webster, should be 
candidates at the same time, while maintaining relations of cordial 
friendship and political confidence, may appear strange and incon- 
sistent. It was owing, however, to the distracted state of the party, 
and neither of them felt at liberty to withdraw in favor of the other, 
lest a further distraction should ensue. 

The following letter wiU explain Mi-. Fillmore's position and views. 
It was written prior to the assembling of the convention, and placed 
in the hands of one of his friends, a delegate to the convention, to 
be read before that body whenever it should appear that its pres- 
entation could further the interests of the whig party. The letter 
was not read, because the opportunity contemplated did not, in the 
judgment of those who held it in custody, arise. But it stands an 
equally noble testimony now, for its patriotic author. Its sentiments 
are worthy of the man who has served his country with an adminis- 
tration only second to Washington's, — if second to that, — and they 
are all, in manliness, that we could desire from any man. 

" Washington, June 10, 18.52. 
" To the President of the National Whig Convention. 
" SiK : This communication will be presented to you, and through 
you to the delegated wisdom of the whig party over which you pre- 
side, by the Hon. George R. Babcock, who represents in your body 
the congressional district in which I reside. * 

" I trust that I shall be pardoned by the convention for adverting 

70 



New Jersey. The canvass was earnest and pro- 
longed, and resulted in the nomination of General 
Scott for the presidency, and William A. Graham, 
of North Carolina, for vice president.* 

The free soil democrats, who assembled in conven- 



briefly to the course which I have pursued and the causes which 
have induced it, as a means of explaining why I have selected this 
time and mode of making this communication. 

" All must recollect that when I was so suddenly and unexpectedly 
called to the exalted station which I now occupy, by the death of 
my lamented and illustrious predecessor, there was a crisis in out 
public affairs full of difficulty and danger. The country was agitated 
by political and sectional passions and dissensions, growing out of 
the slavery and territorial questions then pending, and for which 
Congress had as yet been able to agree upon no measure of com- 
promise and adjustment. 

" The Union itself was threatened with dissolution, and patviots 
and statesmen looked with apprehension to the future. In that feel- 
ing I participated most profoundly. The difficulties and dangers 
which surrounded us were calmly but anxiously surveyed. I was 
oppressed by a sense of the great responsibilities that rested upon 
me, and sincerely distrusted my ability to sustain them in a manner 
satisfactory and useful to the country. But I was bound to make 
the attempt ; and to do it with any hope of success, I felt it neces- 
sary to discard every personal consideration, and devote myself to 
the difficult task before me with entire singleness of heart. 

" To prepare and strengthen myself for this task, I endeavored to 
lay aside, as far as practicable, every merely selfish consideration — 
to banish from my mind every local or sectional prejudice — and to 
remember only that I was au American citizen, and the magistrate 
of the American republic, bound to regard every portion and sec- 
tion of it with equal justice and impartiality. That I might do 
this the more effectually, I resolved within myself not to seek a 
redleetion. 

"Thus prepared, I entered upon the discharge of my official duties, 
with a determination to do every thing in my power to aid in tho 
settlement of those dangerous controversies. Fortunately for our 
favored country, a majority in both houses of Congress, rising above 
mere party and personal considerations, nobly and patriotically de- 
voted themselves to the great work of pacification. The constitu- 
tional advisers whom I had called to my aid, and to whose fidelity, 
talents, and patriotism the country is chiefly indebted for any benefit 
it may have received from my administration, with a unanimity and 
zeal worthy of every commendation, cordially gave their countenance 
and influence to the legislative department, in perfecting and adopt- 
ing those healing measures of comprojnisef to which upon their pas- 
sage I felt bound, by every consideration of public diftj', to give my 
official approval. T'nese laws being enacted, my constitutional duty 
was equally plain, to * take care that they were faithfully executed* 
But this I found the most painful of all my official duties. Never- 
theless, I resolved to perform it, regardless of all consequences to 
myself; and in doing so, I determined to know no north and no 
south — and no friends but those who sustained the constitution and 
laws — and no enemies but those who opposed them. 

" The gratifying result of this policy is before you and the coun- 
try. The angry strife which for a time threatened to array state 
against state, and brother against brother, and deluge our happy land 
with fraternal blood, and desolate it with fire and sword, has fortu- 
nately passed away. The surging billows of sectional agitation are 
'calmed, and the public mind is fast settling down to its accustomed 



552 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



tion at Pittsburg in August, had also several candi- 
dates, but, with little division of sentiment, nominated 
John P. Hale, of New Hampshire, for president, and 
George W. Julian, of Indiana, for vice president. 

The campaign was an earnest and active one, and 
resulted in the success of the democratic candidates 
by very large majorities. 

The death of Daniel Webster, which occurred at 
Marshfield, October 24, 1852, was the great absorb- 
ing event of this period. Endeared as he was to his 
family and friends, the loss to them was far less than 
to the public. It was, in the broadest sense of the 
phrase, a national calamity. 

His health had failed during the summer from his 
severe public labors, and from the insidious progress 



channels, and will soon renew its wonted devotion to the constitu- 
tion and the Union. 

" Availing myself of this happy change, I had determined, when 
the present Congress met, to announce to the public, in my annual 
message, my previous resolution not to suffer my name to come be- 
fore the national convention for a nomination. I accordingly pre- 
pared a paragraph to that effect, but was finally persuaded to strike 
it out, lest it might have an unfavorable influence upon the then 
pending election in Virginia. After that had passed, I concluded to 
withdraw my name by a published address to the people, and pre- 
pared one accordingly ; but this coming to the knowledge of some 
of ray friends, they represented to me that my withdrawal at that 
time would not only endanger the perpetuity of those measures 
which I deemed so essential to the peace and welfare of the country, 
but would sacrifice many friends who had stood by my administra- 
tion in the dark and perilous crisis through which it had so recently 
passed. The first was an appeal to my patriotism, and the second to 
my gratitude. I could resist neither, and therefore yielded to their 
request, and consented that my name should remain where it was, 
until time should show, as I presumed it would, that its further use 
could neither benefit them nor the cause which we all had so much 
at heart. It was, however, distinctly understood that I could not 
consent to use any efforts to procure a nomination, but if one were 
freely and voluntarily tendered I should not be at liberty to decline it. 

" The embarrassing question now presents itself. Who is to deter- 
mine when the use of my name can no longer benefit my friends or 
our common cause ? To assume to decide this myself, in advance of 
the convention, without consultation with those who have so gen- 
erously sustain4;d me, might be deemed by them unjust. To consult 
them is utterly impracticable, and to suffer my name to go into a 
contest for the nomination is contrary to my original intention, and 
utterly repugnant to my feelings. I have, therefore, without con- 
sultation with any one, felt justified in assuming the responsibility 
of authorizing and requesting Mr. Babcock, either before or after 
any vote may be taken in the convention, and whenever he shall be 
satisfied that I have discharged my duty to my friends and the 
country, to present this letter, and withdraw my name from the 
consideration of the convention. 

" I trust that my friends will appreciate the necessity which com- 
pels me to act without consulting them. I would cheerfully make 
any personal sacrifice for their sakes or for the good of my country, 
but I have nothing to ask for myself. I yielded with sincere reluc- 



of an obscure disease in the liver, of long stand- 
ing, but now accelerated by the shock received by 
the overturning of his carriage a few months pre- 
vious. 

His death was that of a philosopher and a Chris- 
tian, or more appropriately that of a Christian philoso- 
pher, for while his transcendent intellect remained 
clear and strong to the last moment, mastering and 
controlling every subject it had to do with, his thoughts 
and regards were almost wholly centred upon the 
great themes of religion, and his own future life. 
The following, which he dictated to a friend about a 
fortnight before his death, with a request that it should 
be inscribed on his monument, may be take^ as a 
summary of his dying thoughts. 

tance to their entreaties to suffer my name to remain before the 
public as a possible candidate. I knew that it placed me in a false 
position. I foresaw that it would subject me to the base imputation 
of seeking a nomination, and of using the patronage of the govern- 
ment to obtain it, and then to the mortifying taunts from the same 
malignant source of having been defeated. But, conscious of my 
own integrity, I cheerfully consented to encounter all this, rather 
than that my friends should feel that I was indifferent, either to 
them or the cause; and I am most happy to avail myself of this oc- 
casion to return my sincere thanks, and to express the grateful 
emotions of my heart, to those friends of the country who have so 
generously and so nobly stood by the constitution and the Union, 
during the perilous scenes through which we have just passed. 
My sincere prayer is, that their country may cherish and reward 
them according to their merits. 

" I hope and trust that my withdrawal may enable the convention 
to unite harmoniously upon some more deserving candidate ; one 
who, if elected, may be more successful in winning and retaining 
the confidence of the party to which he is attached than I have been. 
Divided as we were, upon my accession to the presidency, on ques- 
tions of vital importance, it was impossible for me to pursue a course 
which would satisfy all. I have not attempted it. I have sought 
more anxiously to do what was right than what would please; and 
I shall feel no disappointment at finding that my conduct has, in the 
estimation of a majority of the convention, rendered me an unavail- 
able candidate. But it should at all times be a subject of felicitation 
to any man that he has been enabled to serve his country by sacrifi- 
cing himself. This is a consequence which neither he nor his friends 
have any cause to regret ; and I hope mine will view it in that 
light. 

" For myself, permit me to add, I have no further aspirations. I 
feel that I have enjoyed much more of public honors than I deserved, 
and I shall soon retire from this e.xalted- station with infinitely more 
satisfaction than I entered upon it, and with a heart grateful for the 
confidence which my countrymen have reposed in me — grateful for 
the indulgence with which they have received my humble efforts to 
serve them, and anxious only that they may be better served by my 
successor, and that our glorious Union and free institutions may be 
perpetual. 

" I have the honor to be, sir, 

. " Your fellow-citizen and ob't. serv't, 

"MILLARD FILLMORE." 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



553 



«' Lord, I believe ; help thou mine unbelief.' — ■ 
Philosophical argument, especially that drawn from 
the vastness of the universe, in comparison with the 
apparent insignificance of this globe, has sometimes 
shaken my reason for the faith which is in me; 
but my heart has always assured and reassured me, 
that the gospel of Jesus Christ must be a divine 
reality. The Sermon on the Mount cannot be a 
merely human production. This belief enters into 
the depth of my conscience. The whole history of 
man proves it. — Daniel Webster." 

Mr. Everett has remarked, that " the bright devel- 
opments of Mr. Webster's public character, in a long 

* Daniel Webster was born in Salisbury, New Hampshire, on 
the 18th of January, 17S2. His great-great grandfather, Thomas Web- 
ster, migrated from Norfolk, England, and settled in Hampton, New 
Hampshire, in 1656, nearly two centuries ago. Ebenezer Webster, 
father of Daniel, born in 1739, was a pioneer in Salisbury, served 
with credit in the Rangers during the old French war, and in our 
revolutionary struggle fought at White Plains, and led a company 
gallantly in the battle of Bennington. After our independence was 
secured, he was chosen representative, senator, and finally a judge 
of common pleas, which office he held from 1791 to 1805. He died 
in 180S, aged sixty-seven. 

Daniel Webster was cradled in poverty and early inured to labor, 
walking two miles and a half to common school in winter, and work- 
ing on his father's farm in summer. When fourteen, he was sent to 
the famous " Phillips Academy," in Exeter, New Hampshire, and 
the next year to Dartmouth College, where he graduated with honor, 
taught an academy at Fryeburg, Maine, one year, and then betook 
himself to the study of law, first in Salisbury, and then in Boston, 
in the office of Christopher Gore, afterwards governor of Massachu- 
setts; was admitted to the bar in 1805; practised a short time in 
Boscawen, New Hampshire ; removing thence, in 1807, to Ports- 
mouth, was married next year to Grace Fletcher, of Hopkinton, 
New Hampshire, by whom he had four children, of whom but one 
(Fletcher) survives him. The mother died suddenly, while on her 
way with her husband to Washington, late in 1827. 

Mr. Webster remained nine j'ears in Portsmouth, and there ac- 
quired an extensive practice and an enviable reputation. In 1812 
he was for the first time a candidate for office, being nominated for 
Congress by the federalists of New Hampshire, and elected after a 
most vehement contest. (The state then chose its members by gen- 
eral ticket.) Though never before a member of a legislative body, 
he rose at once to a high rank among parliamentary debaters. He 
opposed the invasion of Canada, and all schemes of aggression and 
conquest, ardently advocated the enlargement of our navy, and the 
prosecution of the war on the ocean, but condemned the policy 
•which had involved the country in hostilities, and urged an early 
peace. His house, with all its contents, was destroyed by fire during 
his absence at Washington, in January, 1814. He removed to Bos- 
ton in August, 1816. His fame as a jurist was greatly increased by 
his defence of Dartmouth College against the assumptions of the 
legislature of New Hampshire to alter and modify its charter at pleas- 
ure — a claim which was sustained by the courts of New Hampshire, 
but overruled by the United States Supreme Court, on Mr. Web- 
ster's argument, in March, 1818. 



life of service, are wrought into the annals of the 
country. " Whoever shall write the history of the 
United States for the last forty years ivill write the 
life of Daniel Webster, and ivhoever tcrites the life 
of Daniel Webster, as it ought to be written, will tvrite 
the history of the Union from the time he took a lead- 
ing part in its concerns." This is not mere eulogy, or 
the partial judgment of a friend. It is the sentiment' 
of the world, and has been fully illustrated in the 
present history by the copious allusions we have been 
compelled to make to his exalted public services. A 
brief outline of a mind so gifted, and a life so useful, 
is necessary to complete our endeavor to do justice to 
this portion of the national history.* 

He devoted himself assiduously to the law in Boston, refusing in- 
vitations to embark in politics, but serving as an elector of president, 
and then as member of the state constitutional convention, until, in 
1822, he was persuaded to stand for Congress, and elected by a large 
majority. He took his seat in December, 1823, and immediately 
signalized himself by a proposition and speech looking to the recog- 
nition of Greece as an independent nation. He made, at the same 
session, the ablest free trade argument ever presented to Congress. 
It was overborne, however, by the speech of Mr. Clay in favor of 
protection, and the tariff bill of 1824 became a law. Mr. Webster 
was reelected without opposition in 1824, and would have been re- 
turned in 1826, but he was that year elected to the United States 
Senate, where he took his seat in January, 1828. 

His speeches against Hayne, in 1829, on the right of a state to 
nuUify an act of Congress, were the greatest intellectual achieve- 
ments of his life. They may be said to have practically settled the 
question, so that, though nullification has since been threatened, no 
danger remains that it will ever be in earnest attempted. 

Mr. Webster remained in the Senate till March 4, 1841, and was a 
leading participator in the discussions growing out of the attempted 
recharter of the United States Bank, tariff compromise of 1834, the 
removal of the deposits, the specie circular, the expunging resolu- 
tion, &c. From an original free trader, he became a warm and im- 
pressive advocate of protection to home industry, regarding the policy 
of the country as settled by the acts of 1824 and 1828, and the in- 
terests thereby called into existence justly entitled to legislative 
support. He therefore opposed the tariff compromise of 1834, which 
nevertheless prevailed. 

Upon General Harrison's election to the presidency, Sir. Webster 
was called to the post of secretary of state, which he continued to 
hold after General Harrison's death and Mr. Tyler's accession, until 
late in 1842. During this time he negotiated with Lord Ashburton 
the treaty of Washington, by which the north-eastern boundary of 
Maine was settled. After retiring from the cabinet, he remained in 
private life till 1845, when he was again chosen'to the Senate, on the 
retirement of Mr. Choate. He spoke, in 1846, in favor of the Oregon 
boundary treaty ; in 1848, against the claim of the south to extend 
slavery into the new territories ; and on the 7th of March, ISoO, in 
favor of the adjustment of the territorial and slavery dispute by 
compromise, wherein the Wilmot proviso should be surrendered by 
the north as needless and irritating. He afterwards signalized him- 
self by a zealous advocacy of the fugitive slave law. 

Mr. Webster was first proposed for president in 1836, when Mas- 
sachusetts gave him her electoral vote, but was seconded by no other 



554 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Mr. Webster was a great writer, an eminent law- 
yer, and a preeminent statesman. The talents requi- 
site for eminence in any one of these departments do 
not necessarily fit a man for eminence, or even dis- 
tinction, in another. They are rarely associated in 
one person. Mr. Webster was distinguished and 
peerless in all, and as such stands almost without a 
parallel in history. 

From the commencement of his career, the two 
great functions of lawyer and statesman were con- 
stantly and most ably sustained together. An eminent 
leader in public affairs, and expected to be always 
foremost in every conflict, he was at the same time 
the acknowledged head of the American bar. A labo- 
rious and most successful devotee to his chosen pro- 
fession, a safe counsellor, a powerful advocate, a 
manly but terrible opponent, a profound thinker, a 
thorough and diligent student of every case he under- 
took, rapid in his decisions, yet cautious in examining 
every point of evidence, comprehensive and far reach- 
ing in his views, bold and confident of a position 
once taken, with an open, manly, masterly address, 
and a logical force such as only comes from ascer- 
tained truth and absolute conviction, — he was sel- 
dom successfully opposed, and never vanquished. 
His lucid statement of his case, in which he was 
unrivalled, was often in itself an argument and a 
triumph. In his addresses to the jury he was frank, 
manly, and direct, never appealing to passion or 
prejudice, but always, and with convincing power, to 
reason and conscience. By the simple majesty of 
his manner, and the honest directness and force of 
his own inward convictions, conveyed in terms of 
studied clearness, he wrought an almost instant per- 
suasion in his favor, and easily carried with him to 
the end the convinced and captivated judgment of 
his hearers. He could not argue a bad cause. " His 
mental vision was too penetrating and comprehen- 
sive, his logic too uncompromising, his perception of 

state. In IS-iS his name was submitted to the whig national con- 
Tention at Philadelphia, but hisTOte never reached thirty. In 1852 
his name was again submitted to the whig national convention at 
Baltimore ; but his highest vote on any ballot was thirty-three. It 
is understood that one hundred and six southern votes were ready 
to be cist for him whenever they would secure his nomination ; but 
the opportunity was never presented. 

In 1850, on the accession of Mr. Fillmore to the presidency, Mr. 
"Webster was called again to the first place in the cabinet, which he 
contmued to hold till his death. He left Washington in ill health 
during the summer of 1852, and retired to his country residence at 
Marshfield, Massachusetts, and soon after met with a severe injury 
by being thrown from a wagon. His health continued to decline 



truth too clear, and his love of it too instinctive, to fit 
him as the champion of error." Where his convictions 
led the way, he was the mightiest of the mighty, and 
led all judgments captive. His arguments were often 
no less instructive to the court than convincing to 
the jury, and much of the prevailing law of the land 
is due to him as its ablest and best expounder. Ho 
touched no subject which be did not fully elucidate. 
To this end he always said precisely enough, and 
never a word too much. His ideas were so luminous, 
and his expression of them so full and clear, that they 
never needed to be repeated or reenforced. He never 
dallied with unimportant facts, or points of inferior 
magnitude, nor attempted to divert attention from the 
real merits of his case by irrelevant side issues. His 
reading was extensive, almost universal, though some 
of the " scholars " affect to underrate him in this re- 
spect. His learning was vast, accurate, and perfectly 
at command. His judgment was clear and control- 
ling. His taste was refined, exalted, severe. His 
imagination was rich, almost to the height of genius, 
but ever subordinate to truth and reason. His illustra- 
tions were always and studiously luminous, and never 
merely ornamental. Of mere rhetorical flourishes he 
was totally ignorant. They would have encumbered 
the majestic march of his argument, as the drapery 
of the court or the saloon would encumber the 
progress of an army. 

Mr. Webster's great field, even in the department 
of law, was that in which it verges towards and 
rests upon fundamental and constitutional law. His 
profound mind could rest only in first principles. He 
penetrated to the heart of the science, and was master 
of its deepest and most abstruse mysteries. " It. was 
a fortunate — may we not say a providential? — cir- 
cumstance, that the growth of the country began to 
devolve upon the Supreme Court of the United States 
the consideration of this class of questions just at 
the time when Mr. Webster, in his ripe manhood 

until, on the 21st of October, his illness was felt to be dangerous, 
from which time he rapidly sank until his death, which occurred on 
Sunday morning, October 24, at a little before three o'clock. His last 
hours were irradiated by penitence, prayer, and the consolations of 
Christian faith and hope. 

Thus lived and died the greatest man, intellectually, that America 
has yet produced — her most chaste and cogent orator, and her most 
accomplislu'd and thoroughly qualified statesman. His Plymouth 
llock and Bunker Hill orations, his replies to Ha™e, and letter to 
Hulsemann, will live while our language is spoken, and the Ameri- 
can people will do honor to his genius, his understanding, and his 
patj-iotism. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



555 



was able to give them the benefit of his extraordinary 
powers of argument and analysis. Previous to the 
Dartmouth College case, in 1818, not many important 
constitutional questions bad come before the court; 
and since that time, the great lawyer, who then broke 
upon it with so astonishing a blaze of learning and 
logic, has exerted a commanding influence in shaping 
that system of constitutional law — almost a supple- 
mentary constitution — which has contributed so 
much to our happiness and prosperity. 

" In the discussion of constitutional questions, the 
mind of this great man found a most congenial 
employment. Here, books, cases, and precedents are 
of comparatively little value. We must ascend to 
first principles, and be guided by the light of pure 
reason. Geometry itself hardly leads the mind into 
a region of more abstract and essential truth. In 
these calm heights of speculation and analysis, the 
genius of Mr. Webster moved with natural and 
majestic sweep. 

" Mr. Webster's argument in the Dartmouth Col- 
lege case stands out among his other arguments, as 
his speech in reply to Hayne among his other speeches. 
No better argument has been spoken in the English 
tongue in the memory of any living man." Judge 
Story thus described the effect he then produced upon 
the court : " For the first hour we listened to him 
with perfect astonishment, for the second hour with 
perfect delight, and for the third hour with perfect 
conviction." It is not too much to say that he 
entered the court on that day a comparatively un- 
known name, and left it with no rival but Pinck- 
ney. 

Of the speech in reply to Mr. Hayne, Judge Sprague, 
who was in the Senate at the time, has said, " A 
great vital question of constitutional law was by that 
speech settled as completely and irrevocably as it 
could have been by the greatest minds in the highest 
judicial tribunals. 

" Mr. Webster evidently felt the magnitude of the 
occasion, and a consciousness that he was more than 
equal to it. On no other occasion, though I have 
heard him a hundred times, have I seen him so 
thoroughly aroused. Yet when he commenced, and 
throughout the whole, he was perfectly self-possessed 
and self-controlled. Never was his bearing more 
lofty, his person more majestic, his manner more ap- 
propriate and impressive. 

" The value of that speech cannot be measured, 
without a just appreciation of our constitution and 



of republican government. Nullification had become 
formidable. It had been practically adopted in high 
places, and was sustained by several states and some 
of the ablest minds of the south, and was daily gain- 
ing strength as the offspring of the resolutions of '98. 
By this single effort that deadly heresy was prostrated 
and crushed forever. 

" No speech, ancient or modern, has, within the 
same time, convinced so many minds, and produced 
so great and salutary results. It was not addressed 
merely to the enlightened and reflecting audience 
around him, but to this great reading nation, and to 
the civilized world. If the doctrines of General 
Hayne had prevailed, this Union would have been 
shattered into fragments ; but Mr. Webster and his 
doctrines have triumphed, and our Union remains in 
all its magnificence and beneficence." 

Mr. Webster's public career commenced with his 
election to Congress, from the city of Boston, in 
1822. From that time till his death, with an in- 
terval of only two years, he .was constantly in the 
public service, as representative, senator, or secretary 
of state. 

Mr. Webster was a statesman in the largest and 
noblest sense of the word. He was no politician. 
He sought not his own, but his country's good. He 
had no narrow, sectional, or partisan views. " He 
knew no north, no south, no east, no west. His great 
mind and patriotic heart embraced the whole land, 
with all its interests and all its claims. No public 
man ever earned more fully the title of a national, an 
American statesman." 

As a writer, but especially as a public speaker, 
Mr. Webster had no equal at home or abroad. He 
has been compared to Burke ; but he is less elaborate, 
and far more massive, majestic, and enduring, yet 
never deficient in graceful flovi^ or appropriate orna- 
ment. His political speeches are marked by a pecu- 
liar sagacity and a depth of practical wisdom which 
belong only and always to master minds. Yet with 
all his mighty reach of thought, his almost prophetic 
forecast, his comprehensive view of all the remoter 
bearings of his theme, and his instinctive perception 
of the inevitable conclusion, he easily and powerfully 
carried the common mind along with him; for his 
logic was as clear as it was compact, as simple and 
natural as it was vigorous and conclusive. He be- 
come so thoroughly master of his subject, that he 
easily and necessarily mastered his audience. " His 
occasional discourses and his diplomatic writings 



556 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



would alone make a great reputation." The latter are 
models of unqualified excellence, cautious yet firm, 
hold, decided, and full of energy, yet perfectly cour- 
teous, frank, and fair. Like the gallant knight in the 
tournament, he scorns to ask, and manfully refuses to 
yield, any thing that is not clearly and unquestionably 
right. In fact he seems to demand nothing, but to 
make the right so clear that it is yielded of necessity 
and without a demand. It is doubted if there are 
any " modern compositions which, in form and sub- 
stance, imbody so much of what we understand by 
the epithet Roman. Such, indeed, we may imagine 
the state papers of the Roman Senate to have been, 
in the best days of the republic." 

The more than royal mind of this majestic man 
was fitly tenanted in a frame of massive and com- 
manding proportions. He bore the unmistakable im- 
press of greatness in his personal appearance. His 
figure was large, but admirably symmetrical. His 
head was capacious and finely developed, with a 
noble amplitude of brow, which betokened the largest 
possession of the reflective and rational faculties. 
The deep overhanging eyebrow gave to the dark, 
penetrating, eagle eye beneath, a commanding in- 
tensity of power, which none who approached him 
failed to recognize and acknowledge. Take him all 
in all, " he was probably the grandest looking man 
of his time." 

In his private relations Mr. Webster commanded 
the confidence and respect and won the aflection of 
all who knew him. He was a kind husband, an in- 
dulgent father, a dutiful, exemplary son, a generous 
friend, and an excellent neighbor. He had many 
friends, but no enemies. Even among his strongest 
political opponents, he was held in the highest esteem 
and regard — a sentiment which he amply repaid by 
cherishing no personal political animosities himself. 
His great southern antagonist, Mr. Calhoun, with 
whom he was brought into most direct collision, was 
always a personal friend, and remarked, towards the 
close of his life, that, of all the leading men of the 
day, " there was not one whose political course had 
been more strongly marked by a strict regard to truth 
and honor than Mr. Webster's." It was in this spirit 
of true greatness that Mr. Webster gave his last 
directions to Mr. Everett respecting a new edition of 
his works, to be issued under the editorial supervision 
of that gentleman. " My friend," said he, » I wish to 
perpetuate no feuds. I have lived a life of strenuous 
political warfare. I have sometimes, though rarely, 



and that in self-defence, .been led to speak of others 
with severity. I beg you, where you can do it with- 
out wholly changing the character of the speech, and 
thus doing essential injustice to me, to obliterate 
every trace of personality of this kind. I should pre- 
fer not to leave a word that would give unnecessary 
pain to any honest man, however opposed to me." 
In the same magnanimous spirit he lent some of his 
best and most gigantic efforts to support what he 
deemed a correct position of an administration of 
which he was the ablest and most dreaded opposer. 
Of this character was his mighty conflict with Ilayne, 
sustaining the views and determinations of General 
Jackson, and enabling his administration easily and 
effectually to crush the outbreaking spirit of nullifica- 
tion. In the same spirit he uttered his great speech 
of the 7th of March, defending and advocating the 
compromise measures of 1850, and thereby sacrificing 
and knowingly sacrificing, a large portion of well- 
earned popularity at the north. 

Mr. Webster's greatness was so unmatched and 
unapproachable, and so nobly free from even the 
semblance of arrogance or presumption, that it was 
always and every where admitted, not only without 
jealousy, but with cordial and profound delight. Mr. 
Fillmore always took a generous pleasure in speaking 
of him, on all appropriate occasions, as the right arm 
of his administration, his best and perfect reliance in 
all the complicated difficulties of the high office he 
was called to fill. 

Mr. Webster was an ardent lover of nature, the 
open volume of whose works he studied with great 
delight. An enthusiastic sportsman, an amateur 
agriculturist, a passionate admirer of animal life and 
beauty, as well as of natural scenery, he spent in the 
country all the time he could spare from the arduous 
and engrossing cares of public life, and enjoyed in 
retirement infinitely more than office, station, or 
power was capable of conferring. 

At the opening of the thirty-second Congress, Presi- 
dent Fillmore reiterated such of his former recommen- 
dations as had not been acted upon, urging especially 
a modification of the tariff, the establishment of an 
agricultural bureau, and appropriations for the im- 
provement of rivers and harbors. On the latter sub- 
ject he succeeded so far in overcoming the hostility 
of its opponents as to procure the passage of a bill 
for the construction of a canal around the Falls of 
St. Mary. This work has been prosecuted with great 
success, and is now in such a state of progress towards 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



557 



completion, that it will be opened to navigation early 
in the coming spring, (1855.) * 

The frequent attempts which had been made by 
various parties to gain forcible possession of the 
Island of Cuba, and revolutionize its government, and 
the manifest inability of Spain, alone and unassisted, 
to defend the coveted colony against any thing like a 
serious invasion, induced the governments of Great 
Britain and France, early in 1852, to propose to that 
of the United States to become a party with them to 
a tripartite convention, in virtue of which the three 
powers should severally and collectively disclaim, now 
and for the future, all intention to obtain possession 

• The following letter from a correspondent of the tJtica Herald 
■will give some idea of this great national work, and illustrate the 
absurdity of the opposition to internal improvements : — 

" The waters of Lake Superior find their way into Lake Huron 
through St. Mary's River. This river is about sixty-three miles 
long ; at some places spreading out into little lakes, at others, rush- 
ing through narrow rapids or winding around beautiful islands. Its 
entire length is navigable by vessels drawing eight feet of water up 
to within one mile of Lake Superior. At this point navigation is 
arrested by the falls — the ' Sault ' of the river. 

" These falle or rapids are best described by saying that they are 
eomewhat like the rapids of Niagara, but instead of rushing into an 
abyss, gradually subsiding into the quiet flow of a broad river, so 
that steambotits may run into the very foot of the rapids, and the 
frail bark cnnoe of the adventurous and skilful half-breed dash far 
up among them in pursuit of the white fish. These rapids are 
broken up into several different channels, and among them are scat- 
tered little islands, such as you see at Niagara, and like them bris- 
tling with cedars in all possible attitudes. 

" At this point, on the American side, is the little village of the 
Sault — an old settlement in the State of Michigan, founded by the 
Jesuits about two centuries ago. ^t has evidently seen and felt noth- 
ing of the great progress which has been buUding up cities and 
states. Here is to be seen the native owner of the soil and the half- 
breed, (a cross of the French and Indian blood) and here, too, are 
the shops of the full-blooded Yankee, who buys and sells bead and 
birch bark work and white fish. On the British side of the river is 
tlie agency of the Hudson Bay Company — an old-fashioned build- 
ing, looking as firm and substantial as the company itself. 

" Above these rapids, and where Lake Superior empties into the 
river, may be seen a few steamers, which have been hauled over land 
from below. 

" Hitherto vessels which have come from Buffalo, Cleveland, De- 
troit, and Chicago, to the Sault, have been compelled to unload 
there and return, while the goods destined for Lake Superior have 
been drawn by horse power over a railroad to the upper end of the 
tapids, and then loaded on the few vessels which have been hauled 
into the lake. Thus the waters of the largest fresh water lake in 
the world, whose shores are loaded with mineral wealth, more desi- 
rable than the gold of California, have been locked up from the trade 
of New York, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin, by less than 
a mile of rapids. To remedy this, Congress oflTered to the State of 
Michigan 750,000 acres of land, if she would construct a ship canal 
around these rapids ; and the State of Michigan has contracted to 
give these lands, free of taxation, for five years, to Erastus Coming 



of the Island of Cuba, and bind themselves to dis- 
countenance all attempts to that effect, on the part 
of any power or individual whatever. This invitation 
was promptly declined by the president, for reasons 
assigned in the correspondence, and accompanied 
with the strongest assurances that the United States 
not only " entertained no designs against Cuba," but 
''would regard its incorporation into the Union, at 
the present time, as fraught with serious peril." 

In his annual message to Congress of this year, 
the president gave expression to the following views, 
as those which he supposed to prevail in tlie public 
mind : " Were this island comparatively destitute of 

and others, in consideration that they build the canal by the 19th of 
May next. 

" This is now completed, or so nearly so that it is not amiss to s])eak 
of it as finKhed. The contract time in which to do the work was so 
short that it was supposed impossible, and many anticipated an ap- 
plication to the legislature for an extension of time ; but the con- 
tractors have already done more than they contracted to do, and the 
opening of navigation next spring will open seventeen hundred mUes 
of new coast to our trade. 

** It is an interesting and important question, what state will reap 
the largest harvest from the opening of this wide mineral world ; 
Michigan or Illinois, Detroit or Chicago, New Y'ork or Ohio, Buffalo 
or Cleveland .' Detroit has apparently the advantage, but Chicago 
intends to win it from her if possible. The work is, in every sense, 
a national one i national in its objects, and in size and style superior 
to any of its kind on this continent. 

"The locks are supposed to be the largest in the world. Y'ou can 
most readily judge of their size when I tell you that the main build- 
ing of the steam cotton factory in West Utica could be placed in 
either of them, and the gates closed upon it without touching it ; 
that the City HaU in the Park in the city of New Y'ork, if it is, as I 
understand, two hundred and sixteen feet in length, might have one 
hundred and thirty feet added to it, and still be locked through ; 
that the combined length of the two sides and wings of the two 
locks together is nearly one third of a mile in length, all of solid 
masonry, twenty-five feet high, ten feet thick at the base, with 
buttresses six feet in width at every twelve feet, all faced with cut 
white limestone, equal if not superior to the best of this state. The 
gates of these locks are each forty feet wide, or twice as wide as an 
entire lock on the Erie Canal. Each gate is suspended and held in 
place like a suspension bridge, weighing many tons, and yet moved 
with ease by the strength of one man. 

" The canal is one hundred feet wide at top of water, and one 
hundred and fifteen feet wide at top of its banks. The depth of 
water in it is twelve feet. The main body of the canal is excavated 
through rock, and walled up with such slope walls as the Erie Canal 
cannot boast of. To protect this work large caisson gates are thrown 
across the canal above and below locks, supported by strong and 
handsome masonry. 

" There is no instance on record in which land appropriated by 
the general government has been so honestly applied or made to 
accomplish so much. 

"The work has been accomplished in an unprecedentedly short 
time, and in the face of dilficultles which no ordinary energy or 
capital could have overcome." 



558 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



inhabitants, or occupied by a kindred race, I should 
regard it, if voluntarily ceded by Spain, as a most 
desirable acquisition. But under existing circum- 
stances I should look upon its incorporation into our 
Union as a very hazardous measure. It would bring 
into the confederacy a population of a different na- 
tional stock, speaking a differeii^ language, and not 
likely to harmonize with the other members. It 
would probably affect in a prejudicial manner the 
industrial interests of the south ; and it might revive 
those conflicts of opinion between the different sec- 
tions of the country which lately shook the Union to 
its centre, and which have been so happily com- 
promised." 

The following correspondence, commenced by the 
representatives of England and France with Mr. 
Webster, and concluded after his death by Mr. Ever- 
ett, on the part of the United States, will present the 
subject in all its bearings, and explain the precise 
position in which it now stands. 

From the preceding summary it will be seen that 
the brief and peaceful administration of Mr. Fill- 
more was by no means barren or uneventful. It was 
a period of marked progress in some of the great 
principles of constitutional government. It was an 
administration of distinguished ability and power, as 
well as of great purity and moral weight. And Mr. 
Fillmore descended from the exalted station to which 
he was so unexpectedly raised, with the entire con- 
fidence and respect of all parties. Many even of 
those who opposed on political grounds his elec- 
tion as vice president, would have cordially sup- 
ported him had he been a candidate for reelection 
to the presidency. 

" John F. Cramplon, Esq., to the Hon. Daniel Webster. 

" Washington, Jul;/ 8, 1852. 

"Sir: In reply to the note which I had the honor 
of addressing to you on the 23d of April last, com- 
municating to you a project for a convention respect- 
ing the Island of Cuba, together with a copy of the 
instructions with which I have been furnished in 
regard to this matter by her majesty's principal secre- 
tary of state for foreign affairs, you addressed to me 
a note, dated the 29th of April last, by which you 
assured me that the subject of the communication I 
had made would be taken into consideration by the 
president of the United States, and would receive his 
serious attention. 

" Tw o months have, however, now elapsed ; and it 



may therefore now be proper that I should request 
you to enable me to inform her majesty's government 
of the views and intentions of the government of the 
United States in regard to the proposition which I 
had the honor of addressing to you, and by which 
the government of the United States is invited to 
join her majesty's government and the government 
of France in a declaration, which the two latter gov- 
ernments have agreed to make, of a renunciation on 
their part of all intention of becoming possessed, 
under whatever circumstances and by whatever means, 
of the Island of Cuba. I would also avail myself of 
this opportunity to recall your attention to the verbal 
remarks which, together with the minister of France, 
I submitted to your consideration in support of the 
proposal, in the conversation which the Count de 
Sartiges and myself had the honor of holding with 
you on that subject. These remarks were, I trust, 
calculated to place the matter in its true point of 
view, and to remove any misapprehension which 
might arise, in whatever quarter, in regard to the acts 
or to the language of any of the three governments 
in relation to it. 

" And first in respect to the right of possession and 
sovereignty. The Island of Cuba is a province of 
Spain by the clearest of all titles — discovery and 
uninterrupted possession. Spain is determined to 
preserve her dominion over the province ; and the 
Spanish subjects who inhabit it show no disposition 
to sever their connection with the mother country. 
This right of possession cannot be disputed, nor has 
it been disputed ; and it gives me satisfaction to re- 
mark that the government of the United States has 
on all occasions professed its respect for the validity 
of the title. It is not, consequently, the simple ac- 
knowledgment of the validity of this title which her 
majesty's government propose by the declaration 
which they desire to make simultaneously and in 
concert with the governments of the United States 
and of France. The object of her majesty's govern- 
ment is to guard against future contingencies, and to 
put an end to a state of things far from satisfactory 
as regards the friendly relations of Spain with other 
powers respecting Cuba, and of great delicacy as it 
affects the relations of the principal maritime powers 
between themselves. 

" There is at the present time an evident tendency 
in the maritime commerce of the world to avail itself 
of the shorter passages from one ocean to another 
offered by the different routes existing or in contem- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



559 



plation across the isthmus of Central America. The 
Island of Cuba, of considerable importance in itself, 
is so placed geographically that the nation which may 
possess it, if the naval forces of that nation should 
be considerable, might either protect or obstruct the 
the commercial routes from one ocean to the other. 
Now, if the maritime powers are, on the one hand, 
out of respect to the rights of Spain, and from a 
sense of her international duty, bound to dismiss all 
intention of obtaining possession of Cuba, so, on the 
other hand, are they obliged, out of consideration for 
the interests of their own subjects or citizens, and the 
protection of the commerce of other nations, who are 
all entitled to the use of the great highways of com- 
merce on equal terms, to proclaim and assure, as far 
as in them lies, the present and future neutrality of 
the Island of Cuba. Great Britain has omitted no 
opportunity of manifesting in regard to Cuba her 
respect for the sovereign rights of Spain, and her dis- 
interestedness in regard to the present and the future 
political position of that important colony. France 
has, by acts of the same nature, evinced similar senti- 
ments and views ; and the United States themselves 
have, on several occasions, declared that they could 
not acquiesce in the cession of Cuba to a European 
power. This declaration of the United States par- 
takes of the same nature as that which Great Britain 
and France propose to the American government to 
imbody in an official act — with this difference, how- 
ever, that the British and French governments, while 
they declare that they would not acquiesce in the ces- 
sion of Cuba to any maritime power, also declare 
that they entirely renounce all views upon that island, 
both now and hereafter, for themselves. I do not 
doubt that the government of the United States is 
actuated by the same motives, in making its declara- 
tion, which have impelled the British and French 
governments to make theirs. The word ' European,' 
however, in juxtaposition with the word ' power,' 
might justify, on the part of the latter two govern- 
ments, some doubt as to the signification of the 
declaration of the United States; and it might be 
thought that the United States, while by their dec- 
laration they exclude other nations from profiting by 
the chances of future possible events, have not de- 
barred themselves by that declaration from availing 
themselves of such events. Between powers such as 
Great Britain, the United States, and France, it could 
never be intended to give to political acts or language 
any other meaning than that which those acts or that 
71 



language would clearly convey. A concuwence by 
the United States in the joint declaration, the project 
of which I had the honor of communicating to you 
on the 23d of April last, would prevent the possibility 
of the misapprehension to which I have alluded ; and 
the true signification of the declarations made by 
England, the United States, and France, would thus 
be exactly defined. It is highly desirable, for the 
reasons which I have given above, that the question 
of the future position of Cuba should be definitively 
determined ; and it is desirable that this determina- 
tion should assure the permanent neutrality of the 
island, among others, for the following reasons : — 

" You are, no doubt, aware that British and French 
subjects, as well as the French government, are, on 
different accounts, creditors of Spain for large sums 
of money. The expense of keeping up an armed 
force in the Island of Cuba of 25,000 men is heavy, 
and obstructs the government of Spain in the efforts 
which they make to fulfil their pecuniary engage- 
ments. By putting an end to the state of apprehen- 
sion which is the cause of those armaments, we 
should increase to Spain the means of meeting those 
engagements. This consideration is, no doubt, appli- 
cable more particularly to Spain, to England, and to 
France. But there are others which apply more gen- 
erally to the commercial interests of all nations, and 
especially to the commercial interests of the United 
States, which are greater than those of any other 
nation in Cuba. One of these considerations is, that, 
in the present state of things, we cannot reasonably 
expect Spain to take any measure towards lowering 
her tariff at Havana — a tariff, the high rates of 
which are a subject of complaint in the United States ; 
and this circumstance has not unfrequently been put 
forward as an excuse for unauthorized aggressions 
against the Spanish authorities in the island. But if, 
by the guaranty of quiet possession which the pro- 
posed declaration of the great maritime powers would 
confer, Spain should be enabled to diminish her mili- 
tary force in Cuba, she might probably be induced to 
relieve foreign commerce there from the charges which 
now press upon it; and of this foreign commerce, as 
I have already observed, the United States have by 
far the largest share. 

" In conclusion, the project of a convention which I 
have had the honor of presenting to you consists of a 
single article, and has but two objects in view — the 
one, a mutual renunciation of the future possession 
of Cuba ; the other, an engagement to cause this 



560 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



renunciation to be respected. Botli of these objects 
seem to have been matters which have already at- 
tracted the attention of the American government. 
Decisive measures, indeed, for the preservation of the 
sovereignty of Cuba to Spain have been contem- 
plated by the government of the United States on 
several occasions. Among others, at the time when 
a report was in circnlation (although without founda- 
tion) that a Spanish general intended retiring to 
Cuba, and there declaring himself independent of 
Spain, under the protection of one of the great mari- 
time powers, the government of the United States 
did not hesitate to offer to the Spanish government 
the assistance of their forces, both naval and military, 
in resisting any such attempt. 

" On the present occasion, Great Britain and France 
do not propose to the United States to do more in 
concert with them than the United States themselves 
offered to do alone on the occasion I allude to ; for 
the project of a convention which I have had the 
honor of submitting to you proposes that the three 
contracting powers should engage themselves to 
"discountenance and prevent, as far as in them lies," 
&c., and consequently would not engage any one of 
the three governments to do more than their respec- 
tive constitutions may authorize. This will, it is 
hoped, facilitate the adoption by the government of 
the United States of the project, and enable the gov- 
ernment of the United States, by associating them- 
selves with those of Great Britain and France in this 
important declaration, to secure the future tranquillity 
of the commerce of the world in those seas, to dis- 
courage illegal enterprises against Cuba, and to draw 
closer the bonds of amity which bind the United 
States to Great Britain, as well as to France and 
Spain. 

" I avail myself of this opportunity to renew to 
you, sir, the assurance of my high consideration. 

"JOHN F. CRAMPTON." 

The letter of the French minister was of precisely 
the same import, and Mr. Everett's answer was ad- 
dressed to that gentleman. 



" il/r. Everett to the Comte de Sarti'ges. 

" Department op State, 

"Washington, December 1, 18J2. 

"Sir: You are well acquainted with the melan- 
choly circumstances which have hitherto prevented a 



reply to the note which you addressed to my prede- 
cessor on the 8th of July. 

" That note, and the instruction of M. de Turgot 
of the 31st of March, with a similar communication 
from the English minister, and the projet of a conven- 
tion between the three powers relative to Cuba, have 
been among the first subjects to which my attention 
has been called by the president. 

" The substantial portion of the proposed conven- 
tion is expressed in a single article in the following 
terms : ' The high contracting parties hereby severally 
and collectively disclaim, now and for hereafter, all 
intention to obtain possession of the Island of Cuba; 
and they respectively bind themselves to discounte- 
nance all attempt to that effect on the part of any 
power or individuals whatever.' 

'"The high contracting parties declare, severally 
and collectively, that they will not obtain or maintain 
for themselves, or for any one of themselves, any ex- 
clusive control over the said island, nor assume nor 
exercise any dominion over the same.' 

" The president has given the most serious atten- 
tion to this proposal, to the notes of the French and 
British ministers accompanying it, and to the insti'uc- 
tions of M. de Turgot and the Earl of Malmesbury, 
transmitted with the project of the convention ; and 
he directs me to make known to you the view which 
he takes of this important and delicate subject. 

" The president fully concurs with his predecessors, 
who have on more than one occasion authorized the 
declaration referred to by M. de Turgot and Lord 
Malmesbury, that the United States could not see 
with indifference the Island of Cuba fall into the 
possession of any other European government than 
Spain ; not, however, because we should be dissat- 
isfied with any natural increase of territory and power 
on the part of France or England. France has, 
within twenty years, acquired a vast domain on the 
northern coast of Africa, with a fair prospect of 
indefinite extension. England, within half a century, 
has added very extensively to her empire. These 
acquisitions have created no uneasiness on the part 
of the United States. 

" In like manner, the United States have, within the 
same period, greatly increased their territory. The 
largest addition was that of Louisiana, which was 
purchased from France. These accessions of terri- 
tory have probably caused no uneasiness to the great 
European powers, as they have been brought about 
by the operation of natural causes, and without any 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



561 



Jisturbancc of the international relations of the 
principal states. They have been followed, also, 
hy a great increase of mutually beneficial commer- 
cial intercourse between the United States and Eu- 
rope. 

" But the case would be different in reference to th^ 
transfer of Cuba from Spain to any other European 
power. That event could not take place without a 
serious derangement of the international system now 
existing, and it would indicate designs in reference to 
this hemisphere whicli could not but awaken alarm in 
the United States. 

" We should view it in somewhat the same light in 
which France and England would view the acquisi- 
tion of some important island in the Mediterranean 
by the United States, with this difference, it is true : 
that the attempt of the United States to establish 
themselves in Europe would be a novelty, while the 
appearance of a European power in this part of the 
world is a familiar fact. But this difference in the 
two cases is merely historical, and would not diminish 
the anxiety which, on political grounds, would be 
caused by any great demonstration of European power 
in a new direction in America. 

" M. de Turgot states that France could never see 
with indifference the possession of Cuba by any 
power but Spain, and explicitly declares that she has 
no wish or intention of appropriating the island to 
herself; and the English minister makes the same 
avowal. on behalf of his government. M. de Turgot 
and Lord Malmesbury do the government of the 
United States no more than justice in remarking 
that they have often pronounced themselves substan- 
tially in the same sense. The president does not 
covet the acquisition of Cuba for the United States; 
at the same time, he considers the condition of Cuba 
as mainly an American question. The proposed con- 
vention proceeds on a different principle. It assumes 
that the United States have no other or greater in- 
terest in the question than France or England ; 
whereas it is necessary only to cast one's eye on the 
map to see how remote are the relations of Europe, 
and how intimate those of the United States with 
this island. 

" The president, doing full justice to the friendly 
spirit in which his concurrence is invited by France 
and England, and not insensible to the advantages of 
a good understanding between the three powers in 



reference to Cuba, feels himself, nevertheless, unable 
to become a party to the proposed compact, for the 
following reasons : — 

" It is, in the first place, in his judgment, clear (as 
far as the respect due from the executive to a coordi- 
nate branch of the government will permit him to 
anticipate its decision) that no such convention would 
be viewed with favor by the Senate. Its certain re- 
jection by that body would leave the question of 
Cuba in a more unsettled position than it is now. 
This objection would not require the president to 
withhold his concurrence from the convention if no 
other objection existed, and if a strong sense of the 
utility of the measure rendered it his duty, as far as 
the executive action is concerned, to give his con- 
sent to the arrangement. Such, however, is not the 
case. 

" The convention would be of no value unless it 
were lasting: accordingly its terms express a per- 
petuity of purpose and obligation. Now, it may 
well be doubted whether the constitution of the United 
States would allow the treaty-making power to im- 
pose a permanent disability on the American govern- 
ment for all coming time, and prevent it, under any 
future change of circumstances, from doing what has 
been so often done in times past. In 1803 the United 
States purchased Louisiana of France ; and in 1819 
they purchased Florida of Spain. It is not within 
the competence of the treaty-making power in 1853 
effectually to bind the government in all its branches ; 
and, for all coming time, not to make a similar pur- 
chase of Cuba. A like remark, I imagine, may be 
made even in reference both to France and England, 
where the treaty-making power is less subject than it 
is with us to the control of other branches of the 
government. 

" There is another strong objection to the proposed 
agreement. Among the oldest traditions of the fed- 
eral government is an aversion to political alliances 
with European powers. In his memorable farewell 
address. President Washington says, ' The great rule 
of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in 
extending our commercial relations, to have with 
them as little political connection as possible. So 
far as we have already formed engagements, let tjiem 
be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.' 
President Jefferson, in his inaugural address in 1801, 
warned the country against ' entangling alliances.' 



562 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



This expression, now become proverbial, was unques- 
tionably used by Mr. Jefferson in reference to the 
alliance with France of 1778 — an alliance, at the 
time, of incalculable benefit to the United States; 
but wliich, in less than twenty years, came near in- 
volving us in the wars of the French revolution, and 
laid the foundation of heavy claims upon Congress, 
not extinguished to the present day. It is a signifi- 
cant coincidence, that the particular provision of the 
alliance which occasioned these evils was that under 
which France called upon us to aid her in defending 
her West Indian possessions against England. Noth- 
ing less than the unbounded influence of Washing- 
ton rescued the Union from the perils of that crisis, 
and preserved our neutrality. 

" But the president has a graver objection to enter- 
ing into the proposed convention. He has no wish to 
disguise the feeling that the compact, although equal 
in its terms, would be very unequal in substance. 
France and England, by entering into it, would dis- 
able themselves from obtaining possession of an 
island remote from their seats of government, belong- 
ing to another European power, whose natural right 
to possess it must always be as good as their own — 
a distant island in another hemisphere, and one which 
by no ordinary or peaceful course of things could 
ever belong to either of them. If the present balance 
of power in Europe should be broken up, if Spain 
should become unable to maintain the island in her 
possession, and France and England should be en- 
gaged in a death struggle with each other, Cuba 
might then be the prize of the victor. Till these 
events all take place, the president does not see 
how Cuba can belong to any European power but 
Spain. 

" The United States, on the other hand, would, by 
the proposed convention, disable themselves from 
making an acquisition which might take place with- 
out any disturbance of existing foreign relations, and 
in the natural order of things. The Island of Cuba 
lies at our doors. It commands the approach to the 
Gulf of Mexico, which washes the shores of five of 
our states. It bars the entrance of that great river 
which drains half the North American continent, and 
with its tributaries forms the largest system of inter- 
nal water communication in the world. It keeps 
watch at the doorway of our intercourse with Cali- 
fornia by the Isthmus route. If an island like Cuba, 



belonging to the Spanish crown, guarded the entrance 
of the Thames and the Seine, and the United States 
should propose a convention like this to France and 
England, those powers would assuredly feel that the 
disability assumed by ourselves was far less serious 
khan that which we asked them to assume. 

" The opinions of American statesmen at different 
times, and under varying circumstances, have differed 
as to the desirableness of the acquisition of Cuba by 
the United States. Territorially and commercially 
it would, in our hands, be an extremely valuable pos- 
session. Under certain contingencies it might be 
almost essential to our safety. Still, for domestic 
reasons, on which, in a communication of this kind, it 
might not be proper to dwell, the president thinks that 
the incorporation of the island into the Union at the 
present time, although effected with the consent of 
Spain, would be a hazardous measure; and he would 
consider its acquisition by force, except in a just war 
with Spain, (should an event so greatly to be depre- 
cated take place,) as a disgrace to the civilization of 
the age. 

" The president has given ample proof of the sin- 
cerity with which he holds these views. He has 
thrown the whole force of his constitutional power 
against all illegal attacks upon the island. It would 
have been perfectly easy for him, without any seem- 
ing neglect of duty, to allow projects of a formidable 
character to gather strength by connivance. No 
amount of obloquy at home, no embarrassments 
caused by the indiscretions of the colonial govern- 
ment of Cuba, have moved him from the path of 
duty in this respect. The captain general of that 
island, an officer apparently of upright and concilia- 
tory character, but probably more used to military 
command than the management of civil affairs, has, 
on a punctilio in reference to the purser of a private 
steamship, (who seems to have been entirely innocent 
of the matters laid to his charge,) refused to allow 
passengers and the mails of the United States to be 
landed from a vessel having him on board. This cer- 
tainly is a very extraordinary mode of animadverting 
upon a supposed abuse of the liberty of the press by 
the subject of a foreign government in his native 
country. The captain general is not permitted by his 
government, three thousand miles off, to hold any 
diplomatic intercourse with the United States. He 
is subject in no degree to the direction of the Spanish 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



563 



minister at Washington ; and the president has to 
choose between a resort to force, to compel the aban- 
donment of this gratuitous interruption of commercial 
intercourse, (which would result in war,) and a delay 
of weeks and months, necessary for a negotiation 
with Madrid, with all the chances of the most de- 
plorable occurrences in the interval — and all for a 
triile, that ought to have admitted a settlement by an 
exchange of notes between Washington and the 
Havana. The president has, however, patiently sub- 
mitted to these evils, and has continued faithfully to 
give to Cuba the advantages of those principles of the 
])ublic law under the shelter of which she has departed, 
in this case, from the comity of nations. But the inci- 
dents to which I allude, and which are still in train, 
are among many others which point decisively to the 
expediency of some change in the relations of Cuba ; 
and the president thinks that the influence of France 
and England with Spain would be well employed in 
inducing her so to modify the administration of the 
government of Cuba as to afford the means of some 
prompt remedy for evils of the kind alluded to, which 
have done much to increase the spirit of unlawful 
enterprise against the island. 

" That a convention such as is propos'ed would be a 
transitory arrangement, sure to be swept away by the 
irresistible tide of affairs in a new country, is, to the 
apprehension of the president, too obvious to require 
a labored argument. The project rests on principles 
applicable, if at all, to Europe, where international 
relations are, in their basis, of great antiquity, slowly 
modified, for the most part, in the progress of time 
and events; and not applicable to America, which, 
but lately a waste, is filling up with intense rapidity, 
and adjusting on natural principles those territorial 
relations which, on the first discovery of the continent, 
were in a good degree fortuitous. 

" The comparative history of Europe and America, 
even for a single century, shows this. In 1752, 
France, England, and Spain, were not materially dif- 
ferent in their political position in Europe from what 
they now are. They were ancient, mature, consoli- 
dated states, established in their relations with each 
other and the rest of the world — the leading powers 
of Western and Southern Europe. Totally different 
was the state of things in America. The United 
States had no existence as a people ; a line of Eng- 
lish colonies, not numbering much over a million 



of inhabitants, stretched along the coast. France 
extended from the Bay of St. Lawrence to the Gulf 
of Mexico, and from the Alleghanies to the Missis- 
sippi ; beyond which, westward, the continent was a 
wilderness, occupied by wandering savages, and sub- 
ject to a conflicting and nominal claim on the part 
of France and Spain. Every thing in Europe was 
comparatively fixed ; every thing in America provis- 
ional, incipient, and temporary, except the law of 
progress, which is as organic and vital in the youth 
of states as of individual men. A struggle between 
the provincial authorities of France and England for 
the possession of a petty stockade at the confluence 
of the Monongahela and Alleghany, kindled the seven 
years' war ; at the close of which the great European 
powers, not materially affected in their relations at 
home, had undergone astonishing changes on this 
continent. France had disappeared from the map of 
America, whose inmost recesses had been penetrated 
by her zealous missionaries and her resolute and gal- 
lant adventurers; England had added the Canadas 
to her transatlantic dominions ; Spain had become 
the mistress of Louisiana, so that, in the language 
of the Archbishop of Mexico, in 1770, she claimed 
Siberia as the northern boundary of New Spain. 

" Twelve years only from the treaty of Paris elapsed, 
and another great change took place, fruitful of still 
greater changes to come. The American revolution 
broke out. It involved France, England, and Spain 
in a tremendous struggle ; and at its close the United 
States of America had taken their place in the family 
of nations. In Europe, the ancient states were re- 
stored substantially to their former equilibrium ; but a 
new element, of incalculable importance in reference 
to territorial arrangements, is henceforth to be recog- 
nized in America. 

"Just twenty years from the close of the war of 
the American revolution, France, by a treaty with 
Spain, — of which the provisions have never been 
disclosed, — possessed herself of Louisiana, but did 
so only to cede it to the United States; and in the 
same year Lewis and Clark started on their expedi- 
tion to plant the flag of the United States on the 
shores of the Pacific. In 1819 Florida was sold by 
Spain to the United States, whose territorial posses- 
sions in this way had been increased threefold in 
half a century. This last acquisition was so much a 
matter of course that it had been distinctly foreseen 



564 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



by the Count Aranda, then prime minister of Spain, 
as long ago as 1783. 

" But even these momentous events are but the 
forerunners of new territorial revolutions still more 
stupendous. A dynastic struggle between the Em- 
peror Napoleon and Spain, commencing in 1808, con- 
vulsed the Peninsula. The vast possessions of the 
Spanish crown on this continent, — viceroyalties and 
captain generalships, filling the space between Cali- 
fornia and Cape Horn, — one after another asserted 
their independence. No friendly power in Europe, 
at that time, was able, or, if able, was willing, to 
succor Spain, or aid her to prop the crumbling but- 
tresses of her colonial empire. So far from it, when 
France, in 1823, threw an army of one hundred 
thousand men into Spain to control her domestic 
politics, England thought it necessary to counteract 
the movement by recognizing the independence of 
the Spanish provinces in America. In the remarka- 
ble language of the distinguished minister of the day, 
in order to redress the balance of power in Europe, 
he called into existence a new world in the west — 
somewhat overrating, perhaps, the extent of the de- 
rangement in the old world, and not doing full jus- 
tice to the position of the United States in America, 
or their influence on the fortunes of their sister repub- 
lics on this continent. 

" Tlius, in sixty years from the close of the seven 
years' war, Spain, like France, had lost the last re- 
mains of her once imperial possessions on this con- 
tinent. The United States, meantime, were, by the 
arts of peace and the healthful progress of things, 
rapidly enlarging their dimensions and consolidating 
their power. 

" The great march of events still went on. Some 
of the new republics, from the effect of a mixture of 
races, or the want of training in liberal institutions, 
showed themselves incapable of self-government. 
The province of Texas revolted from Mexico by the 
same right by which Mexico revolted from Spain. 
At the memorable battle of San Jacinto, in 1836, she 
passed the great ordeal of nascent states, and her 
independence was recognized by this government, by 
France, by England, and other European powers. 
Mainly peopled from the United States, she sought 
naturally to be incorporated into the Union. The 
offer was repeatedly rejected by Presidents Jackson 
and Van Buren, to avoid a collision with Mexico. 



At last the annexation took place. As a domestic 
question, it is no fit subject for comment in a com- 
munication to a foreign minister ; as a question of 
public law, there never was an extension of territory 
more naturally or justifiably made. 

" It produced a disturbed relation with the govern- 
ment of Mexico ; war ensued, and in its results other 
extensive territories were, for a large pecuniary com- 
pensation on the part of the United States, added 
to the Union. Without adverting to the divisions 
of opinion which arose in reference to this war, as 
must always happen in free countries in reference to 
great measures, no person surveying these events with 
the eye of a comprehensive statesmanship can fail to 
trace in the main result the undoubted operation of 
the law of our political existence. The consequences 
are before the world. Vast provinces, which had 
languished for three centuries under the leaden sway 
of a stationary system, are coming under the influ- 
ences of an active civilization. Freedom of speech 
and the press, the trial by jury, religious equality, and 
representative government, have been carried by the 
constitution of the United States into extensive re- 
gions in which they were unknown before. By the 
settlement of California, the great circuit of intelli- 
gence round the globe is completed. The discovery 
of the gold of that region — leading, as it did, to the 
same discovery in Australia — has touched the nerves 
of industry throughout the world. Every addition 
to the territory of the American Union has given 
homes to European destitution and gardens to Euro- 
pean want. From every part of the United King- 
dom, from France, from Switzerland and Germany, 
and from the extremest north of Europe, a march of 
immigration has been taken up, such as the world 
has never seen before. Into the United States — 
grown to their present extent in the manner de- 
scribed — but little less than half a million of the 
population of the old world is annually pouring, to 
be immediately incorporated into an industrious and 
prosperous community, in the bosom of which they 
find political and religious liberty, social position, 
employment, and bread. It is a fact which would 
defy belief, were it not the result of official inquiry, 
that the immigrants to the United States from 
Ireland alone, besides having subsisted themselves, 
have sent back to their kindred, for the three last 
years, nearly five millions of dollars annually ; thus 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



565 



doubling in three years the purchase money of Lou- 
isiana. 

" Such is the territorial development of the United 
States in the past century. Is it possible that Eu- 
rope can contemplate it with an unfriendly or jealous 
eye ? What would have been her condition in these 
trying years but for the outlet we have furnished for 
her starving millions ? 

" Spain, meantime, has retained of her extensive 
dominions in this hemisphere but the two islands of 
Cuba and Porto Rico. A respectful sympathy with 
the fortunes of an ancient ally and a gallant people, 
with whom the United States have ever maintained 
the most friendly relations, would, if no other reason 
existed, make it our duty to leave her in the undis- 
turbed possession of this little remnant of her mighty 
transatlantic empire. The president desires to do 
so ; no word or deed of his will ever question her 
title or shake her possession. But can it be expected 
to last very long ? Can it resist this mighty current 
in the fortunes of the world ? Is it desirable that it 
should do so ? Can it be for the interest of Spain to 
cling to a possession that can only be maintained by 
a garrison of twenty-five or thirty thousand troops, a 
powerful naval force, and an annual expenditure for 
both arms of the service of at least twelve millions 
of dollars ? Cuba, at this moment, costs more to 
Spain than the entire naval and military establish- 
ment of the United States costs the federal govern- 
ment. So far from being really injured by the loss 
of this island, there is no doubt that, were it peace- 
fully transferred to the United States, a prosperous 
commerce between Cuba and Spain, resulting from 
ancient associations and common language and tastes, 
would be far more productive than the best contrived 
system of colonial taxation. Such, notoriously, has 
been the result to Great Britain of the establishment 
of the independence of the United States. The de- 
cline of Spain from the position which she held in 
the time of Charles V. is coeval with the foundation 
of her colonial system ; while within twenty-five years, 
and since the loss of most of her colonies, she has en- 
tered upon a course of rapid improvement unknown 
since the abdication of that emperor. 

" I will but allude to an evil of the first magni- 
tude: I mean the African slave trade, in the sup- 
pression of which France and England take a lively 
/iterest — an evil which still forms a great reproach 



upon the civilization of Christendom, and perpetuates 
the barbarism of Africa, but for which, it is to be 
feared, there is no hope of a complete remedy while 
Cuba remains a Spanish colony. 

" But, whatever may be thought of these last sug- 
gestions, it would seem impossible for any one who 
reflects upon the events glanced at in this note to 
mistake the law of American growth and progress, 
or think it can be ultimately arrested by a convention 
like that proposed. In the judgment of the president, 
it would be as easy to throw a dam from Cape 
Florida to Cuba, in the hope of stopping the flow of 
the Gulf Stream, as to attempt, by a compact like this, 
to fix the fortunes of Cuba 'now and for hereafter;' 
or, as expressed in the French text of the convention, 
' for the present as for the future,' (pour le present 
comme pour I'avenir,) that is, for all coming time. 
The history of the past — of the recent past — affords 
no assurance that twenty years hence France or Eng- 
land will even wish that Spain should retain Cuba; 
and a century hence, judging of what will be from 
what has been, the pages which record this proposition 
will, like the record of the family compact between 
France and Spain, have no interest but for the 
antiquary. 

" Even now the president cannot doubt that both 
France and England would prefer any change in the 
condition of Cuba to that which is most to be appre- 
hended, viz., an internal convulsion which should re- 
new the horrors and the fate of San Domingo. 

" I will intimate a final objection to the proposed 
convention. M. de Turgot and Lord Malmcsbury 
put forward, as the reason for entering into such a 
compact, ' the attacks which have lately been made 
on the Island of Cuba by lawless bands of adven- 
turers from the United States, with the avowed de- 
sign of taking possession of that island.' The 
president is convinced that the conclusion of such a 
treaty, instead of putting a stop to these lawless 
proceedings, would give a new and powerful impulse 
to them. It would strike a death blow to the con- 
servative policy hitherto pursued in this country 
toward Cuba. No administration of this govern- 
ment, however strong in the public confidence in 
other respects, could stand a day under the odium 
of having stipulated with the great powers of Europe, 
that in no future time, under no change of circum- 
stances, by no amicable arrangement with Spain, by 



566 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATJES. 



no act of lawful war, (should that calamity unfortu- 
nately occur,) by no consent of the inhabitants of 
the island, should they, like the possessions of Spain 
on the American continent, succeed in rendering 
themselves independent, in fine, by no overruling ne- 
cessity of self-preservation, should the United States 
ever make the acquisition of Cuba. 

" For these reasons, which the president has thought 
it advisable, considering the importance of the sub- 
ject, to direct me to unfold at some length, he feels 
constrained to decline respectfully the invitation of 
France and England to become parties to the pro- 
posed convention. He is persuaded that these friendly 
powers will not attribute this refusal to any insen- 



sibility on his part to the advantages of the utmost 
harmony between the great maritime states on a 
subject of such importance. As little will Spain 
draw any unfavorable inference from this refusal ; 
the rather, as the emphatic disclaimer of any designs 
against Cuba on the part of this government, con- 
tained in the present note, affords all the assurance 
which the president can constitutionally, or to any 
useful purpose, give of a practical concurrence with 
France and England in the wish not to disturb the 
possession of that island by Spain. 

" I avail myself, sir, of this opportunity to assure 
you of my distinguished consideration. 

"EDWARD EVERETT." 







CHAPTER I. 

President Pierce. — luauguration and Inanirural Address. — The 
Vice-President. — Cabinet and Diplomatic Appointments. — 
Pacific Railroad. — I'^xpeditions under President Fillmore. — 
Lord John Russell and Cuba. — ■ Letter from Honorable Edward 
Everett. — Release of Maitin Koszta. — New York Crystal 
Palace Exhibition. 

Franklin Pierce, the fourteenth president, 
was born at Hillsborough, New Hamp.shire, 
November 2.3d, 1804, and was, therefore, at the 
time of his election to the presidency, forty-eight 
years of age. His fether was a soldier in the 
rervolutionary war, who, at the first call to arms, 
had left his plough and enlisted in the patriot 
cause, being present at the battle of Bunker 
Hill, and returning only at the end of the war, 
after seven years' absence. General Pierce was 
educated at Bowdoin College, in Maine, where 
be graduated in 1824. He commenced the 
study of law with the late Judge "Woodbury, 
and afterwards pursued his studies at the law 
school in Northampton, Massachusetts, and with 
the late Judge Parker of that state. When 
first admitted to practice at the bar he gained 
little distinction, and preferred the excitement 
of political life to the duller business of country 
72 



practice. He enlisted warmly in the presiden- 
tial canvass of that time, in favor of General 
Jackson. 

In 1829, Franklin Pierce, was elected a mem- 
ber of the legislature of his state, and served in 
that capacity four years, during the two latter 
being speaker of the house. He was elected a 
member of Congress in 1833. In that place 
he did not attain to a very prominent position ; 
his speeches were few, and not remarkable for 
eloquence or power. He was, however, a stanch 
supporter of the policy of his party, and he la- 
bored zealously to carry out the measures of 
General Jackson's administration. While in the 
lower house of Congress, " he took that stand 
on the slavery question, from which he has 
never since swerved a hair's breadth. He fully 
recognized, by his votes and by his voice, the 
rights pledged to the South by the constitu 
tion," — a position which in after years was duly 
acknowledged by the South, with the nomina- 
tion for the presidency. 

After serving four years in the house of repre 
sentatives, Mr. Pierce was elected to the United 
States senate in 1837, at the commencement 
of Mr. Van Buren's administration. The sen- 

(567) 



568 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



ate at that time numbered many of the ablest 
statesmen who have adoi-ned the annals of our 
country, and among such men, it could hardly be 
expected thit Mr. Pierce, who was the youngest 
member of that body, should occupy a very 
conspicuous position. He was, however, es- 
teemed by his political friends as one of the 
stanchest of their number, and as a tactician 
and party champion his ability was acknowl- 
edged by even the veteran leaders. After one 
term of service in the senate, in 1842, Mr. 
Pierce voluntarily retired from public life, and 
gave his attention to his profession. He had 
already achieved a reputation as an advocate, 
by his occasional efibrts at the bar during his 
public life, so that on his retirement from the 
senate he entered at once upon a large prac- 
tice, and soon attained to eminence in his pro- 
fession, his services being in demand on all the 
important trials which occurred in the state. 
An oifer of the appointment. to a vacancy in 
the United States senate, and a place in the 
cabinet of Mr. Polk, as attorney general, could 
not withdraw him from the extensive practice 
in which he was then engaged. 

The war with Mexico, however, drew Mr. 
Peirce from private life, and when the army 
was increased by the addition of several new 
regiments, he was appointed to the 9 th, or 
New England, regiment. He shortly after re- 
ceived the commission of brigadier-general, and 
proceeded to Vera Cruz, where he took com- 
mand of his brigade, which was to reenforce the 
army of General Scott, then on its march to the 
capital. The command of General Pierce, while 
on the march to join General Scott, was at- 
tacked at the National Bridge, and met with 
some other slight obstructions ; but it reached 
the main army in time to participate in the 
battles that took place in the neighborhood of 
Mexico. At the battle of Contreras, General 
Pierce, early in the contest, received severe in- 
iuries by the fall of his horse ; but he continued 
on the field through that day and night, and 



was at the head of his column the next, when 
the battle was continued. In the battle of 
Cherubusco, which followed, he still led his 
brigade, though suffering from his injuries, until, 
while at the head of the column and under a 
severe fire, he fainted from pain and exhaustion. 
The estimation in which General Scott held the 
services of General Pierce was shown by the 
appointment of the latter as one of the com- 
missioners to arrange the terms of the armis- 
tice, which was proposed by Santa Anna. Sub- 
sequently he wa« engaged with his command 
in the battle of Molino del Key, and would 
have been in the last battle of the war, Che- 
pultepec, had he not been taken so ill that he 
could not leave the quarters of General Worth, 
to which he was obliged to retire before the 
fight commenced. 

At the close of the war. General Pierce re- 
signed his commission, and resumed the prac- 
tice of his profession in New Hampshire, and 
he remained in this position until nominated 
for the presidency. This nomination, as has 
been already intimated, was one which occa- 
sioned some surprise to the country, as General 
Pierce's name had not been mentioned much 
in connection with that office, except among 
the shrewder managers of the party. It was, 
however, for the party, a safe nomination, and 
resulted in success. " » 

The inauguration of President Pierce took 
place March 4th, 1853. His cabinet was named 
and confirmed a few days after his inaugura- 
tion, and was composed as follows : — 

Secretary of State, Wm. L. Marcy, of N. Y. 

" " the Treasury, James Guthrie, of Ky. 

" " the Interior, Rob't McClelland, of Mich. 

" " "War, Jefferson Davis, of Miss. 

" " the Navy, James C. Dobbin, of N. C. 

Postmaster-General, James Campbell, of Penn. 

Attorney-General, Caleb Gushing, of Mass. 

The vice-president, elected with President 
Pierce, was Honorable William R. King, of Al- 
abama, who had served for more than thirty 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



569 



years, almost continuously, in Congress, or in 
other prominent positions, and was much re- 
spected for his pure character, wisdom, and ex- 
perience. He did not, however, live to enter 
upon the duties of the station to which he had 
been chosen. His health was failing at the 
time of the election, and he was seeking its 
restoration in Cuba at the time of the inaugu- 
ration of the new administration. But, on the 
2d of March, in order to provide against any 
question of succession which might arise in the 
event of a vacancy in the presidency, Congress 
passed an act authorizing the oath of office to 
be' administered to him while abroad. This 
was accordingly done at the x\riadne estate, 
near Matanzas, in Cuba, on the 24th of March, 
1853. Mr. King's health continued to decline, 
and he had barely sufficient strength to reach 
his home in Alabama, where he died on the 
18th of April. 

Some of the principal diplomatic apjDoint- 
ments, subsequently made, were, — 

James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, to Great Britain. 
Thomas H. Seymour, of Connecticut, to Russia. 
James Gadsden, of South Carolina, to Mexico. 
Pierre A. Soul^, of Louisiana, to Spain. 
Solon Borland, of Arkansas, to Central America. 
Peter D. Vroom, of New Jersey, to Prussia. 
William Trousdale, of Tennessee, to Brazil. 

Few administrations have come into power 
under more favorable circumstances than that 
of President Pierce. The country had passed 
through the severe political struggle arising 
from the acquisition of new territories, and 
culminating in the compromises of 1850, and 
after the presidential canvass, which was also 
an exciting one, the people seemed to desire 
repose from this sort of contests, and were dis- 
posed to look with favor upon the course of the 
new administration. His inaugural address and 
his first annual message, therefore, in their allu- 
sions to this state of things, afforded much sat^ 
isfaction, and a strong hope that, the agitation 
having ceased, the aim of the government, in all 



its departments, would be directed to its legiti- 
mate pui'poses — the promotion of the varied 
interests of the whole country. In his inau- 
gural address President Pierce declared, " that 
to every theory of society or of government, 
whether the offspring of feverish ambition or 
of morbid enthusiasm, calculated to dissolve 
the bonds of law and affection which unite us, 
I shall oppose a ready and stern resistance." 

The compromise measures of 1850 he held 
to be strictly constitutional, and to be unhesi- 
tatingly carried into effect, — that they are to 
be respected and obeyed, not with a reluctance 
encouraged by abstract opinions as to their 
propriety in a different state of society, but 
cheerfully, and according to the decisions of 
the tribunal to which their exposition belongs. 

The views expressed on the part of the ad- 
ministration, and acquiescence on the part of 
the people of all sections, in the present posi- 
tion of the great questions which had agitated 
them, indicated that years of peace might en- 
sue, and men hoped that while the country 
advanced in material prosperity a better feel- 
ing would eventually lead to a more friendly 
and satisfactory solution of old difficulties. 
Subsequent events, however, proved that these 
hopes were delusive. 

The president, in his inaugural, also expressed 
his views in regard to subjects of interest to the 
nation, thus in some degree indicating the pol- 
icy to be pursued by his administration. On the 
subject of extended territory, multiplication of 
states, and increased population, which had 
been in earlier days regarded with some fore- 
bodings, he believed that experience had shown 
that these apprehensions were unfounded, and 
he declared, " The policy of my administration 
will not be controlled by any timid forebodings 
of evil from expansion. Indeed, it is not to be 
disguised, that our attitude as a nation, and our 
position on the globe, render the acquisition 
of certain possessions, not within our jurisdic- 
tion, eminently important for our protection, 



070 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



if not, in the future, essential for our preserva- 
tion of the rights of commerce and the peace 
of the world. Should they be obtained, it will 
be throifgh no grasping spirit, but with a view 
to obvious national interest and security, and 
in a manner entirely consistent with the strict- 
est observance of national faith." 

He said, further, that the policy of our coun- 
try ought to be eminently peaceful, and with 
the neiohboring nations on our continent we 
should cultivate kindly and fraternal relations, 
while, on the other hand, we should avoid be- 
coming entangled in the politics of Europe. 
In this connection President Pierce declared, 
that " the rights, security, and repose of this 
confederacy, reject the idea of interference or 
colonization, on this side of the ocean, by any 
foreign power, beyond present jurisdiction, as 
\itterly inadmissible." The other topics of the 
address were, for the most part, such as ma}' be 
usually found in such a document, — the rela- 
tions of the government to the people, of the 
states to the Federal Union, of office holders to 
the administration, etc., in which the political 
views of the party are set forth with such 
moderation and modifications as may satisfy 
friends and not exasperate foes. As a whole, 
the inaugural was acceptable to the country, 
and, as before stated, a season of domestic 
peace and progress was anticipated. 

Shortly before the close of the session of 
Congress in March, 185-3, an appropriation of 
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars was 
made to defray the expenses of surveys of 
various routes for a railroad from the Missis- 
sippi to the Pacific — an object which had I'e- 
ceived the encouragement of Mr. Fillmore's 
administration. For these surveys six parties 
Avere organized by the war department, to ex- 
plore four main routes ; the}' were early in the 
field, and were completely organized for a thor- 
ough exploration. The first, under the com- 
mand of Governor I. I. Stevens, was to survey 
the line of the forty-seventh parallel, or what is 



termed the northern route. The second, under 
the command of Captain J. W. Gunnison, took 
the line of the thirty-eighth, thirty-ninth, and 
forty-first parallels. Captain Gunnison, how- 
ever, with two of his officers, was killed by the 
Indians, and Captain E. G. Beckwith succeeded 
to his command. The third party, under Cap- 
tain A. W. Whipple, took the line of the thirty- 
fiifth parallel. The fourth party, under Lieu- 
tenant E. S. Williamson, surveyed the California 
portion of the routes to San Francisco. The 
fifth and sixth, under Captain J. Pope and 
Lieutenant J. G. Parke, surveyed the thirty- 
second parallel, or southern route. These sur- 
veys were made with efficiency, and valuable 
geological, zoological, and botanical collections 
were made. The reports of these several ex- 
peditions, though tardy in their preparation 
and apparently of little practical importance, 
so far as their original object was concerned, 
have^ added much to the geography and nat- 
ural history of the regions explored. 

It may be proper here to allude to several 
other expeditions which were initiated and 
organized under President Fillmore, whose 
administration thus did much to develop the 
resources of our own country, and to open oth- 
ers to its commerce. The expedition to Japan, 
under Commodore Perry, has already been 
alluded to, and its results will be mentioned 
hereafter. Besides this, expeditions were sent 
to explore the valley of the Amazon, to explore 
the La Plata and the Paraguay and Parana 
Rivers far into the interior of South America, 
and a party was also sent to explore the Red 
River, and the country which it drains, while 
other similar works of minor importance were 
also encouraged. 

The letter of Mr. Everett, then secretary of 
state, rejecting the proposal made by France 
and England for a tripartite treaty relative to 
the Island of Cuba, (page 560,) called out a 
letter from Lord John Ru.ssell in reply to the 
positions taken by Mr. Everett. The letter 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



571 



was a despatch to Mr. Cramptou, the British 
minister at Washington, and was subsequently 
laid before the government, but was not con- 
sidered as demanding any reply. In it his 
lordship says, — 

'•' The object of the argument, introduced by 
Mr. Everett with so much preparation, and 
urged with so much ability, is clearly to pro- 
cure the admission of a doctrine, that the 
United States have an interest in Cuba, to 
which Great Britain and France cannot pre- 
tend. If the object of the United States is sim- 
ply to prevent Cuba from falling into the hands 
of any European power, the convention pro- 
posed would secure that end. But if it is 
intended to maintain that Great Britain and 
France have no interest in the maintenance of 
the present status of Cuba, and that the United 
States alone have a right to a voice in that 
matter, the British government at once refuses 
to admit such a claim. Her possessions in the 
West Indies, to say nothing of the interests of 
Mexico and other friendlv states, oive Great 
Britain an interest in the question which she 
cannot forego : and France has similar inter- 
ests, which she will doubtless urge at the proper 
time." 

The distinguished minister then endeavors 
to controvert the arguments and weaken the 
positions of Mr. Everett, the force of which ap- 
pears to have been felt by the British ministry. 
In conclusion, he says, " While fully admitting 
the right of the United States to reject the 
proposal, Great Britain must at once resume 
her entire liberty, and upon any occasion that 
may call for it, be free to act singly or in 
conjunction with other powers, as to her may 
seem fit." 

Although this despatch did not seem to re- 
quire any further discussion of the question on 
the part of the government, (the administra- 
tion apparently taking the same position as 
that of its predecessor on this question,) Mr. 
Everett took occasion to reply, individually, to 



Lord John Russell ; and as his letter relates to 
a subject of importance, and serves to enforce 
his former arguments, the following extracts 
are not out of place in these pages : — 

"Boston, September 17, 1853. 

"My Lord: Your despatch of the 16th 
February last to Mr. Crampton has lately 
appeared in our public papers. As it is in 
reality, if not in form, a reply to my letter of 
the 1st December, 18-52, on the subject of 
Cuba, I regret that it was not prepared and 
sent before my retirement from the department 
of state. But though I must now do it as a 
private individual, I feel as if it were to some 
extent my duty to answer it. I shall endeavor 
to do so in a manner consistent with my sin- 
cere respect for your public character, and a 
lively recollection of your personal kindness 
during my residence in England. 

" Before remarking on the contents of your 
letter, I will observe that, though it contains 
some courteous expressions, its tone is, upon 
the whole, not quite as conciliatory as might 
have been expected, considering that my letter 
of the 1st December was altogether respectful 
and friendly towards the two powers, both in 
form and in substance. I have heard that in 
presenting this correspondence to parliament 
you indulged ' in some sarcastic remarks,' but 
I have not seen any report of them. Your 
despatch is not free from a shade of sarcasm 
in one or two sentences. This I shall endeavor 
to avoid in reply, not that it would be difficult 
to follow you into that field, but because I can- 
not think that an encounter of wits between 
us would be an edifying spectacle, or one wh'ch 
would promote any desirable national object. 

" You say, that in my letter of the 1st Decem- 
ber I entered into ' arguments not required by 
the simple nature of the question before me;' 
and the length of my letter has been com- 
plained of in other quarters. The question 
propounded to us was certainly in one sense 



572 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



simple, as every question is that can be an- 
swered ' Yes ' or ' No.' But liow various, com- 
plicated, and important the interests and rela- 
tions involved in it! Besides, the organ of 
every government must be the only judge of 
the proper-length and relevancy of his replies 
to the communications of foreign powers. * * 

" You say that ' it occurs to her Majesty's 
government to ask for what purpose are these 
arguments introduced with so much prepara- 
tion and urged with so much ability ; ' and you 
answer the question in the following manner : 
' It would appear that the purpose, not fully 
avowed, hut liardlij concealed, is to procure the 
admission of a doctrine, that the United States 
have an interest in Cuba, to which Great Brit- 
ain and France cannot pretend.' 

" Here a little unintentional injustice is done 
to my letter, in which it is distinctly stated, 
more than once, for reasons set forth at length 
and very partially controverted by you, that 
the government of the United States consid- 
ered the condition of Cuba 'as mainly an 
American question,' in which they had a very 
deep interest, and you a very limited one. 
Not only was no attempt whatever made to 
conceal this doctrine, but it was fully avowed 
and reasoned out in my letter of the 1st De- 
cember, 1852. * * * 

" But though the United States certainly 
consider that they have 'an interest in the 
condition of Cuba, to which Great Britain and 
France cannot pretend,' it is not, either in my 
letter, nor in any other American state paper 
within my recollection, assumed that Great 
Britain and France have '■no interest in the 
maintenance of the present statu quo, and that 
the United States alone have a right to a voice 
in the matter.' Our doctrine is, not that we 
have an absolutely exclusive interest in the 
subject, but that we have a far deeper and 
more immediate interest than France or Eng- 
land can possibly lay claim to. A glance at 



the map, one would think, would satisfy every 
impartial mind of this truth. 

" In order to establish for France and Eng- 
land an equal interest with the United States 
in the condition of Cuba, you say, ' Great 
Britain is in possession, by treaty, of the Island 
of Trinidad, which in the last century was a 
colony of Spain. France was in possession at 
the commencement of this century of Louis- 
iana by voluntary cession of Spain.' It is true 
that Spain was compelled by France to cede 
Trinidad to Great Britain by the treaty of 
Amiens. If, while this cession was in agitation, 
— as it was for some time, — the United States 
and any other neutral power (if there was any 
other) had exerted themselves to defeat it, and 
had invited you and France to bind yourselves 
by a perpetual compact never to acquire it, the 
interference, I apprehend, would have been 
regarded as worse than gratuitous. I cannot 
see why we have not as good a right to obtain, 
if we can, from Spain, the voluntary cession of 
Cuba, as you had to accept the compulsory 
cession of Trinidad, which is, by position and 
strength, the Cuba of the south-eastern Antilles. 

" France was, as you say, at the begmnmg 
of this century, in possession of Louisiana, by 
the voluntary cession of Spain. This posses- 
sion, however, (nominal at best,) did not take 
place till seven months after France had sold 
Louisiana to the United States for eighty mil- 
lions of francs, and it lasted only from the 30th 
November to the 20th December, 1803. The 
object of France in acquiring Louisiana, was to 
reestablish herself in the interior of this coun- 
try — an object, I need not say, as menacing to 
your North American possessions as to the 
United States. Is it possible you can think 
such a possession of Louisiana for such a pur- 
pose a sufficient ground on the part of France 
for interfering with our relations with Cuba? 
May she, a European power, without consulting 
us, obtain from Spain, in 1800, a cession of 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



573 



half the habitable portion of North America, 
— a cession -which threw her for fifteen hun- 
dred miles on our western frontier, and not 
only shut us out from the Pacific, but enabled 
her to close the Mississippi; and is it so very 
unreasonable in us to decline her invitation to 
bind ourselves for all time not to accept the 
cession of an island which lies within thirty- 
five leagues of our coast? Does she even 
derive her right thus to control our relations 
with Cuba in 1853 from her twenty days' pos- 
session of Louisiana in 1803 ? What can be 
clearer than that whatever right accrued to 
her from that three weeks' possession (which 
was a mere ceremonial afl'air, to give form to 
the transfer of the province to the United 
States) must have passed to us by that trans- 
fer, followed by our actual possession and oc- 
cupation for half a century ? * * * 

" The expeditions to which you allude, as 
calculated to excite the 'reprobation of every 
civilized state,' were discountenanced by the 
president in every constitutional and legal way. 
The utmost vigilance was at all times em- 
ployed, but, unhappily for the adventurers 
themselves, without effect. In this there is 
matter neither for wonder nor reproach. The 
territory of the United States is but little less 
than the whole of Europe ; while their popula- 
tion is not quite equal to that of the United 
Kingdom, and their standing military force 
small, and scattered over an immensely exten- 
sive frontier. Our government, like that of 
England, is one of law ; and there is a great 
similarity between the laws of the two coun- 
tries which prohibit military expeditions 
against the possessions of friendly powers. In 
fact your foreign enlistment act of 1819 was 
admitted by Mr. Canning to have been founded 
in part on our neutrality law of the preceding 
year. Of the two, I believe our laws are the 
more stringent ; but it is somewhat difficult to 
enforce them in both countries. 

" These expeditions, got up in the United 



States by a Spanish general, and supposed to 
indicate a lawless disposition on the part of the 
American people, comprised a very small num- 
ber of persons, some of whom were foreigners, 
enjoying the same freedom of action in the 
United States, that refugees from every part 
of the continent enjoy in England. The same 
reproach which is cast upon us for these expe- 
ditions is, at this moment, cast upon England 
by the continental powers. Events which have 
occurred in London since your despatch was 
written, strikingly illustrate the difficulty and 
the risk, under constitutional governments, of 
preventing abuses of that hospitality which it 
is the privilege and boast of such governments 
to extend to all who seek it. 

" There is, no doubt, widely prevalent in this 
country a feeling that the people of Cuba are 
justly disaffected to the government of Spain. 
A recent impartial French traveller, M. Ampere, 
confirms this impression. All the ordinary 
political rights enjoyed in free countries are 
denied to the people of that island. The gov- 
ernment is, in principle, the woi'st form of des- 
potism, namely, absolute authority delegated 
to a military viceroy, and supported by an army 
from abroad. I speak of the nature of the 
government, and not of the individuals by 
whom it is administered ; for I have formed a 
very favorable opinion of the personal char- 
acter of the present captain-general, as of one 
or two of his predecessors. Of the bad faith 
and the utter disregard of treaties with which 
this bad government is administered, your com- 
mittees on the slave trade have spoken plainly 
enough at the late session of parliament. 
Such being the state of things in Cuba, it does 
not seem to me very extraordinary or re- 
proachful, that, throughout the United States, 
a handful of misguided young men should be 
found ready to join a party of foreigners, 
headed by a Spanish general, who was able to 
persuade them, not as you view it, ' by armed 
invasion to excite the obedient to revolt and 



574 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



the tranquil to disturbance,' but, as they were 
led to believe, to aid an oppressed people in 
their struggle for freedom. There is no reason 
to doubt that there are, at this moment, as 
many persons, foreigners as well as natives, in 
England, who entertain these feelings and 
opinions as in the United States ; and if Great 
Britain lay at a distartf;e of one hundred and 
ten miles from Cuba, instead of thirty-five 
hundred, you might not, with all your repres- 
sive force, find it easy to prevent a small 
.steamer, disguised as a trading vessel, from 
slipping off from an outport in the night, on 
an unlawful enterprise. The expedition of 
General Torrijos, in 1831, as far as illegality is 
concerned, is the parallel of that of General 
Lopez. It was fitted out in the Thames, with- 
out interruption till the last moment, and 
though it then fell under the grasp of the 
police, its members succeeded in escaping to 
Spain, where, for some time, they found shelter 
at Gibraltar. It is declared, in the last number 
of the Quarterly Eeview, to be ' notorious, that 
associations have been formed in London for 
the subversion of dynasties with which England 
is at peace; that arms have been purchased 
and loans proposed ; that " central committees " 
issue orders from England, and that Messrs. 
Mazzini and Kossuth have established and pre- 
side over boards of regency for the Koman 
States and Hungary, and for the promotion of 
revolution in every part of the world.'' I have 
before me a list, purporting to be taken from a 
Prussian police gazette, of fifteen associations 
of continental refugees organized in London, 
and now in action, for the above-mentioned 
purposes. * * * 

" Considjer, too, the recent antecedents of the 
powers that invite us to disable ourselves to 
the end of time from the acquisition in any 
way of this natural appendage to our conti- 
nent. France, within the present century, to 
say nothing of the acquisition of Louisiana, 
has wrested a moiety of Europe from its native 



sovereigns ; has possessed herself, by force of 
arms, and at the time greatly to the discontent 
of England, of six hundred miles of the north- 
ern coast of Africa, with an indefinite exten- 
sion into the interior ; and has appropriated to 
herself one of the most important insular 
groups of the Pacific. England, not to mention 
her other numerous recent acquisitions in every 
part of the globe, has, even since your despatch 
of the 16th February was written, annexed 
half of the Burman empire to her overgrown 
Indian possessions, on grounds — if the state- 
ments in Mr. Cobden's pamphlet are to be relied 
upon — compared, with which the reasons 
assigned by Russia for invading Turkey are 
respectable. 

"The United States do not require to be 
advised of *' the utility of those rules for the 
observance of international relations, which for 
centuries have been known to Europe by the 
name of the law of nations.' They are known 
and obeyed by us under the same venerable 
name. Certain circumstances in our history 
have caused them to be studied more generally 
and more anxiously here than in Europe. 
From the breaking out of the Avars of the 
French revolution to the year 1812, the United 
States knew the law of nations only as the vic- 
tims of its systematic violation by the great 
maritime powers of Europe. For these viola- 
tions on the part of England, prior to 1794, 
indemnification was made under the seventh 
article of Jay's treaty. For similar injuries on 
the part of France, we were compelled to 
accept an illusory set-off, under the convention 
of 1800. A few years only elapsed, before a 
new warfare upon our neutral rights was com- 
menced by the two powers. One hundred 
millions at least of American property Avere 
swept from the seas, under the British orders 
in council, and the French Berlin and Milan 
decrees. These orders and decrees were at the 
time reciprocally declared to be in contraven- 
tion of the law of nations by the two powers 



r-3 








^ 

M 



-II 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



575 



themselves, each speaking of the measures of 
the other party. In 1831, after the generation 
of the original sufferers had sunk under their 
ruined fortunes to the grave, France acknowl- 
edged her decrees to have been of that char- 
acter, by a late and partial measure of indem- 
nification. For our enormous losses under the 
British orders in council, we not only never 
received indemnification, but the sacrifices and 
sufferings of war were added to those spolia- 
tions on our commerce and invasion of our 
neutral rights which led to its declaration. 
Those orders were at the time regarded by the 
Lansdownes, the Barings, the Broughams, and 
the other enlightened statesmen of the school 
to which you belong, as a violation of right 
and justice as well as of sound policy ; and 
within a very few years the present distin- 
guished lord chief justice, placed by yourself 
at the head of the tribunals of England, has 
declared that ' the orders in council were griev- 
ously unjust to neutrals, and it is now generallij 
alhtved, tJiat tliey were contrary to the hiv of nations 
and our own municipal laiv ! ' 

" That I call, my Lord, to borrow your ex- 
pression, ' a melancholy avowal ' for the chief 
of the jurisprudence of a great empire, though 
highly creditable for the candor with which it 
is made. Acts of its sovereign authority, coun- 
tenanced by its parliament, rigidly executed by 
its fleets on every sea, enforced in the courts 
of admiralty by a magistrate whose learning 
and eloquence are among the modern glories 
of England, persisted in till the lawful com- 
merce of a neutral and kindred nation was 
annihilated, and pronounced, by the highest 
legal authority of the present day, contrary 
not merely to the law of nations, but your own 
municipal law ! 

" Under these circumstances, the government 
and people of the United States, who have 
never committed or sanctioned a violation of 
the law of nations against any other power, 
may well think it out of place, that they should 
7-3 • 



be instructed by an English minister in ' the 
utility of those rules which for centuries have 
been known to Europe by the name of the 
law of nations.' * * * 

'•' You will not, I hope, misapprehend the 
spirit in which this letter is written. As an 
American citizen, I do not covet the acquisition 
of Cuba, either peaceably or by force of arms. 
When I cast my thoughts back upon our brief 
history as a nation, I certainly am not led to 
think that the -United States have reached the 
final limits of their growth, or, what comes to 
very much the same thing, that representative 
government, religious equality, the trial by 
jury, the freedom of the press, and the other 
great attributes of our Anglo-Norman civiliza- 
tion are never to gain a further extension in 
this hemisphere. I regard the inquiry, under 
what political organization this extension is to 
take place, as a vain attempt to penetrate the 
inscrutable mysteries of the future. It will, if 
we are wise, be under the guidance of our ex- 
ample ; I hope it will be in virtue of the peace- 
ful arts, by which well-governed states extend 
themselves over unsettled or partially settled 
continents. My voice was heard at the first 
opportunity, in the senate of the United States, 
in favor of developing the almost boundless 
resources of the territory already in our pos- 
session, rather than seeking to enlarge it by 
aggressive wars. Still I cannot think it rea- 
sonable — hardly respectful — on the part of 
England and France, while they are daily 
extending themselves on every shore and in 
every sea, and pushing their dominions, by new 
conquests, to the uttermost ends of the earth, 
to call upon the United States to bind them- 
selves, by a perpetual compact, never, under 
any circumstances, to admit into the Union an 
island which lies at their doors, and commands 
the entrance into the interior of their continent. 

" I remain, my Lord, with the highest respect, 

faithfully yours, 

"Edwaed Everett." 



576 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



An event which caused considerable excite- 
ment, in the summer of 1853, was the seizure 
of Martin Koszta by the Austrian officials at 
Smyrna, and his subsequent release through 
the bold measures of Captain Ingraham, of the 
United States ship St. Louis. Koszta was an 
Hungarian by birth, who was one of the exiles 
from that country after its unsuccessful strug- 
gle for independence in 1848-9, and came 
to this country in 1850. After remaining here 
about two years he made declaration of his 
intention of becoming a citizen of the United 
States, and returned to Turkey on private busi- 
ness of a temporary character, claiming the 
protection of the government as a naturalized 
American citizen. While at Smyrna, and under 
the letter of safe conduct of the American con- 
sul, he was forcibly seized by some tools of the 
Austrian government, and carried on board an 
Austrian brig of war lying in the harbor, where 
he was confined in irons. The American con- 
sul at Smyrna and the American minister at 
Constantinople interfered in behalf of the pris- 
oner, but without avail, and it had become known 
in Smyrna that there was a design on the part 
of the Austrians to convey him to Trieste, with- 
in the dominions of their emperor. But fortu- 
nately, just at that juncture, the United States 
ship St. Louis, Captain Ingraham, came into 
the harbor of Smyrna, and after making due 
inquiry into the state of affairs. Captain Ingra- 
ham took measures to secure the release of the 
prisoner, who claimed the protection of his flag. 
He found that there was evidence of bad faith 
on the part of the Austrians ; for while he was 
inquiring into the justice of Koszta's claim to 
American protection, they were preparing to 
hurry him away clandestinely. He therefore 
placed his ship alongside of the Austrian brig, 
with his guns shotted, and fully prepared to 
enforce his demand that the prisoner should be 
given up by a certain hour. This bold position 
settled the matter. Koszta was delivered into 
the custody of the French consul-general, by 



agreement, to await the settlement of the affair 
by the two governments, and he was subse- 
quently released and returned to the United 
States. This affair was the subject of diplo- 
matic correspondence between the Austrian 
minister. Chevalier Hulseman, and Mr. Marcy, 
in which the former, who had been before so 
completely overwhelmed by Mr. Webster, was 
again wholly discomfited. The purpose shown 
by the American government, to protect all who 
could claim American nationality, was hailed 
with pleasure throughout the country, and sent 
a thrill to many a heart among the liberals of 
Europe. 

Another event of the year 1853, which may 
be worthy of chronicling, was the opening of a 
great "Exhibition of the Industry of all Na- 
tions," at the Crystal Palace in New York. 
This exhibition was of a similar character to 
the " World's Fair " in London two years before, 
though not on quite so extensive a scale. The 
" palace," however, was a handsome structure^ 
and afforded accommodations for a very large 
exhibition. At the opening, the president of 
the United States with his cabinet, the earl of 
Ellesmere, Sir Charles Lyell, and other distin- 
guished gentlemen from Europe, were present. 
It was an exhibition of very gi-eat interest, and 
during the several months that it was open 
was visited by thousands, and undoubtedly pro- 
duced many good results by encouraging the ■ 
sciences, fine arts, and mechanic arts of the 
country. 



CHAPTER II. 

Thirty-third Congress. — President's Message. — Sectional Agi- 
tation. — Kansas-Nebraska Bill. — Mr. Douglas. — Excitement 
on the Question. — Missouri Compromise. — Colonel Benton. 
— Mr. Douglas's Amendment adopted, and Missouri Compro- 
mise declared void. — Emigration to Kansas. — Emigrant Aid 
Societies. — Governors of Kansas and Nebraska. — Missouri 
Border War. — Election Frauds. 

The thirty-third Congress assembled in De- 
cember, 1853. Senator Atchison, who, accord-. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



577 



ing to custom, had been chosen president of 
the senate previous to the preceding 4th of 
March, occupied the chair made vacant by the 
death of Vice-President King, and Mr. Linn 
Boyd was chosen speaker of the house of rep- 
resentatives. President Pierce's message dis- 
cussed at considerable length the various ques- 
tions of foreign and domestic policy which 
concerned the country, taking in some instances 
positions quite opposed to those of the preced- 
ing administration, as was expected. On the 
subject of sectional agitation, which seemed to 
have subsided to a great extent, the president 
wrote as follows : — 

" It is no part of my purpose to give prom- 
inence to any subject which may properly be 
regarded as set at rest by the deliberate judg- 
ment of the people. But while the present is 
bright with promise, and the future full of de- 
mand and inducement for the exercise of active 
intelligence, the past can never be without use- 
ful lessons of admonition and instruction. If 
its dangers serve not as beacons, they will evi- 
dently fail to falfil the object of a wise design. 
When the grave shall have closed over all who 
are now endeavoring to meet the obligations 
of duty, the year 1850 will be recurred to as a 
period filled with anxious apprehension. A 
successful war had just terminated. Peace 
brought with it a vast augmentation of territo- 
ry. Disturbing questions arose, bearing upon 
the domestic institutions of one portion of the 
confederacy, and involving the constitutional 
rights of the states. But, notwithstanding dif- 
ferences of opinion and sentiment, which then 
existed in relation to details and specific j)ro- 
visions, the acquiescence of distinguished citi- 
zens, whose devotion to the Union can never 
be doubted, has given renewed vigor to our 
institutions, and restored a sense of repose and 
security to the public mind throughout the 
confederacy. That this repose is to suffer no 
shock during my official term, if I have power 
to avert it, those who placed me here may be 



assured. The wisdom of men who knew what 
independence cost — who had put all at stake 
upon the issue of the revolutionary struggle 
— disposed of the subject to which I refer in 
the only way consistent with the union of these 
states, and with the march of power and pros- 
perity which has made us what we are. It is 
a significant fact, that from the adoption of the 
constitution until the officers and soldiers of 
the revolution had passed to their graves, or, 
through the infirmities of age and wounds, had 
ceased to participate actively in public affairs, 
there was not merely a quiet acquiescence in, 
but a prompt vindication of, the constitution- 
al rights of the states. The reserved powers 
were scrupulously respected. No statesman put 
forth the narrow views of casuists to justify in- 
terference and agitation, but the spirit of the 
compact was regarded as sacred in the eye of 
honor, and indispensable for the great experi- 
ment of civil liberty, which, environed by in- 
herent difficulties, was yet borne forward in 
apparent weakness by a power superior to all 
obstacles. There is no condemnation which 
the voice of freedom will not pronounce upon 
us, should we prove fiiithless to this great trust. 
While men inhabiting different parts of this 
vast continent can no more be expected to hold 
the same opinions, or entertain the same senti- 
ments, than every variety of climate or soil 
can be expected to furnish the same agricul- 
tural products, they can unite in a common 
object and sustain common principles essential 
to the maintenance of that object. The gallant 
men of the south and the north could stand 
together during the struggle of the revolution ; 
they could stand together in the more trying 
moment which succeeded the clangor of arm.s. 
As their united valor was adequate to all the 
trials of the camp and dangers of the field, so 
their united wisdom proved equal to the great- 
er task of founding, upon a deep and broad 
basis, institutions which it has been our privi- 
lege to enjoy, and will ever be our most sacred 



578 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



duty to sustain. It is but the feeble expression 
of a faith strong and universal, to say that their 
sons, whose blood mingled so often upon the 
same fields during the war of 1812, and who 
have more recently borne in triumph the flag 
of the coimtry upon a foreign soil, will never 
permit alienation of feeling to weaken the 
power of their united efforts, nor internal dis- 
sensions to paralyze the great arm of freedom, 
uplifted for the vindication of self-government." 
The hopes cherished by these sentiments, 
however, seemed doomed to a speedy disap- 
pointment. Early in the session sectional agi- 
tation was again aroused by the course of a 
leading member of the administration party. 
Mr. Douglas reported a bill to establish the 
territorial government of Nebraska, and subse- 
quently a modified bill for the establishment 
of two territories, Nebraska and Kansas. That 
bill was designed to recognize the right of the 
people of the territory to settle the question 
of slavery for themselves, and it extended over 
the new territories the constitution and laws 
of the United States, " except the eighth sec- 
tion of the act for the a,dmission of Missouri 
into the Union." That section provided that 
slavery should not exist in any new state or 
territory north of 36° 20' north, the southern 
boundary of Missouri. By this new bill that 
section which was known as the Missouri com- 
promise was declared to have been " superseded 
by the principles of the legislation of 1850, 
commonly called the compromise measures." 
The purpose of this portion of the bill was more 
distinctly stated in a subsequent amendment 
offered by Mr. Douglas, to the effect that the 
Missouri compromise, being " inconsistent with 
the principles of non-intervention by Congress 
with slavery in the states and territories as rec- 
ognized by the legislation of 1850, commonly 
called ' The Compromise Measures,' is hereby 
declared inoperative and void, it being the true 
intent and meaning of this act, not to legislate 
slavery into any territory or state, nor to ex- 



clude it therefrom, but to leave the people 
thereof perfectly free to form and regulate 
their domestic institutions in their own way, 
subject only to the constitution of the United 
States." 

Then commenced a sectional storm more 
serious than any which had preceded it. It 
followed close upon the declarations of Pres- 
ident Pierce that the harmony of the states 
should not be disturbed. In its inception, how- 
ever, the Kansas act was not an administration 
measure ; but in the course of events the 
administration became committed to its sup- 
port, as a party measure. The bill was stren- 
uously opposed in Congress, and as earnestly 
supported, for several months before it finally 
passed. Senators Cha^e of Ohio and Sumner 
of Massachusetts, with several members of the 
house of representatives, issued au address to 
the country, denouncing the measure in the 
strongest terms, " as a gross violation of a 
sacred pledge ; as a criminal betrayal of pre- 
cious rights ; as part and parcel of an atrocious 
plot to exclude from a vast unoccupied region 
emigrants from the old world, and free laborers 
from our own states, and to convert it into a 
dreary region of despotism, inhabited by mas- 
ters and slaves." Counter addresses and 
speeches were also circulated, especially at the 
south. The public mind throughout the coun- 
try soon became aroused to the importance of 
the measure, and inflamed Avith the feelings 
which natm\ally grew out of a discussion of 
this kind. The argument, common to most of 
the opponents of the bill, that the repeal of 
the Missouri compromise was a breach of faith 
on the part of the slave states, a violation of a 
sacred compact, was pressed with great vigor 
and ability, both in and out of Congress ; a very 
large number of the members of both houses 
speaking upon the subject, and the press being 
filled with heated discussion. 

But arguments and discussion did not avail 
much. The men who had made the compro- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



579 



mise, and who had looked upon it in the light 
of a compact, had for the most part passed 
away, and those now upon the stage regarded 
it only as an expedient of the time when it 
was adopted. There were some, however, who 
still regarded the Missouri compromise — what 
it really was intended to be — as a law of more 
than ordinary force, and as, in truth, a solemn 
compact between the free and the slave states. 
Among these was Colonel Benton, who had 
entered public life at the time of the compro- 
mise, and Avho still adhered to it as one of the 
three great measures by which the Union had 
been formed and its harmony preserved, — the 
first being the ordinance of 1787, and the sec- 
ond the federal constitution. Colonel Benton, 
now a member of the house of representatives, 
and nearly or quite the last of the generation 
of statesmen which succeeded the men of the 
revolution, protested ably against the passage 
of the act. But neither his earnestness nor 
the eloquence of others could stay the current 
which carried the administration party and 
southern Whigs for the new measure. The 
amendment offered by Mr. Douglas, which de- 
clared the Missouri compromise inoperative 
and void, was adopted in the senate by a vote 
of thirty-five to nine, and the bill subsequently 
passed by a vote of thirty-seven to fourteen. 
Later in the session the bill, with an amend- 
ment allowing aliens to vote, was passed by 
the house by a vote of one hundred and thir- 
teen to one hundred, but not till after a most 
determined struggle against it, and on one 
occasion a session of thirty-six consecutive 
hours, during which the minority availed them- 
selves of all possible parliamentary tactics to 
prevent the passage of the bill without a full 
opportunity for debate. The majority were 
obliged to yield on that point, but they also 
resorted to similar means to prevent amend- 
ments, and to secure the passage of the bill in 
the desired form. The senate, after some de- 
bate, agreed to the amended bill, and so the 



new policy with regard to the territories was 
inaugurated. From this time the new terri- 
tory of Kansas became the centre of interest 
in political affairs. It was the border ground 
on which the policy or principle of " popular 
sovereignty " was to be tested. By the Mis- 
souri compromise slavery had been excluded 
from it, although alongside of Missouri. Now 
it was open for a struggle between the free 
state and slave state settlers. 

While the Kansas and Nebraska bill was being 
debated in Congress and exercising the public 
mind throughout the country, as a matter of 
course preparations were made for emigrating 
to the new territories. Parties of emigrants 
were organized in many of the western states, 
and were ready to enter the territories so 
soon as spring should permit. At this time, 
too, in view of the increased emigration — 
already immense — from the Atlantic states to 
the west, emigrant aid societies were formed. 
The first of these societies was formed in Ma.s- 
sachusetts, and this was "soon followed by others 
in Connecticut, New York, and other states. 
The object was to assist emigrants by reducing 
their travelling expenses, protecting them from 
imposition, and advising them with regard to 
the location of their claims, etc. This was 
done by organizing companies of emigrants, 
who were conducted by agents of the aid soci- 
eties. Unquestionably the emigrant aid soci- 
eties directed their attention .more particularly 
to the settlement of Kansas with free state 
settlers, and were the offspring of the new pol- 
icy,, which, in truth, invited to a race between 
the northern and southern emigrants. The 
organization of the societies at the north led to 
similar movements in the slave states, where 
emigration was organized to some extent on 
the principle ascribed to the northern societies 
— that of forcing their institutions upon the 
new territories. 

Soon after the passage of the act, Francis 
Burt, of South Carolina, was appointed the first 



D80 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



governor of Nebraska, and A. H. Keeder, of 
Pennsylvania, the first governor of Kansas. 
The governments were duly organized, and the 
contest, which had imaged at the Capitol, was 
transferred to the new territories. Nebraska, 
the more northern and less attractive of the 
two, at first received the tide of emigration 
from the free states ; but the more inviting 
plains and climate of Kansas, with the prospect 
of making it a free state, and perhaps love of 
adventure, induced many who had first gone 
to Nebraska to proceed to Kansas. Soon it 
became apparent that Kansas would be the 
scene of the struggle between free and slave 
labor, and emigrants went there as well from 
political reasons as on account of its greater 
natural advantages. 

But before the tide of emigration had begun 
to flow from the older states, citizens of Mis- 
souri, residing along the border of that state, 
entered Kansas, took claims, held meetings in 
which they took action as settlers in the new 
territory, and in favor of establishing slavery 
there, and then returned to their homes, leaving 
a few men to take care of their interests. 
These acts on the part of citizens of Missouri 
Avere by no means few or limited, and possess- 
ing the advantages of neighborhood, and, in 
many cases, of influence at Washington, they 
were enabled to set up their claims to many 
of the most valuable tracts of land in the ter- 
ritory, as soon as treaties with the Indians had 
opened them to the white settlers. 

Governor Reeder arrived in Kansas in Octo- 
ber, 1854. In the following month an election 
was held for the choice of a delegate to Con- 
gress. At this election a large number of the 
people of the border counties in Missouri went 
over the boundary and voted at the various 
precincts. Mr. Whitfield, a gentleman nom- 
inated in Missouri, was elected, and it appeared 
at a subsequent investigation by a committee 
in Congress, that the illegal votes from Missouri 
considerably exceeded the whole number of 



legal votes of the territory. The proceedings 
at this election served to exasperate the free 
state settlers and their friends in the states, and 
the animosities of the conflicting parties in 
Kansas and throughout the country became 
more and more aroused as charges and recrim- 
inations followed. And thus the settlers en- 
tered upon their first winter in Kansas, sub- 
jected to the rigors of a civil contest as well as 
of the season. 



CHAPTER III. 

Mexican Boundary. — Gadsden Treaty. — Relations with Spain. 
— Black Warrior Affair. — Scheme for Annexation of Cuba. — 
Fillibustering Expedition. — Mr. Soule, Minister to Spain. — 
His Course. — Ostend Conference. — Reciprocity Treaty with 
Great Britain. — Presidential Vetoes. — Results of Expedition 
to Japan. — Treaty. — Central American Affairs. — Bombard- 
ment of Greytown. — Southern Commercial Convention. — 
Supposed Schemes to extend Slavery. — Party Changes. — 
" Know Nothings." 

The boundary line between the United States 
and Mexico had not, up to the first session of 
the thirty-third Congress, (1853-4,) been settled 
satisfactorily, under the treaty of Guadalupe 
Hidalgo. There had been a diflference of opin- 
ion between the commissioner and surveyor on 
the part of the United States, with regard to 
the initial point on the Rio Grande, the former 
fixing it considerably farther north than the 
latter. This was considered a mistake by the 
government, and the Mexicans taking a still 
more northern boundary, a dispute arose upon 
this and some other matters between the two 
governments. The minister appointed to Mex- 
ico by President Pierce, Mr. Gadsden, had 
received special instructions, with a view to a 
settlement of the matters in dispute. He suc- 
ceeded in negotiating a treaty which added a 
large territory to the United States. The 
treaty as negotiated was very much modified 
by the senate when submitted to that body ; 
the area of territorv to be annexed to the 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



581 



United States being diminished, and the sum 
to be paid by the United States for this terri- 
tory, and in consideration of being released 
from the obligation to protect the Mexican 
frontier from the Indians, being reduced to ten 
million dollars instead of twenty million dollars. 

The boundary between the two republics, 
retaining the old line between the two Califor- 
nias, was established by this treaty as follows : 
"Beginning in the Gulf of Mexico, three 
leagues from land, opposite the mouth of the Kio 
Grande, as provided in the fifth article of the 
treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ; thence, as de- 
fined in said article up the middle of that river 
to the point where the parallel of 31° 47' north 
latitude crosses the same ; thence due west one 
hundred miles ; thence south to the parallel of 
31° 20' north latitude ; thence along the said 
parallel of 31° 20' to the one hundred and 
eleventh meridian of longitude w'est of Green- 
wich ; thence in a straight line to a point on 
the Colorado River twenty English miles below 
the junction of the Gila and Colorado Rivers ; 
thence up the middle of said River Colorado 
until it intersects the present line between the 
United States and Mexico." This line added 
to the United States a territory much exceed- 
ing many of the Atlantic states in area, and 
subsequently, the inhabitants thereof peti- 
tioned that it might be set off from New Mexico 
and erected into a new territory under the 
name of Arizona. The request, however, was 
not granted, on the ground that the population 
was so small there was no necessity for a new 
territorial government. This treaty also par- 
tially conceded a grant for a railroad route 
across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, made pro- 
vision for the payment of claims, and secured 
other privileges to the citizens of the United 
States. The treaty, however, even in its mod- 
ified form, and the bill appropriating the ten 
million dollars to carry it into effect, were not 
passed without considerable debate. 

The relations between the United States and 



Spain were somewhat disturbed, in the spring 
of 1854, by a new difficulty at Havana. The 
steamer Black Warrior, on her way from New 
Orleans to New York, touched as usual at Ha- 
vana to leave and receive passengers. This 
steamer had previously aroused some suspi- 
cions, probably without much cause, on the 
part of the Cuban authorities, and on this 
occasion, finding some cotton on board, although 
her manifest certified she had no cargo, they 
declared the cargo confiscated. The owners 
represented that it was not usual to name 
in the manifest any cargo not intended for 
Havana, and that this case had only been ac- 
cording to repeated precedents. They also 
claimed the right of twelve days' time to cor- 
rect any error in the manifest; but this was 
refused, and the commander of the steamer 
hauled down his flag and abandoned the vessel 
to the Spanish authorities. This affair at once 
aroused the indignation of the people of the 
United States, and in the Southern States the 
excitement was intense for a time. It was 
demanded that the neutrality laws should be 
suspended, so far as Spain was concerned ; and 
had such action been taken, an overwhelming 
force of volunteers would soon have been 
organized to make a descent upon Cuba. 
Some very strong speeches were made in Con- 
gress in favor of this or an}^ other mode of 
seizing Cuba, and thus removing at once the 
source of many troubles. But Congress was 
occupied much with the important domestic 
questions which agitated the country, and did 
not act in haste. Some time after the occur- 
rence of the Black Warrior affaii-. Senator Sli- 
dell, of Louisiana, introduced a resolution au- 
thorizing the president to suspend the opera- 
tion of the neutrality laws, so far as Spain is 
concerned, whenever in his judgment such a 
measure should be expedient. This resolution, 
supported as it was by a speech, which ex- 
pressed strong sentiments against the supposed 
attempts of France and England to secure the 



b82 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, 



abolition of slavery in Cuba, and in favor of 
annexing the island to the United States, 
excited no little attention, both at home and 
abroad, especially as at this time Mr. Soule was 



pressing 



our demands for redress against the 



government at Madrid, and probably with some 
vehemence. The resolution was referred to 
the committee on foreign relations; but before 
any action was taken upon the subject, lawless 
men in some parts of the country were pre- 
paring to carry out the idea which Mr. Slidell's 
resolution suggested, and the president was 
obliged to issue a proclamation against the 
attempts which were being made to organize 
and fit out " a military expedition for the in- 
vasion of Cuba." This proclamation, and the 
instructions given to the civil and military offi- 
cers, together, perhaps, with the remembrance 
of the fate of Lopez, had the effect to prevent 
another foolhardy descent upon the coveted 
island. But it was still hoped by some that 
the relations between the two governments 
would become so unfriendly, that such attempts 
would soon not only not be forbidden, but 
encouraged. Such a hope, perhaps, received 
some encouragement from the character and 
known sentiments of Mr. Soule. the American 
minister at Madrid. Prior to his departure 
from the United States he addressed a company 
of Cuban exiles in New York, when he ex- 
pressed himself in the strongest terms of sym- 
pathy with their cause, and avowed Ijimself in 
favor of annexing Cuba, and of doing every 
thing in his power which became the dignity 
of the United States to secure the result de- 
sired. At Madrid, Mr. Soule pressed the Amer- 
ican claims for indemnity with much warmth, 
and was charged with rendering himself obnox- 
ious in other ways to the Spanish government. 
He also had a serious misunderstandinsr with 
the secretary of the legation, which did not in 
its expose add much to the credit of American 
diplomacy at the court of Madrid. After a 
visit to England, the French government pro- 



hibited him from entering France, having, it 
was said, taken offence at some of his acts 
which expressed sympathy with revolutionary 
schemes. This prohibition was the cause of 
some diplomatic correspondence, and the order 
was subsequently modified so as to permit Mr. 
Soule to jiass through France, but not to make 
any sojourn there. It was hoped on the one 
hand, and feared on the other, that the mission 
of such a diplomatist at Madrid would pre- 
cipitate matters so as to lead to the acquisi- 
tion of Cuba, either by conquest or purchase. 
But such a result was not brought about at 
this time. 

It appears, however, that the subject of the 
acquisition of Cuba was seriously entertained by 
the administration ; and while Mr. Soule was 
envoy to Spain, a conference was held between 
Mr. Buchanan, envoy to England, Mr. Mason, 
envoy to France, and Mr. Soule, pursuant to 
certain confidential instructions sent to them 
by the administration. This conference, known 
as the " Ostend conference," was held at Ostend, 
in Belgium, and subsequently at Aix-la-Chapelle, 
in Prussia. The various subjects of difficulty 
between the United . States and Spain relative 
to Cuba were considered, and the result appears 
in the following despatch to the secretary of 
state, signed by the several ministers above 
named: This document proposed and advo- 
cated the acquisition of Cuba. The internal 
condition of the country, however, appears to 
have prevented any earnest attempt to carry 
out the proposition, even if the administration 
was ready to assume the responsibility of such 
a measure. 

Mr. Soule to Mr. Marey. 

" United States Legation to Spain, ) 
London, October 20, 1854. J 

" Sir : Herewith I have the honor to transmit 
to you a joint communication from Mr. Bu- 
chanan, Mr. Mason, and myself, embodying the 
result of our deliberations on the subject about 
which we had been desired to confer together. 



1 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



583 



" The issues, witli reference to which we were 
instructed to express our judgment, were of too 
momentous an import not to tax all the dis- 
cernment and discretion in our power; and it 
was with a deep sense of solemn responsibility 
that we entered upon the duties which had 
been assigned to us. 

" May we have accomplished our task in a 
manner not imworthy of the great object for 
which it was conferred on us ! 

" My colleagues have had a full view of the 
difficulties and dangers which the question pre- 
sents; and you will see that they have not 
hesitated to join me in the expression of senti- 
ments according strikingly with the intimations 
repeatedly thrown out in your despatches 
to me. 

"I do not know if we shall be found suffi- 
ciently explicit in the language through which 
we have attempted to convey our impressions ; 
I trust, however, that it will be found suffi- 
ciently free from ambiguity to.Jeave no room 
even for a doubt as to its true meaning. 

"The question of the acquisition of Cuba by 
us is gaining ground as it grows to be more 
seriously agitated and considered. Now is the 
moment for us to be done with it ; for if we 
delay its solution, we will certainly repent that 
we let escape the fairest opportunity we could 
ever be furnished with of bringing it to a de- 
cisive test. 

" Present indications would seem to encour- 
age the hope that we may come to that solu- 
tion peaceably. 

" But if it were otherwise — if it is to bring 
upon us the calamity of a war — let it be now, 
while the great powers of this continent are 
engaged in that stupendous struggle which 
cannot but engage all their strength, and tax 
all their energies, as long as it lasts, and may, 
before it ends, convulse them all. 

" Neither England nor France would be likely 
to interfere with us. 
74 



" England could not bear to be suddenly shut 
out of our market, and see her manufactures 
paralyzed, even by a temporary suspension of 
her intercourse with us. 

" And France, with the heavy task now on 
her hands, and when she so eagerly aspires to 
take her seat as the acknowledged chief of the 
European family, would have no inducement to 
assume the burden of another war, nor any 
motive to repine at seeing that we took in our 
keeping the destinies of the new world, as she 
will soon have those of the old. 

" I close this despatch in haste, as I have no 
time left me to carry it further. 

"Mr. McRae leaves for Liverpool within a 
few minutes. I intrust to him details which 
could not have easily found a place here, nor 
in the other despatch. He will impart to yon 
what of my mind I am not able to pour out in 
these lines. 

" Respectfully yours, 

"Pierre Soule. 

" Hon, William L. Marcy, Secretary of State, Sjc." 

» 

Joint Communication from Mr. Buchanan, Mr. Mason, 
• and Mr. Soiile. 

" Aix-la-Chapelle, October 18, 1854. 

" Sir : The undersigned, in compliance with 
the wish expressed by the president in the sev- 
eral confidential despatchef^you have addressed 
to us, respectively, to that effect, have met, in 
conference, first at Ostend, in Belgium, on the 
9th, 10th, and 11th inst., and then at Aix-la- 
Chapelle, in Prussia, on the days next following, 
up to the date hereof 

" There has been a full and unreserved inter- 
change of views and sentiments between us, 
which we are most happy to inform you has 
resulted in a cordial coincidence of opinion on' 
the grave and important subjects submitted to 
our consideration. 

" We have arrived at the conclusion, and are 
thoroughly convinced, that an immediate and 
earnest effort ought to be made by the govern- 



584 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



ment of the United States to purchase Cuba 
from Spain at any price for which it can be 
obtained, not exceeding the sum of 
dollars. 

" The proposal should, in our opinion, be 
made in such a manner as to be presented 
through the necessary diplomatic forms to the 
Supreme Constituent Cortes about to assemble. 
On this momentous question, in which the peo- 
ple both of Spain and the United States are so 
deeply interested, all our proceedings ought to 
be open, frank, and public. They should be of 
such a character as to challenge the approba- 
tion of the world. 

" We firmly believe that, in the progress of 
human events, the time has arrived when the 
vital interests of Spain are as seriously in- 
volved in the sale, as those of the United 
States in the purchase, of the island, and that 
the transaction will prove equally honorable to 
both nations. 

" Under these circumstances we cannot an- 
ticipate a failure, unless possibly through the 
malign influence of foreign powers who possess 
no riirht whatever to interfere in the matter. 

" We proceed to state some of the reasons 
which have brought us to this conclusion, and, 
for the sake of clearness, we shall specify them 
under two distinct heads : — 

" 1. The United States ought, if practicable, 
to purchase Cuba with as little delay as possible. 

" 2. The probability is great that the govern- 
ment and Cortes of Spain will prove willing to 
sell it, because this would essentially promote 
the highest and best interests of the Spanish 
people. 

" Then, 1. It must be clear to every reflecting 
mind that, from the peculiarity of its geo- 
graphical position, and the considerations at- 
tendant on it, Cuba is as necessary to the North 
American republic as any of its present mem- 
bers, and that it belongs naturally to that great 
family of states of which the Union is the 
providential nursery. 



" From its locality it commands the mouth 
of the Mississippi, and the immense and annu- 
ally increasing trade which must seek this 
avenue to the ocean. 

" On the numerous navigable streams, meas- 
uring an aggregate course of some thirty thou- 
sand miles, which disembogue themselves 
through this magnificent river into the Gulf 
of Mexico, the increase of the population with- 
in the last ten years amounts to more than that 
of the entire Union at the time Louisiana was 
annexed to it. 

" The natural and main outlet to the prod- 
ucts of this entire population, the highway of 
their direct intercourse with the Atlantic and 
the Pacific states, can never be secure, but 
must ever be endangered, whilst Cuba is a de- 
pendency of a distant power, in whose possession 
it has proved to be a source of constant an- 
noyance and embarrassment to their interests. 

" Indeed, the Union can never enjoy repose, 
nor possess reliable security, as long as Cuba is 
not embraced within its boundaries. 

"Its immediate acquisition by our govern- 
ment is of paramount importance, and we can- 
not doubt but that it is a consummation de- 
voutly wished for by its inhabitants. 

" The intercourse which its proximity to our 
coasts begets and encourages between them 
and the citizens of the United States, has, in 
the progress of time, so united their interests 
and blended their fortunes, that they now look 
upon each other as if they were one people, 
and had but one destiny. 

" Considerations exist which render delay in 
the acquisition of this island exceedingly dan- 
gerous to the United States. 

" The system of immigration and labor lately 
organized within its limits, and the tyrann}' and 
oppression which characterize its immediate 
rulers, threaten an insurrection at every mo- 
ment which may result in direful consequences 
to the American people. 

" Cuba has thus become to us an unceasing 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



585 



danger, and a permanent cause of anxiety and 
alarm. 

" But we need not enlarge on these topics. 
It can scarcely be apprehended that foreign 
powers, in violation of international law, would 
interpose their influence with Spain to prevent 
our acquisition of the island. Its inhabitants 
are now suffering under the worst of all possi- 
ble governments — that of absolute despotism, 
delegated by a distant power to irresponsible 
agents, who are changed at short intervals, and 
who are tempted to improve the brief oppor- 
tunity thus aflfbrded to accumulate fortunes by 
the basest means. 

"As long as this system shall endure, hu- 
.manity may in vain demand the suppression 
of the African slave trade in the island. This 
is rendered impossible whilst that infamous 
traffic remains an irresistible temptation and a 
source of immense profit to needy and avari- 
cious officials, who, to attain their ends, scruple 
not to trample the most sacred principles 
under foot. 

" The Spanish government at home may be 
well disposed, but experience has proved that 
it cannot control these remote depositaries of 
its power. 

" Besides, the commercial nations of the 
world cannot fail to perceive and appreciate 
the great advantages which would result to 
their people from a dissolution of the forced 
and unnatural connection between Spain and 
Cuba, and the annexation of the latter to the 
United States. The trade of England and 
France with Cuba would, in that event, assume 
at once an important and profitable character, 
and rapidly extend with the increasing popula- 
tion and prosperity of the island. 

" 2. But if the United States, and every 
commercial nation, would be benefited by this 
transfer, the interests of Spain would also be 
greatly and essentially promoted. 

" She cannot but see what such a sum of 
money as we are willing to pay for the iialand 



would effect in the development of her vast 
natural resources. 

" Two thirds of this sum, if employed in the 
construction of a system of railroads, would 
ultimately prove a source of greater wealth to 
the Spanish people than that opened to their 
vision by Cortez. Their prosperity would date 
from the ratification of the treaty of cession. 

" France has already constructed continuous 
lines of railways from Havre, Marseilles, Valen- 
ciennes, and Strasbourg, via Paris, to the Span- 
ish frontier, and anxiously awaits the day when 
Spain shall find herself in a condition to extend 
these roads through her northern provinces to 
Madrid, Seville, Cadiz, Malaga, and the frontiers 
of Portugal. 

" This object once accomplished, Spain would 
become a centre of attraction for the ti'avelling 
world, and secure a permanent and profitable 
market for her various productions. Her fields, 
imder the stimulus given to industry by remu- 
nerating prices, would teem with cereal grain, 
and her vineyards would bring forth a vastly 
increased quantity of choice wines. Spain 
would speedily become, what a bountiful Prov- 
idence intended she should be, one of the first 
nations of continental Europe — rich, powerful, 
and contented. 

" Whilst two thirds of the price of the island 
would be ample for the completion of her most 
important public improvements, she might, 
with the remaining forty millions, satisfy the 
demands now pressing so heavily upon her 
credit, and create a sinking fund which would 
gradually relieve her from the overwhelming 
debt now paralyzing her energies. 

"Such is her present wretched financial con- 
dition, that her best bonds are sold upon her 
own Bourse at about one third of their par 
value ; whilst another class, on which she pays 
no interest, have but a nominal value, and are 
quoted at about one sixth of the amount for 
which they were issued. Besides, these latter 
ai'e held principally by British creditoi's, who 



586 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



may, from day to day, obtain the eflfective 
interposition of their own government for the 
purpose of coercing payment. Intimations to 
that effect have been ah'eady thrown out from 
high quarters, and unless some new source of 
revenue shall enable Spain to provide for such 
exigencies, it is not improbable that they may 
be realized. 

" Should Spain reject the present golden 
opportunity for developing her resources, and 
removing her financial embarrassments, it may 
never again return. 

" Cuba, in its palmiest days, never yielded 
her exchequer, after deducting the expenses of 
its government, a clear annual income of more 
than a million and a half of dollars. These 
expenses have increased to such a degree as to 
leave a deficit chargeable on the treasury of 
Spain to the amount of six hundred thousand 
dollars. 

" In a pecuniary point of view, therefore, the 
island is an encumbrance, instead of a source 
of profit, to the mother country. 

" Under no probable circumstances can Cuba 
ever yield to Spain one per cent, on the large 
amount which the United States are willing to 
pay for its acquisition. But Spain is in immi- 
nent danger of losing Cuba, without remu- 
neration. 

" Extreme oppression, it is now universally 
admitted, justifies any people in endeavoring 
to relieve themselves from the yoke of their 
oppressors. The sufferings which the corrupt, 
arbitrary, and unrelenting local administration 
necessarily entails upon the inhabitants of 
Cuba, cannot fail to stimulate and keep alive 
that spirit of resistance and revolution against 
Spain, which has, of late years, been so often 
manifested. In this condition of affairs it is 
vain to expect that the sympathies of the peo- 
ple of the United States will not be warmly 
enlisted in favor of their oppressed neighbors. 

" We know that the president is justly inflex- 
ible in his determination to execute the neu- 



trality laws ; but should the Cubans themselves 
rise in revolt against the oppression which they 
suffer, no human power could prevent citizens 
of the United States and liberal-minded men 
of other countries from rushina: to their assist- 
ance. Besides, the present is an age of adven- 
ture, in which restless and daring spirits abound 
in every portion of the world. 

"It is not improbable, therefore, that Cuba 
may be wrested from Spain by a successful 
revolution ; and in that event she will lose both 
the island and the price which we are now 
willing to pay for it — a price far beyond what 
was ever paid by one people to another for 
any province. 

"It may also be remarked that the settle^ 
ment of this vexed question, by the cession of 
Cuba to the United States, wx)uld forever pre- 
vent the dangerous complications between na- 
tions, to which it may otherwise give birth. 

" It is certain that, should the Cubans them- 
selves organize an insurrection against the 
Spanish government, and should other inde- 
pendent nations come to the aid of Spain in the 
contest, no human power could, in our opinion, 
prevent the people and government of the 
United States from taking part in such a civil 
war in support of their neighbors and friend.s. 

" But if Spain, dead to the voice of her own 
interest, and actuated by stubborn pride and a 
false sense of honor, should refuse to sell Cuba 
to the United States, then the question will 
arise. What ought to be the course of the 
American government under such circum- 
stances ? 

" Self-preservation is the first law of nature, 
with states as well as with individuals. All 
nations have, at different periods, acted upon 
this maxim. Although it has been made the 
pretext for committing flagrant injustice, as in 
the partition of Poland, and other similar cases 
which history records, yet the principle itself, 
though often abused, has always been rec- 
ognized. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



587 



" The United States have never acquired a 
foot of territory except by fair purchase, or, as 
in the case of Texas, upon the free and volun- 
tary application of the people of that independ- 
ent state, who desired to blend their destinies 
with our own. 

" Even our acquisitions from Mexico are no 
exception to this rule, because, although we 
might have claimed them by the right of con- 
quest in a just war, yet we purchased them for 
what was then considered by both parties a 
full and ample equivalent. 

" Our past history forbids that we should 
acquire the Island of Cuba without the consent 
of Spain, unless justified by the great law of 
self-preservation. We must, in any event, pre- 
serve our own conscious rectitude and our own 
self-respect. 

" Whilst pursuing this course we can afford 
to disregard the censures of the world, to which 
we have been so often and so unjustly exposed. 

" After we shall have offered Spain a price 
for Cuba far beyond its present value, and this 
shall have been refused, it will then be time to 
consider the question. Does Cuba, in the posses- 
sion of Spain, seriously endanger our internal 
peace and the existence of our cherished 
Union ? 

" Should this question be answered in the 
affirmative, then, by every law, human and 
divine, we shall be justified in wresting it from 
Spain if we possess the power ; and this upon 
the very same principle that would justify an 
individual in tearing down the burning house 
of his neighbor if there were no other means 
of preventing the flames from destroying his 
own home. 

" Under such circumstances we ought neither 
to count the cost nor regard the odds which 
Spain might enlist against us. We forbear to 
enter into the question, whether the present 
condition of the island would justify such a 
measure. We should, however, be recreant to 



our duty, be imworthy of our gallant fore- 
fathers, and commit base treason against our 
posterity, should Ave permit Cuba to be Afri- 
canized and become a second St. Domingo, with 
all its attendant horrors to the white race, and 
suffer the flames to extend to our own neigh- 
boring shores, seriously to endanger or actually 
to consume the fair fabric of our Union. 

" We fear that the course and current of 
events are rapidly tending towards such a 
catastrophe. We, however, hope for the best, 
though we ought certainly to be prepared for 
the worst. 

" We also forbear to investigate the present 
condition of the questions at issue between the 
United States and Spain. A long series of 
injuries to our people have been committed in 
Cuba by SjDanish officials, and are unredressed. 
But recently a most flagrant outrage on the 
rights of American citizens and on the flag of 
the United States was perpetrated in the har- 
bor of Havana, under circumstances which, 
without immediate redress, would have justified 
a resort to measures of war in vindication of 
national honor. That outrage is not only un- 
atoned, but the Spanish government has delib- 
erately sanctioned the acts of its subordinates, 
and assumed the responsibility attaching to 
them. 

"Nothing could more impressively teach us 
the danger to which those peaceful relations it 
has ever been the policy of the United States 
to cherish with foreign nations are constantly 
exposed than the circumstances of that case. 
Situated as Spain and the United States are, 
the latter have forborne to resort to extreme 
measures. 

" But this course cannot, with due regard to 
their own dignity as an independent nation, 
continue ; and our recommendations, now sub- 
mitted, are dictated by the firm belief that the 
cession of Cuba to the United States, with stip- 
ulations as beneficial to Spain as those sug- 



588 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



gested, is the only effective mode of settling 
all past differences, and of securing the two 
countries against future collisions. 

" We have already witnessed the happy re- 
sults for both countries which followed a sim- 
ilar arrangement in regard to Florida. 
" Yours, very respectfully, 

" James Buchanan, 
"J. Y. Mason, 
" Pierre Soule. 

"Hon. William L. Marcy, Secretary of State." 

During this year (1854) another treaty was 
negotiated between the United States and 
Great Britain, providing for commercial reci- 
procity between the states and the British 
provinces. This treaty opened the British fish- 
eries, with the exception of those of New- 
foundland, to American fishermen, and gave 
the British fishermen a right to participate in 
American fisheries as far as the thirty-sixth 
degree of north latitude. It also provided for 
free commerce between the provinces and the 
United States, in flour, breadstuff's, fruits, fish, 
lumber, animals, and many other articles in an 
unmanufactured state. Further provisions were 
made for free navigation of rivers, and an 
effort towards a reciprocal opening of canals. 
This treaty was required to be ratified by the 
several provincial legislatures, which was 
promptly done, and the requisite steps were 
taken to carry out its provisions. Advantages 
■were reaped on both sides, but it has generally 
been considered that, from the nature of the 
case, the British provinces have been the 
greatest gainers. Nevertheless, at a much 
more recent date, they have proposed to lay a 
tariff on many articles received through the 
United States under the reciprocity treaty, with 
a view of encouraging the commerce of their 
own ports. This policy, if carried out, of 
course ends the reciprocity so far, and may lead 
to an abrogation of the treaty entirely. 

Among the acts passed by the- thirty-third 



Congress, at its first session, was one granting 
ten million acres of the public lands to the 
several states for the benefit of the indigent 
insane. This bill was vetoed by the president, 
who expressed at length his objections to its 
provisions. He denied that the constitution 
conferred any power on the general govern- 
ment to make such appropriations, and consid- 
ered that it would be a dangerous precedent, 
and would lead to a reversal of the true theory 
of the government. He feared, moreover, that 
if Congress were thus to assume the offices of 
charity which properly belong to the local 
authorities, the several states, instead of relying 
on their own resources for such objects, would 
become suppliants for the bounty of the fed- 
ei'al government, and that the fountains of 
charity would thus be dried up at home. He 
objected, further, that the public lands are held 
for the common benefit of the several states, 
and that they are also pledged for the payment 
of certain portions of the public debt. He 
therefore was opposed to the principle of the 
bill, both on the ground of right and expe- 
diency. 

Another bill which passed through both 
houses of Congress was one making appropria- 
tions for the repair, preservation, and comple- 
tion of certain public works of internal im- 
provement. This bill, which passed at the 
close of the session, was also vetoed by the 
president, but he did not give his reasons for 
so doing until the next session, when he sent a 
message to Congress on this subject. In this 
message the president expressed his strong 
opposition to any internal impi'ovements by 
the federal government, and his vetoes showed 
that he was disposed to adhere to a strict con- 
struction of the powers of Congress to make 
appropriations for any thing beyond the wants 
of the government. 

The expedition to Japan, under Commodore 
Perry, which had sailed in 1852, for the pur- 
pose of attempting to open that country to 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



589 



American commerce, as mentioned in a preced- 
ing book, (page 633,) succeeded in accomplish- 
ing its purpose. Commodore Perry arrived in 
the Japanese waters, with quite a formidable 
squadron, in the summer of 1853, when, with 
much formality, for the purpose of impressing 
the Japanese, he delivered the president's letter 
to officers appointed to receive it. Having 
done this he left, with the declaration that he 
should return for a reply, and to accomplish his 
mission by negotiating a treaty. The next 
winter he accordingly returned to the Bay of 
Yedo with his squadron, and met certain Jap- 
anese -commissioners who were appointed to 
confer with him. He then received an answer 
from the imperial government in reply to the 
president's letter, and subsequently (March 31, 
1854) negotiated a treaty of amity, which was 
the_ first step towards opening this hitherto 
secluded country to the western nations. The 
following is the reply to the president's letter, 
which is important as being the first step on 
the part of the Japanese government towards 
acceding to the wishes of " outside " nations : — 

Translation of Ansiver to the Letter of the President to the 
Emperor of Japan. 

" The return of your excellency as ambassa- 
dor of the United States to this empire has 
been expected, according to the letter of his 
majesty the president, which letter your excel- 
lency delivered last year to his majesty the 
emperor of this empire. 

"It is quite impossible to give satisfactory 
answers at once to all the proposals of your 
government, as it is most positively forbidden 
by the laws of our imperial ancestors ; but for 
us to continue attached to the ancient laws, 
seems to misunderstand the spirit of the age ; 
however, we are governed now by imperative 
necessity. 

" At the visit of your excellency last year to 
this empire, his majesty, the former emperor, 



was sick, and is now dead. Subsequently, his 
majesty, the present emperor, ascended the 
throne ; the many occupations in consequence 
thereof are not yet finished, and there is no 
time to settle other business thoroughly. More- 
over, his majesty, the new emperor, at the 
accession to the throne, promised to the princes 
and high officers of the empire to observe the 
laws. It is therefore evident that he cannot 
now bring about any alteration in the ancient 
laws. 

" Last autumn, at the departure of the Dutch 
ship, the superintendent of the Dutch trade in 
Japan was requested to inform your govern- 
ment of this event, and a reply in writing has 
been received. 

"At Nagasaki arrived recently the Eussian 
ambassador to communicate a wish of his gov- 
ernment. He has since left the said place, 
because no answer would be given to any 
nation that might communicate similar wishes. 
However, we admit the urgency of, and shall 
entirely comply with, the proposals of your 
government concerning wood, water, jDrovis- 
ions, and the saving of ships and their crews in 
distress. After being informed which harbor 
your excellency selects, the harbor shall be 
prepared; which preparation, it is estimated, 
will take about five years. Meanwhile, a com- 
mencement can be made with the coal at Na- 
gasaki by the next Japanese first month, (Sio- 
goots) [16th of February, 1855.] 

"Having no precedent with respect to coal, 
we request your excellency to furnish us with 
an estimate, and, upon due consideration, this 
will be complied with, if not in opposition to 
our laws. What do you understand by provis- 
ions, and how much coal ? 

" Finally, any thing ships may be in want of, 
that can be furnished from the productions of 
this empire, shall be supplied ; the prices of 
merchandise and articles of barter to be fixed 
by Kurakawa Kahei and Morgama Yenoske. 



590 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



After settling the points before mentioned, the 
treaty can be concluded and signed at the next 
interview. 

" Seals attached by order of the high gen- 
tlemen. MORGAMA YeNOSKE." 

The treaty was negotiated on the basis of 
the treaty between the United States and 
China. It opened certain ports in Japan, to a 
certain extent, for American vessels, and se- 
cured to Americans certain privileges not pre- 
viously enjoyed by any foreigners in the way 
of obtaining supplies of provisions, water, and 
coal. Although no great advantages were to 
be derived immediately from this treaty, it is 
pi'obably the foundation of increasing and im- 
portant benefits in the future. Eussia, France, 
and England, encouraged by the success of the 
American expedition, followed in the same 
course, and negotiated similar treaties. More 
recently, important concessions have been ob- 
tained by new treaty engagements negotiated 
by Mr. Townshend Harris, the United States 
consul and diplomatic agent in Japan, who has 
also aided the English in securing a favorable 
treaty. 

A less satisfactory expedition was that of the 
United States ship Cyane, which the govern- 
ment considered it necessary to send to San 
Juan del Norte, or Greytown, in Nicaragua, to 
punish the inhabitants or rulers for certain 
offences against the property and rights of 
the " Transit Company " — a company com- 
posed of Americans, but organized under au- 
thority from the Nicaraguan government, for 
the transportation of passengers across the 
isthmus. In anticipation of the establishment 
of this route, a considerable number of adven- 
turers had settled in the old Spanish town at 
the mouth of the River San Juan, and at first 
claiming allegiance to the pretended sovereign 
of the Mosquito territory, afterwards assumed 
an independent position. They claimed juris- 



diction over Punta Arenas, a place on the 
opposite side of the river, where the depot of 
the Transit Company was located, and which 
was held by a title from the Nicaraguan gov- 
ernment. The company resisted the claim, 
and thereupon a petty warfare and robbery 
was commenced by the people, and, perhaps, 
by the authorities of Greytown, as the town 
was now called. These things had proceeded to 
such a pass, that the interposition of the gov- 
ernment was deemed necessary to protect the 
lives and property of American citizens. There 
appeared, however, to be a difficulty in dealing 
Avith this affair, as the people of Greytown held 
no allegiance to any established government 
of which the United States could claim indem- 
nity for losses or security in the future. They 
stood before the world as it were upon " suf 
ferance," and were regarded by the United 
States government as a band of marauders, to 
be treated as outlaws. Whether this con- 
clusion was just, we cannot here decide ; but 
acting on this judgment, the government sent 
the slooi>ofwar Cyane to support a demand 
that the people of Greytown should repair the 
injuries done to the ' citizens of the United 
States, and make apology for an insult which 
they had offered to the United States minister 
to Nicaragua. The demand was made, and the 
commander of the Cyane made every exertion 
to obtain an adjustment, without resorting to 
extreme measures ; but his efforts failed. He 
then took measures to guard against a loss of 
life, and bombarded the town, almost or wholly 
destroying its buildings, and a considerable 
amount of property. This transaction was the 
subject of complaint on the part of some for- 
eign powers, the property of whose subjects, it 
was alleged, was destroyed by the bombard- 
ment. These complaints, however, were satis- 
fiictorily disposed of by Mr. Marcy, who argued 
that the people, or authorities of Greytown, 
were the parties liable for the losses. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



591 



The assembling of a convention of delegates 
from several of the southern states, at Charles- 
ton, in April, 1854, is an event which should 
be recorded, rather on account of the expecta- 
tions of those interested, than of any impoi*- 
tant results which have as yet followed. It 
was held for the purpose of devising measures 
to promote the interests and independence of 
the slaveholding section of tlie Union. The 
project of a railroad to the Pacific by a south- 
ern route was the principal topic of discussion, 
and the opinion of the convention was that 
such a road ought to be constructed by the 
Southern States. Eesolutionswere also adopted 
in favor of acquiring the right to navigate the 
River Amazon, of promoting manuflictures in 
the south, and of opening direct commercial 
intercourse with Europe ; the object of all 
being to make the Southern States independent 
of the Northern States. Since that time sev- 
ei'al similar conventions have been held for the 
same purpose, and various interests of the 
Southern States have been discussed, even to 
a reopening of the slave trade. The conven- 
tions have all passed resolutions in favor of 
measures to promote the prosperity and inde- 
pendence of the slaveholding states, but the 
practical results have not been very manifest. 

It was perhaps the language used in the 
Charleston convention, as well as by the south- 
ern press, together with the Cuban invasions 
which were known to be attempted, and other 
events of the year, and the recent repeal of 
the Missouri compromise, that induced the 
opponents of the latter measure in Congress, 
in a protest which they issued subsequent to 
its passage, to ascribe that passage to a scheme 
which " looked to a wider extension of slavery 

— to the annexation of Cuba and portions of 
Mexico at any cost, whether of money or blood 

— to a war with England, France, and Spain, 
and an alliance with Eussia — to the immediate 
annexation of the eastern portion of St. Do- 
mingo, with a view to the ultimate conquest of 

75 



the whole island — to an alliance with Brazil, 
and the extension of slavery in the valley of 
the Amazon — and, finally, to the withdrawal 
of the slaveholding states from the Union, and 
the establishment of a separate empire in the 
central regions of the continent." This protest 
was assailed with ridicule and severity by rep- 
resentatives of the Southern States. Whether 
such schemes were widely considered or not, 
the results have not been altogether realized, 
though it is by no means improbable that some 
such designs really occupied the minds of a few. 
The year 1854 was a memorable one in the 
history of parties in the United States, and 
some most imexpected revolutions took place, 
in which a new party, popularly styled " Know 
Nothings," succeeded to the power held by the 
Whigs or Democrats in different states and cities. 
Ten or twelve years before this, a strong senti- 
ment of opposition to political action by per- 
sons of foreign birth had grown up, especially 
in some of the large cities. This feeling led to 
some serious collisions between native citizens 
and foreigners, and riot and bloodshed followed. 
A Native American party was organized, and 
in some places, as in Philadelphia, partially 
succeeded for a time. But issues of more 
general interest to the country, and of more 
pressing consequence, overshadowed this ques- 
tion, which affected directly only portions of 
the country, and the Native American party 
gradually resolved into its original elements. 
But the elements still existed, and it seems that 
it was only necessary that an opportimity 
should offer for them to be more effectually 
organized. The decay and dissolution of one 
of the great parties of the country — the 
Whigs — in consequence of its defeat in the 
presidential election of 1852, and the rise of 
questions on which it was divided, offered an 
opportunity for such a reorganization of the 
Native American party, and it was improved in 
a most remarkable manner. One or more 
secret orders of Americans already existed, and 



592 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



it was upon the basis of such secret societies 
that the new party was built up. Its cardinal 
principles were Anaericanism and Protestantism 
— that " Americans shall rule America," and 
that this rule should exclude the influence of 
any other power, political or ecclesiastical. It 
Avas not difficult to find supporters among a 
people who really cherished both these senti- 
ments at heart ; and when, too, the indefinable 
charm of secrecy was thrown over the move- 
ment it succeeded beyond all precedent. It 
was essentially democratic in some respects, 
and despotic and aristocratic in others ; in the 
former character it appealed to the middling 
interest and laboring portion of the commu- 
nity, while in the latter it was enabled to carry 
forward its purposes more effectually. The 
organization, once fairly begun, extended very 
rapidly over almost the whole country. Its 
strength was known only to the members of 
the party, and so secretly were its operations 
carried on, that the other political parties knew 
but little about it, except that it existed and 
was rumored to be strong in numbers. The 
party first made itself felt at municipal elec- 
tions in several of the states, where it tri- 
umphed in a manner which overwhelmed its 
opponents with surprise and consternation. 
In the state elections it next appeared, and 
carried several of the states in a manner 
equally surprising, and in some instances with 
unprecedented majorities. It is to be regretted 
that the peaceful contest of the ballot-box was 
in some cases attended with riot and bloodshed. 
Although this new American party was com- 
posed, in part, of those who had before acted 
with the Democratic party, the mass of it would 
appear to have been those who had previously 
acted with the Whigs, and, in some of the 
states, with the Free-soil party. Its position, 
therefore, on the slavery question, was adverse 
to that of the Democratic party, and, in some 
parts of the Union, the party was fully com- 
mitted to strong " Free-soil " sentiments. The 



general result of the elections in 1854-55 was 
the choice of a small majority of American and 
Free-soil or Kepublican members of the house 
of representatives in the next Congress, as well 
as of state officers. The Whigs who had sup- 
ported the repeal of the Missouri compromise 
passed at once, or by degrees, into the Dem- 
ocratic party, and the old Whig party, as such, 
lost its organization, and almost entirely disap- 
peared from the political field. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Thirty-third Congress, second Session. — Financial Prosperity. 
— Honor to General Scott. — Presidential Vetoes. — French 
Spoliation Bill. — American Diplomacy in Europe. — Kinney's 
Expedition to Central America. — Kansas. — Population. — 
Election Frauds and Violence. — Governor Reeder. - Course 
of the Legislature. — Code of Laws. — Removal of Governor 
Reeder. — Governor Shannon. — Delegate to Congress. — To- 
peka Convention. — Leavenworth Convention. — Exasperation 
and Collisions among Settlers. — Invasion from Missouri. — 
Danish Sound Dues. — Dr. Kane's Arctic Expedition. — Re- 
turn of the Resolute. 

While parties were yet in a transition state, 
the second session of the thirty-third Congress 
was held. Whatever the condition of affairs 
in the United States in other respects, at this 
time, its finances were in a flourishing state. 
The president's message stated that the avail- 
able resources for the year were nearly ninety- 
five millions five hundred thousand dollars ; the 
ordinary expenditures, fifty-one millions eigh- 
teen thousand two hundred and forty-nine dol- 
lars ; payment on the public debt, twenty-four 
millions three hundred and thirty-six thousand 
three hundred and eighty dollars ; leaving a 
balance in the treasury of twenty millions one 
hundred and thirty-seven thousand nine hun- 
dred and sixty-seven dollars. The public debt 
remaining unpaid was about forty-five millions 
dollars, payable at different periods within 
fourteen years. The receipts from the tariff 
continued to be so large that, when possible, 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



593 



the public debt had been redeemed in advance 
of its maturity, and the prospective income 
promised to exceed, by many millions, the 
wants of an economical administration of the 
government — an embarrassment which na- 
tions do not often experience. 

The proceedings of Congress at this session 
do not require special mention. There were, 
in the debates, occasional discussions of some 
warmth in relation to the repeal of the Mis- 
souri compromise, and the condition of affairs 
in Kansas ; but the state of parties in the 
country was so changed from the previous 
year, and so unsettled, that quiet generally 
pi'evailed, and no measure, involving the prin- 
ciples in which so much interest was felt, was 
brought in to renew and continue the agitation. 

Among the measures adopted was one which 
paid a well-deserved honor to that distinguished 
soldier. General Winfield Scott. A joint res- 
olution was passed by Congress, authorizing 
the president to confer the title of lieutenant- 
general by brevet, in a single instance, for dis- 
tinguished services. This title was conferred 
on General Scott, whom Congress and the 
nation intended to be thus justly honored. 
The title took effect from the time of the close 
of the Mexican war, and carried with it the 
pay and emoluments from that time. Another 
measure of some importance which was adopted, 
was the establishment of a Court of Claims, for 
the purpose of hearing and adjudicating claims 
against the government, the report of the 
court going to Congress for final action. An- 
other reorganized the diplomatic and consular 
service, fixing the salaries of ministers accord- 
ing to the grade of their mission, and giving 
consuls fixed salaries instead of fees. A retired 
list in the navy was provided for, and four regi- 
ments were added to the army. 

At this session President Pierce again exer- 
cised the veto power, in two instances. A bill 
calculated to do tardy justice to many honest 
and some suffering claimants was passed, au- 



thorizing the establishment of a commission to 
investigate and pay the losses sustained by 
American citizens from French spoliations on 
American commerce. These claims had been 
before Congress for a long time, and several 
times, when it was supposed they were about 
to be allowed, some fiiilure occurred which 
deferred their hopes. The government had 
assumed the payment of the claims, in its 
negotiations with the French government, and 
it seemed but just to those who had suffered 
that they should be promptly paid. The chief 
argument urged against the payment of the 
claims was, that they had passed into the hands 
of other parties in many cases, and often for a 
trifling consideration. This, however, was not 
the case universally, and the fact, that in the 
course of many years necessity had obliged 
some sufferers to part with their claims, proved 
only that the payment should have been made 
long before. This bill, which had, after long 
trial, passed both houses of Congress, was 
vetoed by the president, and failing to receive 
the requisite two-thirds vote on the question 
of passing it over the veto, the long-pressed 
claims remained unsatisfied, notwithstanding: 
the treasui'y was overflowing. The other bill 
which failed to receive the executive approval 
was one to increase the annual appropriation 
to the Collins line of steamers for mail service. 
But this bill, with an amendment which retained 
to Congress the right to discontinue the allow- 
ance on giving six months' notice, was appended 
to the naval appropriatfon bill, and in this way 
passed both houses and became a law. 

It was on the last day of the session, 
March 3, 1855, that the president transmitted 
to Congress the correspondence relating to 
Cuba and claims against Spain, including the 
Ostend conference, which we have given in a 
previous page. Had this subject come before 
Congress earlier in the session, it would prob- 
ably have elicited a spirited debate, involving 
a discussion of the extension of slave territory 



594 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



as well as the policy of annexing a population 
so different from that of the United States. 

It may be stated here that American diplo- 
macy had not been idle in other parts of Europe, 
during the preceding year. Mr. Buchanan was 
endeavoring to make a settlement of the mis- 
understanding which had arisen between the 
United States and England, in relation to Cen- 
tral American affairs. Negotiations had been 
proceeding in Denmark with a view to secure 
the abolition of the " Sound dues." The war 
between the western powers and Russia had 
afforded an opportunity to ^iropose conventions 
with the several powers of Europe, embracing 
the rule that " free ships make free goods," and 
also that neutral property, other than contra- 
band, on board enemies' ships, should be exempt 
from confiscation. Russia had promptly en- 
tered into such a convention; England and 
France announced their purpose to observe it 
in the present war ; some of the smaller powers 
assented to the doctrine as just, without form- 
ing any treaty ; and Prussia accepted it with 
an addition that privateering should be abol- 
ished — a proposition not agreed to by our 
government. Although the rule was not 
adopted by all the powers, it is quite probable 
that it will in time enter into the international 
code as a settled principle. In Central Amer- 
ica, an emigrating expedition organized by a 
Colonel Kinney and others, and designed to 
settle in that part of Nicaragua known as the 
Mosquito Coast and claimed to belong to the 
Mosquito king, but also claimed by Nicaragua, 
was the occasion of some diplomatic correspond- 
ence. It was not, however, an affair which really 
concerned the government at that stage, and 
hardly enters into the history of this countrj^ 
Nor was diplomacy at rest in the Sandwich 
Islands, where a treaty for the annexation of 
the islands to the United States was framed, 
with some prospect of its being carried to a 
successful result ; but the king dying, his suc- 



cessor ordered a discontinuance of negotiations, 
and the project was not consummated. 

After the adjournment of Congress, public 
attention was soon directed to affairs in Kan- 
sas, where an election of members of the ter- 
ritorial legislature took place on the 30tli of 
March. A census was taken, by order of the 
govei'uor, in January, when it appeared that 
there were eight thousand five hundred and 
one inhabitants in the territory, exclusive of 
Indians. Of these, five, thousand one hundred 
and twenty-eight were males, and three thou- 
sand three hundred and seventy-three females ; 
and three thousand four hundred and sixty-nine 
were minors, and there were two thousand 
nine hundred and five voters. At the time of 
the election the number of voters was probably 
somewhat increased by the arrival of new setr 
tiers, but it is not probable that the number 
exceeded three thousand five hundred. There 
were, however, six thousand three hundred and 
twenty votes cast, and all the persons elected, 
both to the council and the house of represent- 
atives, with one exception in each branch, were 
the candidates of the pro-slavery party, and 
some of them residents of Missouri. It was 
apparent from the vote, as well as from the 
events and proceedings of the day, that the 
election was fraudulent, and the subsequent 
investigations of a committee of the house of 
representatives in Congress revealed the ex- 
tent of the fraud. It appeared that about five 
thousand illegal votes were cast, nearly or quite 
all of which were given by citizens or residents 
of Missouri, who entered the territory a day or 
two before the election, and left it again a day 
or two after it. The congressional committee, 
in their report, say, — 

" By an organized movement, which extended 
from Andrew County in the north to Jasper 
County in the south, and as far eastward as 
Boone and Cole Counties, companies of men 
were arranged in regular parties, and sent into 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



595 



every council district in the territory, and into every 
representative district but one. The numbers 
were so distributed as to conti'ol the election 
in each district. They went to vote, and with 
the avowed pux'pose of making Kansas a 
slave state. They were generally armed and 
equipped, carried with them their own provis- 
ions and tents, and so marched into the terri- 
tory. The details of this invasion, from the 
mass of testimony taken by your committee, 
are so voluminous, that we can here state but 
the leading facts elicited." 

The facts thus elicited were, that the in- 
vaders took possession of the polls, and by 
threats and violence prevented legitimate vo- 
ters from exercising their privilege ; or the 
latter, in some cases, finding the polls in the 
possession of armed Missourians, refused to 
participate in the election. The details of the 
fraudulent and riotous proceedings in many of 
the voting precincts were stated by the com- 
mittee, and were proved by a large number of 
witnesses, of all parties, residents of Missouri 
as well as of Kansas. 

This violation of the rights of actual settlers 
aroused the greatest indignation throughout 
the territory, and the flame soon spread through 
the country. The frauds were so apparent, 
that the elections might have been set aside in 
nearly all the districts, had there' been time to 
contest them and to present the facts. But 
four days only being allowed for the presenta- 
tion of protests, and the territory being so 
large, it was impossible to take the necessary 
steps and get the evidence before the governor 
within that time. Protests were sent in from 
six districts, however, and the frauds were so 
proven that new elections were ordered. In 
Leavenworth there was another " invasion," but 
in the other districts the free state party had a 
large majority of the votes. 

During this period there were many scenes 
of violence in the territory, the pro-slavery 
party — mostly residents of Missouri — being 



determined to drive out the free state settlers 
and make Kansas a slave state. If, subse- 
quently, parties of the free state men also 
committed outrages, such a course is without 
doubt to be attributed to the violence and 
bloodshed with which they were assailed from 
the beginning by the men who were known 
throughout the land as " border rufl&ans." 

Governor Eeeder rendered himself obnoxious 
to the pro-slavery party by refusing certificates 
of election in the cases where frauds had been 
proved, and they resolved that the new elec- 
tion should be held void. The governor visited 
the east after the elections, and on his return 
he was assailed by one of the leading men of 
that party in a very violent manner, and from 
this time he was held of no account by the 
party which controlled the legislature. When 
the legislature assembled, they ousted the sev- 
eral members chosen at the second election, 
and gave their places to the members fraudu- 
lently elected at the first election. They also 
expelled the only free state member of the 
council, elected at the first election, and gave 
the seat to his competitor ; and the free state 
member of the house then resigned. They 
had been convened by the governor at Pawnee, 
but they passed a bill adjourning to the Shaw- 
nee Mission, a place but one mile from the 
Missouri line. This bill was vetoed by the 
governor, but was passed over the veto by a 
two-thirds vote. The governor then declared 
the legislature dissolved by the act of removal, 
as in his opinion the organic act vested the 
power of fixing the seat of government in the 
governor. But the legislature adjourned, not- 
withstanding the arguments of the governor, 
and at the Shawnee Mission they proceeded to 
legislate. 

This work was accomplished by taking a 
great part of the Missouri code, with additional 
provisions, more stringent, substituting the 
word " territory " for " state " wherever neces- 
sary, — and this, in some cases, by a separate 



696 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



bill. In this way, in the course of a compar- 
atively short session, they passed a code of 
laws which made a large volume, equalling in 
bulk the revised codes of some of the older 
states. Among the acts passed were such as 
these : giving the right to vote to any man, 
without regard to residence, on the payment 
of one dollar, and taking oaths to support the 
Kansas act and the fugitive slave law ; requir- 
ing all officers to take the same oaths ; making 
all county and local officers elective by the 
legislature instead of the people; forbidding 
the teaching of negroes to read, and the hold- 
ing of religious meetings of negroes, unless a 
sheriff, constable, or county justice should be 
present; forbidding any person who was con- 
scientiously opposed to holding slaves, or who 
did not admit the right to hold slaves in the 
territory, from acting as a juror in any case 
connected with slavery ; prescribing the pen- 
alty of death for inciting rebellion among the 
slaves, by speaking, writing, or printing, or for 
enticing or assisting any slave to escape from 
his master ; with other similar provisions, de- 
signed to establish slavery in the territory, and 
to bear oppressively upon the free state settlers. 
The legislature concluded its labors by sending 
a memorial to the president requesting him to 
remove Governor Eeeder. 

This request was seconded by persons of 
influence with the administration, and charges 
affecting the official integrity of the governor 
were presented. Whether these charges were 
well founded or not, it was clear that the gov- 
ernor was not cooperating with the party which 
sympathized with the administration, and he 
was removed. After a brief season, in which 
Mr. Woodson, the territorial secretary, was act- 
ing governor, Wilson Shannon, of Ohio, was 
appointed as Governor Reeder's successor. 

Such legislation as that adopted by the ter- 
ritorial legislature naturally aroused great in- 
dignation among the actual settlers of the ter- 
ritory, and many of those who had emigrated 



from Missouri, and who had at first sympathized 
with the pro-slavery party, took ground against 
these acts, and sided with the free state men. 
A mass convention was held at Lawrence, where 
resolutions were adopted repudiating the action 
of a legislature which had been imposed upon 
the territory by the peojDle of Missouri. A 
convention of settlers from all parts of the 
territory was subsequently held, where similar 
resolutions were adopted, and the people were 
called upon to unite in the resistance of usur- 
pation, even by force of arms, if necessary. 
Ex-Governor Eeeder was nominated for del- 
egate to Congress, to be voted for in October. 
But to guard against another " invasion," which 
should prevent a proper expression of the 
wishes of the actual settlers, as well as to repu- 
diate the law requiring test oaths of voters, it 
was resolved to vote on the 9th of October, 
and to abstain from voting on the 1st, the day 
fixed by the territorial legislature for the elec- 
tion. The result was, that Mr. Whitfield was 
elected on the 1st, and Mr. Eeeder on the 9th ; 
but it was claimed that the latter received a 
larger vote than the former, and was the choice 
of a very large majority of the actual inhabit 
ants of the territory. It was for the national 
house of representatives to decide which was 
entitled to the seat. 

It should be observed that the free state men 
who thus organized against the pro-slavery 
party of Missourians, were by no means " ab- 
olitionists," but men who felt that it was for 
the interest of free white labor, and for the 
interest of Kansas, that slavery should be ex- 
cluded from the territory. They repudiated 
the charge of abolitionism, and in one of their 
resolutions expressed a determination that no 
negro, bond or free, should be brought into the 
state. They also claimed, as American citizens 
and under the organic act, the right to make 
laws for themselves, and not to have obnoxious 
laws hnposed upon them by the people of a 
neighboring state. Whatever may have been 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



597 



the mistakes they made, or the violent pro- 
ceedings alleged against some of them, thej 
rightfully organized on the principles just 
named. 

At the same time that Ex-Govenior Reeder 
was elected to Congress, the free state men 
chose delegates to attend a convention for the 
purpose of framing a state constitution, with 
the view of applying to Congress for admission 
into the Union. This convention was held at 
Topeka, in the latter part of October, 1855. 
It was composed of men of all shades of polit- 
ical opinion, and coming from every part of 
the Union, but they were united in a common 
purpose to make Kansas a free state. There 
was considerable ability, and every vai'iety of 
character there, and the members, bringing to- 
gether the principles and ideas of the constitu- 
tions of the states from which they had emi- 
grated, succeeded in framing a constitution 
which would compare favorably with that of 
any western state. It provided that slavery 
should not exist in the state, but permitted 
those slaves then in the territory to be held in 
it till July 4th, 1857. Provisions were made 
for education, and for an elective judiciary, with 
the other provisions for the organization and 
choice of the state government. Two addenda 
were also made, to be submitted as separate 
articles to the vote of the people. One of 
these was a provision for a free banking sys- 
tem, and the other was a resolution of instruc- 
tions to the first legislature, requiring them to 
pass a law to exclude free blacks from the 
state. The latter provision was adopted as an 
illustration that the free state men were not 
the " abolitionists " they were charged with 
being by their opponents. 

Soon after the Topeka convention, the pro- 
slavery party held a convention at Leaven- 
worth, at which Governor Shannon presided, 
and was one of the principal speakers. This 
convention was styled a " law and order " con- 
vention, as it was in favor of supporting and 



enforcing the laws passed by the legislature at 
the Shawnee Mission. The course of the free 
state men was condemned in the strongest 
terms, and the Topeka convention was called a 
treasonable assembly, which, if. recognized by 
Congress, would lead to civil war. 

Undoubtedly the opponents of the free state 
settlers looked upon Kansas as, of right, be- 
longing to the slaveholding portion of the 
Union. The repeal of the Missouri compro- 
mise was regarded by them as intended to 
open this territory unquestionably to slavery, 
and any thing which was done to make it a 
free state, even the mere emigration of free 
state settlers, was considered by them as an 
invasion of their rights. Many of these men 
were, without doubt, honest in their opinions, 
but their rough mode of dealing with affairs, 
and the exciting character of the question at 
issue, carried them to extremes in their deter- 
mination to protect their assumed rights, and 
they resorted to violence in order to defeat, 
dishearten, and drive out the free state settlers. 

While men of both parties thus became ex- 
asperated on political issues, there were fre- 
quent collisions in relation to claiins of lands, 
and in case the disputants were on different 
sides of the great question, the quarrels became 
violent, and ended in many cases in bloodshed. 
But even here it is only justice to say, that the 
violence was commenced and was carried to 
the greatest extremes by those who contended 
that slavery was of right to be established in 
the territory. They were, for the most part, 
men more accustomed to such proceedings 
than were the free state settlers. It was one 
of these collisions, in which a free state man 
was shot, that led by degrees to a state of 
civil war. A prisoner arrested by one of the 
sheriffs of the legislature at the Shawnee 
Mission, upon the charge of having some con- 
nection with the original difficulty, was res- 
cued, as it was alleged, by a party of free 
state men. The sheriff called on the governor 



598 



HISTORY OF THE UxNITED STATES. 



and the governor called out the militia. This 
led to a great excitement on the borders of 
Missouri, and those who had been so ready to 
cross over the border to vote, were equally 
ready to go ovar and fight. They entered the 
territory in considerable numbers, were duly 
enrolled, and marched on Lawrence, the head- 
quarters of those who "resisted the laws." 
They encamped about the town as if about to 
attack it, and the free state settlers — as nearly 
all the people of Lawrence were — prepared 
to resist them ; but fortunately there was no 
arme'd collision. Governor Shannon was pres- 
ent, and after a time " peace was restoi'e'd," and, 
by the governor's orders, the " invading army " 
retired. But the irritation remained on both 
sides. The free state settlers felt that their 
rights were to be protected only by their own 
strength and resolution, and their opponents 
were by no means satisfied with the part they 
had played in the recent demonstration. Gov- 
ernor Shannon came out of the affair not much 
respected by either party. Matters were in 
this imsatisfactory state when the thirty-foiu'th 
Congress assembled. 

The negotiations with Denmark, alluded to 
on a previous page, in relation to the " Sound 
dues," not having accomplished any thing sat- 
isfactory, the president, in the spring of 1855, 
gave notice to the Danish government that the 
treaty of commerce which recognized the right 
to levy these dues, would be terminated at the 
expiration of a year, and that the right would 
no longer be admitted by the United States. 
The Danish government endeavored to have 
the time postponed, in view of the unsettled 
condition of Europe, but the notification was 
not withdrawn. This action on the part of the 
United States led to more active negotiations 
on the part of other powers with Denmark, 
with a view to bring the matter to an early 
settlement, the negotiations to that end having 
been pending for a long time. 

An event which may well be recorded in the 



history of our country, was the return, in Oc- 
tober of this year, (1855,) of Dr. Kane and his 
surviving companions, who, in 1853, had sailed 
for the Arctic seas in search of some trace of 
the long missing Sir John Franklin. Dr. Kane 
had been an oflficer in the previous American 
expedition in search of the lost explorers, and 
he responded to the last appeal of Lady Frank- 
lin for a search for some trace of her husband's 
party. It was believed, too, that a part of the 
crew of the British ship might yet be living 
among the Esquimaux, and without the means 
of escaping from the regions of ice. The ves- 
sel was furnished through the liberality of Mr. 
Grinnell, a New York merchant, who had also 
furnished the vessels of the preceding expedi- 
tion. It received the favor of, and some aid 
from, the government, by which Dr. Kane, who 
was a sui'geon in the navy, was authorized to 
take command, under the orders of the navy 
department. The crew of the vessel consisted 
of only seventeen persons, and were selected 
for their qualifications for this service. Sailing 
from New York, May 31, 1853, the expedition 
was frozen in, September 10, at the most north- 
erly point on the coast of Greenland which had 
been reached. There the party passed the 
winter, enduring the most intense cold, biit 
keeping up health and spirits, through the care, 
energy, and prudence of the noble commandei'. 
The next summer was spent in exploring, and 
the most northerly point ever reached on this 
continent was attained, and signs of an open 
polar sea were discovered. The succeeding 
winter was of greater severity than the first, 
and, the party perhaps not being so well pre- 
pared to endure the hardships to which they 
were -exposed, their sufferings were terrible. 
Nothing but the indomitable will and energy 
of their leader carried the party through the 
severities of that winter. It would have been 
impossible for them to have endured another 
winter, and Dr. Kane, therefore, in the succeed- 
ing summer, determined to abandon his vessel, 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



505) 



still frozen in the ice, and to attempt to reach 
the Danish settlements by means of sledges 
and open boats. His strong will and skill, 
aided by the hearty cooperation of his men, 
made the attempt successful, and they reached 
the most northern Danish settlements early in 
August, having travelled thirteen hundred 
miles in eighty-one days. In the mean time 
much anxiety was felt at home for the intrepid 
explorers, and the government despatched 
Lieutenant Hartstene, with a bark and small 
steamer, in search of them. This relief expe- 
dition fortunately fell in with the returning 
party at the Danish settlement, and brought 
them home, three of the party having died in 
the Arctic regions. The retui'n of Dr. Kane 
and his party was hailed with joy throughout 
the country, and was a subject of much con- 
gratulation in England.* 

Near the close of 1855, another event con- 
nected with the search for Sir John Franklin 
occurred, with which the country subsequently 
became connected through the government, 
thus makisg it a matter of national history. 
The captain of a New London whaler brought 
into that port the British bark Resolute, be- 
longing to the expedition sent out by the Brit- 
ish government in search of Sir John Franklin, 
under Sir Edward Belcher. This bark, under 
the command of Captain Kellett, had been 
frozen up in the Arctic regions, and abandoned 
as hopelessly ice-bound. She afterwards drifted 



* The Arctic Explorations of Dr. Kane were published in two 
handsome volumes of absorbing interest. They have been widely 
read, and the name of the gallant adventurer became a house- 
hold word in all parts of the country. Dr. Kane's health was 
much impaired by his exposure and sufferings, and after com- 
pleting these volumes he went to Cuba, seeking its restoration. 
But the disease was too deeply seated, and he died in Havana, 
February 16, 1S37. His heroic life has been the theme of many 
an eloquent discourse, and his name will long be remembered 
among those recorded in history. 

76 



with the ice southward, and was found by our 
hardy whalemen nearly a thousand miles from 
the place where she was frozen in. Her arma- 
ment and stores were complete, and every thing 
in the state in which she had been left, except 
as aflected by the exposure to the weather. 
Although in not the most seaworthy condition, 
the captain of the whaler put what crew could 
be spared from his vessel on board his prize, 
and brought her safely into New London har- 
bor. Congress subsequently voted forty thou- 
sand dollars for the purchase and refitting of 
the Resolute, and after putting her in com- 
plete repair she was sent, under conmiand of 
Lieutenant Hartstene, to be presented, in the 
name of the United States, to the British gov- 
ernment. This mark of good feeling, on the 
part of this countr}', was received with great 
satisfaction by the people and government of 
England. 

. A short time before this opportunity occurred 
for a display of good will by the United States and 
England, there was a slight •' speck of war " seen 
in the distance. The fiUibustering expeditions 
which were fitted out, and rumored to be fitting 
out, in the United States, served to arouse the 
suspicions and vigilance of the British govern- 
ment, and they increased the strength of their 
West India squadron, while some of the Eng- 
lish papers were quite belligerent in their tone. 
This feeling was aroused in part, probably, by 
the prosecution of certain parties who were 
procuring recruits in this country for the Eng- 
lish army in the Crimea ; and some of the 
English seemed to think that while the govern- 
ment were very vigilant in this direction, they 
were winking at grosser violations of the neu- 
trality laws, which had Cuba or Central Amer- 
ica for an object. These difficulties were of 
short duration, however, at this time, and ex- 
planations soon settled them. 



600 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, 



CHAPTER V. 

fhirty-fourth Congress. — Organization of the House. — Choice 
of Speaker. — President's Message. — Kansas Affairs. — Spe- 
cial Message. — Delegates' contested Seat. — Election under 
Topeka Constitution, and Organization of State Government. 
— Memorial for Admission to the Union. — Excitement against 
Free State Settlers. — Investigation of Frauds and Outrages. — 
Affairs at Lawrence. — United States Marshal's Proceedings. — 
Attack on Lawrence, and Destruction of Property. 

The thirty-fourth Congress commenced its 
first session December od, 1855. The elections 
bad resiilted in a return of a small majority of 
members opposed to the administration. This 
majority was composed of Americans and Ee- 
publicans, the latter party having in some of 
the states met with more' success than the 
Americans. The two jsarties embraced much 
of the .strength of the old Whig party, and 
they were both opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska 
policy of the administration. This opposition, 
however, differed in the xlmerican i-anks in 
character and degree according to the section 
from which the members came. The opponents 
of the administration could not hope for suc- 
cess in any vote except by a union, and the 
administration party could not succeed without 
the aid of more or less of their opponents. In 
this state of affairs it seemed almost imiDOSsible 
to elect a speaker. The union of the Amer- 
icans and Republicans was not so perfect as to 
carry every opposition vote, but the Democrats, 
nevertheless, gained none of their dissatisfied 
opponents. The contest therefore conCinued 
for weeks, and vote after vote was taken, each 
party deeming it a duty, or matter of pride, to 
adhere to its own candidates. The country 
grew tired of the oft-repeated story of " no 
choice," although the sympathies of the re- 
spective parties were heartily enlisted in the 
struggle, and approved of the firmness of their 
representatives. At last, after two months' 
delay, the members also grew weary of the 
ineffectual strife, and adopted a rule providing 
that at a certain vote a plurality should elect. 



This closed the contest, and on the 2d of Feb- 
ruary, 1856, Nathaniel P. Banks, of Massachu- 
setts, on whom the opposition finally rallied, 
was elected speaker by one hundred and three 
votes, Mr. Aiken, of South Carolina, the ad- 
ministration candidate, receiving one hundred, 
and eleven others being divided among several 
candidates. Mr. Banks was admirably qual- 
ified by abilities and experience for the position 
to which he was called. 

In the mean time President Pierce, after wait- 
ing nearly a month for the organization of the 
house, had transmitted his annual message to 
the senate alone, on the 31st of December. 
This unusual course was the occasion for some 
severe animadversions in the house. This 
message was devoted to the various subjects of 
interest, both in the foreign and domestic re- 
lations of the country ; and on those in which 
the greatest interest was felt, as the political 
questions on which parties divided, the pres- 
ident entered into arguments in favor of the 
views and action of the Democratic party. 
The principles of the Kansas-Nebraska act 
were supported at length, and with much ear- 
nestness, while the president also discvissed the 
relations of the several states on the subject 
of slavery and the fugitive slave law. On 
these questions the message appeared more as 
a partisan address than is usual with such state 
papers; but it is probable that the result of 
the Kansas-Nebraska bill in renewing the dep- 
recated " agitation," and bringing the principles 
of slavery and freedom into a hand-to-hand 
struggle, as it were, was thought to demand 
from the president a strong expression of the 
sentiments of his party on these subjects. 
The finances of the country still continued in a 
flourishing condition ; the balance in the treas- 
ury at the commencement of the fiscal year 
(July 1, 1855) being nearly nineteen millions 
of dollars, and the estimated receipts and ex- 
penditures promising a balance of sixteen mil- 
lions at the close. The differences of opinion 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



GOI 



between the United States and British govern- 
ments with regard to Central American affairs 
had been the subject of considerable corre- 
spondence between the diplomatists of the two 
countries, — the difficulties arising from the 
construction put upon the Clayton-Bulwer 
treaty by the British government. Recruiting 
for the British army had also occasioned cor- 
respondence and a demand for explanations. 
The relations with other foreign countries were 
represented to be in a peaceful and satisfactory 
state generally. 

Of affairs in Kansas the president spoke 
quite brieflj^'in his annual message, saying that 
there had been acts prejudicial to good order, 
but as yet none had occurred under circum- 
stances to justify the interposition of the fed- 
eral executive. That could only be in case of 
obstruction to federal law, or of organized re- 
sistance to territorial law, assuming the char- 
acter of insurrection, which, if it should occur, 
it would be his duty promptly to suppress. 
But he indulged the hope that the occurrence 
of such an untoward event would be prevented 
by the sound sense of the people of the terri- 
tory, who, by its organic law, possessing the 
right to determine their own domestic institu- 
tions, are entitled, while deporting themselves 
peacefully, to the free exercise of that right, 
and must be protected in the enjoyment of it, 
without interference on the part of the citizens 
of any of the states. 

To such language as this the free state men 
in Kansas could make no answer. The rights 
here conceded were all that they desired, if 
they could enjoy them fully, and it was the 
invasion of these rights by the people of Mis- 
souri that had led to the troubles. 

^ In January, the president sent a message to 
the senate specially relating to affairs in Kan- 
sas, and recommending that Congress adopt 
such measures as the exigency of the case 
required. In this message the president attrib- 
uted the troubles in Kansas partly to local mal- 



administration and partly to the unjustifiable 
interference of the inhabitants of some states 
with views foreign to the rights and interests 
of the territoiy. He charged Governor Reeder 
with a neglect of duties, " thereby setting an 
example of violation of law a'nd duty which 
rendered his removal necessary." He recog- 
nized the first territorial legislature, whatever 
the informalities of its election, as, for all prac- 
tical purposes, a lawful body, whose acts were 
to be obeyed ; and he condemned the conven- 
tion which framed the free state constitution at 
Topeka, as a party affair, contrary to the prin- 
ciples of public law and practice under the 
constitution of the United States, and the rule 
of right and common sense. The movement 
in opposition to the authorities in Kansas he 
regarded as revolutionary in character, and if 
it should reach the point of organized resist- 
ance, as a treasonable insurrection, which it 
would be the duty of the federal government 
to suppress. Although the disturbances of 
December preceding were quieted, the pres- 
ident apprehended renewed disorders unless 
decided measures were taken to prevent them. 
In December, the fi-ee state party held a 
convention to nominate candidates for officers 
under the state constitution which they had 
framed, and which, by a small and almost 
wholly party vote, had been adopted when 
submitted to the people. Charles Robinson, a 
leading member of the free state party, and 
one of its most able and judicious advisers, was 
nominated for governor. The election was 
appointed by the executive committee to take 
place on the 15 th of February. In the mean 
time the troubles by no means diminished, and 
a bitter animosity grew up between the par- 
ties. Outrages and murders were committed ; 
persecution was followed sometimes by retaliar 
tion. There were also threats of another in- 
vasion from Missouri, and it was feared that it 
would not be so harmless as the last. At this 
stage, the president issued a proclamation 



602 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



stating that combinations had been formed in 
the territory to resist the execution of the 
laws, and to subvert by violence the present 
legal authority, and that persons outside the 
territory were contemplating armed interfer- 
ence in the more remote, as well as in neigh- 
boring states, and he, therefore, had taken the 
proper measures to repress outbreaks and main- 
tain the peace of the country. 

Upon the organization of the house of rep- 
resentatives, the affairs of Kansas came before 
them, Mr. Whitfield and Mr. Keeder, the con- 
testing delegates, claiming a seat as represen- 
tative of the territory. A majority of the 
committee on elections, to whom the subject 
■was referred, reported adversely to the claim 
of Mr. Whitfield, and took ground against the 
authority of the territorial legislature. They 
also asked for power to send for persons and 
papers, with a view to investigate fully the 
frauds alleged in the elections in Kansas. The 
minority of the committee offered a counter 
report, and also recommended that a commis- 
sion be sent to Kansas to take testimony, in- 
stead of sending for persons and papers. A 
long debate arose on these reports, and finally 
a proposition to send a committee of three 
members of the house to Kansas, with full 
powers to make a thorough investigation of 
the troubles there, was adopted, and Mr. Sher- 
man, of Ohio, Mr. Howard, of Michigan, and 
Mr. Oliver, of Missouri, were appointed to con- 
stitute the committee. 

In the senate, also, the affairs of Kansas 
occupied much time and attention. Mr. Doug- 
las, from the committee on territories, submit- 
ted a report on the subject, which affirmed the 
letjalitv of the territorial lea;islature and the 
authority of its enactments. It also pro- 
nounced the proceedings of the free state con- 
vention at Topcka as illegal and treasonable, 
and animadverted wath much severity on the 
emigrant aid societies. The committee pro- 
posed a bill authorizing the inhabitants of 



Kansas, when it should appear that the popula- 
tion was sufficient to entitle them to one rep- 
resentative in Congress, to hold a convention 
for the purpose of forming a state constitution. 
Mr. Collamer, of Vermont, submitted a minority 
report controverting many of the points in the 
majority report, reiterating the charges of 
fraud, violence, and illegality in respect to the 
territorial legislature, and defending the pro- 
ceedings of the free state settlers in framing 
the Topeka constitution, and holding elections 
under it. As the easiest and most direct way 
of meeting all the difficulties, and settling them 
at once, the report recommended* that Kansas 
be admitted to the Union with the Topeka 
constitution. 

In the mean time, in Kansas, the persons 
elected under the Topeka constitution to com- 
pose the state executive and legislature, as- 
sembled at Topeka, and proceeded to organize 
the government for prospective action. The 
two branches of the legislature made choice of 
their officers, and the governor elect, Mr. Rob- 
inson, took the oath of office and delivered his 
inaugui'al address. A memorial asking for 
admission to the Union was then adopted and 
sent to Congress. A committee from each 
branch of the legislature was appointed to 
frame a code of laws for the future state, and 
other business of a prospective nature was 
transacted, but without taking any steps to 
bring the new state government into collision 
with the territorial government. After electing 
Andrew H. Eeeder and James H. Lane as 
United States senators to represent the state 
when admitted into the Union, the legislature 
adjourned until the 4th of July succeeding. 
These proceedings were magnified into treason 
by the pro-slavery party, and they were repre- 
sented to the national government in the worst 
possible light. 

The feeling against the free state settlers 
grew more intense among the pro-slavery men 
of the territory, and of Western Missouri, as 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



GO:j 



they saw the probability that Kansas, if left to 
itself, would certainly become a free state. 
This enmity was increased by the arrival of 
armed companies from the Southern States, 
who came with a determination to sustain the 
slaveholding interests, and to force slavery 
upon Kansas if possible. Some of them per- 
haps came to settle in Kansas, but the majority 
were mere adventurers, " soldiers of fortune," 
at all times disposed to lawless violence, and 
glad of an opportunity to indulge in it against 
the '• abolitionists," as the free state men were 
termed. The presence of these men, sustaining 
and pressing forward the pro-slavery party to 
acts of aggression, under color of legal author- 
ity, precipitated a civil war on Kansas. 

The congressional committee, appointed to 
investigate the alleged frauds and outrages on 
the people, proceeded immediately to Kansas 
to perform their duties. This investigation, 
faithfully made by the majority of the com- 
mittee, was not acceptable to those who had 
participated in or profited by the frauds, and 
various means were resorted to in order to 
break up or trouble the sittings of the com- 
mittee. Attempts were made to arrest parties 
attending as witnesses, and even the officers of 
the committee were not free from molestation. 
The committee, however, proceeded with their 
business. While they were at Lawrence, the 
sheriflf of Douglas County, a man especially 
obnoxious, by his acts and manners, to the free 
state inhabitants, attempted to arrest a party 
against whom he had a precept. This person 
was rescued in a not very violent way, and the 
sheriff left. The following Sunday he returned 
and called upon some of the most respectable 
persons in the town, as they were on their way 
to church, to assist him in making arrests. 
These persons went on their way without pay- 
ing attention to the call. This being construed 
into a refusal to support the laws, and an or- 
ganized resistance to them, the sheriff made a 
demand on Governor Shannon for the aid of 



the federal troops, which had been placed at 
the disposal of the governor by the govern- 
ment at Washington, to sustain the territorial 
laws. Governor Shannon made the requisition, 
and a small force of dragoons was placed un- 
der the orders of the sheriff. With the aid of 
these, or rather without any resistance, he 
arrested those parties who had on the previous 
Sunday gone on their way to church when he 
called on them to assist him. These prisoners 
were kept in a tent guarded by the dragoons, 
in the town of Lawrence, and treated like 
felons. The accounts of this whole aflflxir give 
the strongest impression that it was designed 
to harass the people of Lawrence, and perhaps 
to provoke a rescue, which would soon bring 
on a crisis. It was the belief of many that such 
a crisis was desired, in order to put an end to 
the investigations of the committee. 

No rescue was attempted, and the people 
of Lawrence had generally shown a disposition 
not to come into any collision with the federal 
authorities. There were, however, individuals 
less disposed to submit, and one of these 
attempted to shoot the sheriff in his camp. 
The officer was wounded, but not killed, and he 
was attended with every care b.y the citizens 
of Lawrence, who condemned the attempted 
murder as much as their opponents. A public 
meeting was held, which denounced the act, 
and Mr. Robin.son, the free state governor, at 
the request of influential citizens, offered a re- 
ward for the apprehension of the assailant. 

This affair created the greatest excitement 
among the supporters of the territorial legisla- 
ture and their friends in Missouri. It was 
charged upon the free state men generally, and 
was considered as proof that they were deter- 
mined to resist the execution of the laws, even 
by bloodshed. It should not be forgotten, 
however, that this was not the only outrage, 
or even murder, which had been committed 
about this time, for there had been some greater 
atrocities committed against unoffending free 



604 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



state men, whicli served to exasperate that 
party. Matters soon proceeded, under this 
state of feelings, from bad to worse. The 
grand jury presented as nuisances two news- 
papers and the free state hotel in Lawrence. 
Ex-Governor Keeder, who was attending the 
congressional committee by their citation, was 
summoned to attend before the grand jury at 
Lecompton, and declining to do so, a writ for 
his arrest for contempt was issued. Mr. Reeder 
- claimed exemption from the service of the writ, 
by his privilege as a party before the congres- 
sional committee, to whom his presence was 
necessary ; and believing that this action was 
intended to interfere with the labors of the 
committee, and that he had reason to fear 
assassination at Lecompton, he refused to go 
with the officer. He subsequently escaped 
from the territory in disguise. About this 
time Mr. Eobinson, the free state governor, 
while on his way to the east, was stopped on 
his passage down the river by a mob, and kept 
as a prisoner. 

The next step was a proclamation, issued by 
United States Marshal Donaldson, calling upon 
all "law-abiding citizens of the territory" to 
aid him in the service of certain judicial writs 
of arrest, in the attempted service of which his 
deputy marshal had been resisted by a large 
number of the citizens of Lawrence. The 
marshal feared, or pretended to fear, that these 
writs would be resisted by a large body of 
armed men, although the public resolutions of 
the citizens of Lawrence and the declarations 
of all its influential men were, that no resist- 
ance would be offered to the service of legal 
wi'its by United States officers. Already the 
" southern regiment," as it was called, had come 
into the territory, and were committing depre- 
dations, threatening to destroy Lawrence. The 
citizens of Lawrence called on Governor Shan- 
non for protection in view of these threats, but 
the governor said there was no force approach- 
ing Lawrence except the legally constituted 



posse of the marshal, and refused to interfere. 
The citizens then adopted a resolution declaring 
that they had not resisted and would not resist 
the officers, and would aid them, if necessary, 
in the service of judicial writs, but that they 
were " ready to resist, if need be, unto death, 
the ravages and desolation of an invading 
mob." This resolution was sent to the mar- 
shal, as were several letters requesting protec- 
tion from the ravages of parties of armed men 
collecting about Lawrence. But nothing was 
done to withdraw these forces or to prevent 
the outrages. On the contrary, the number of 
these armed men increased, and they seized 
cattle and horses and whatever came in their 
way, greatly to the loss of innocent and poor 
settlers. 

At last the marshal was prepared to serve 
his writs, and with a few men was in the town 
and attending to that business without moles- 
tation. There was evidently no occasion for 
an armed posse, but it was marched to the 
immediate neighborhood of the town, and 
other processes were served, several citizens of 
Lawrence acting as a posse. The marshal then 
informed the armed forces that he was done 
with them, but the sheriff took command, and 
the troops entered the town to destroy the 
printing offices and the hotel, under orders, as 
it was alleged, from the District Court. The 
women and children were removed from the 
town, and many of the men, liable as they were 
in their defenceless state to outrages and mur- 
der, had also left. But their property remained 
behind, and after the " armed posse," of whom 
Mr. Atchison (who had been a senator in Con- 
gress and acting vice-president of the United 
States) was the leader, had destroyed the hotel 
and printing offices, they burned houses and 
plundered the town, carrying away and de- 
stroying much property. The number of this 
array was six or eight hundred men. Whether 
or not it was a cause for con2;ratulation with 
them that they had sacked a defenceless, town, 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



605 



inhabited by their fellow-citizens, who had com- 
mitted no ofience except to entertain and ex- 
press political opinions opposed to the invaders, 
it is only a dishonor to the country that such a 
thing should have occurred and been permitted 
by the fedei-al authorities who had the power 
to prevent it. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Agitation among the People respecting Kansas Affairs. — De- 
bates in Congress. — Speech of Mr. Sumner, of Massachu- 
setts. — Its Consequences. — Assault on Mr. Sumner by Mr. 
Brooks, of South Carolina. — Investigation by a Congressional 
Committee of the Frauds and Outrages in Kansas. — Vote of 
.the House to admit Kansas as a State. — The Bill rejected by 
the Senate. — Continued Disturbances in Kansas. — Course of 
Governor Shannon. — His Removal — State Legislature dis- 
persed. — Armed Emigrants. — -Governor Geary. — His Meas- 
ures and Policy. 

While these things were taking place in 
Kansas, the whole country was agitated with 
the questions involved in the struggle there. 
It was a closer contest between the principles 
of freedom and slavery than had yet occurred 
since the formation of the Union, and the feel- 
ings of men were enlisted on one side or the 
other, according to their proclivities caused by 
education or interest. In Congress the affairs 
of Kansas were debated with great warmth and 
bitterness, as might be expected from the ex- 
citing character of the subject. Mr. Butler, 
Mr. Mason, and others spoke strongly in favor 
of the territorial laws and their enforcement, 
and denounced the proceedings of the free 
state men and their sympathizers in the states 
as the cause of the troubles. Among those 
who replied to them was Mr. Sumner, of Mas- 
sachusetts, who delivered a long and elaborate 
speech on the subject, in which he treated 
those gentlemen in no tender manner, by his 
keen irony and stem invective. Sharp retorts 
followed on both sides, and bitter feelings were 
aroused in the senate chamber, as well as in 



Kansas. From Mr. Sumner's speech,* which ia 
memorable on account of itgieequel, we make 
the following extracts : — 

" Mr. President : You are now called to re- 
dress a great tran.?gression. Seldom in the 
history of nations has such a question been 
presented. TariflCs, army hills, navy bills, land 
bills, are important, and justly occupy your 
care ; but these all belong to the course of 
ordinary legislation. As means and instru- 
ments only, they are necessarily subordinate to 
the conservation of government itself Grant 
them or deny them, in greater or less degree, 
and you will inflict no shock. The machinery 
of government will continue to move. The 
state wUl not cease to exist. Far otherwise is 
it with the eminent question now before you, 
involving, as it does, liberty in a broad terri- 
tory, and also involving the peace of the whole 
country, with our good name in history for- 
evermore. 

" Take down your map, sir, and you will find 
that the territory of Kansas, more than any 
other region, occupies the middle spot of North 
America, equally distant from the Atlantic on 
the east, and the Pacific on the west; from the 
frozen Avaters of Hudson's Bay on the north, 
and the tepid Gulf Stream on the south ; con- 
stituting the precise territorial centre of the 
whole vast continent. To such advantages of 
situation, on the very highway between two 
oceans, are added a soil of unsurpassed rich- 
ness, and a fascinating, undulating beauty of 
surface, with a health-giving climate, calculated 
to nurture a powerful and generous people, 
worthy to be a central pivot of American insti- 
tutions. A few short months only have passed 
since this spacious mediterranean country was 
open only to the savage, who ran wild in ita 
woods and prairies; and now it has already 



• " The Crime against Kansas. The Apologies for the Crime 
The True Remedy. Speech of Hon. Charles Sumner, in the Sen 
ate of the United States, 19th and 20th May, 1856." 



606 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



drawn to its bosom a population of freemen 
larger than Atlieas crowded within her historic 
gates, when her sons, under Miltiades, won lib- 
erty for mankind on the field of Marathon ; 
more than Sparta contained when she ruled 
Greece, and sent forth her devoted children, 
quickened by a mother's benediction, to return 
with their shields or on them ; more than Rome 
gathered on her seven hills, when, under her 
kings, she commenced that sovereign sway, 
which afterwards embraced the whole earth ; 
more than London held, when, on the fields of 
Crecy and Agincourt, the English banner was 
earned victoriously over the chivalrous hosts 
of France. 

"Against this territory, thus fortunate in 
position and population, a crime has been com- 
mitted which is without example in the rec- 
ords of the past. Not in plundered provinces 
or in the cruelties of selfish governors will you 
find its parallel ; and yet there is an ancient 
instance, which may show at least the path of 
justice. In the terrible impeachment by which 
the great Roman orator has blasted through 
all time the name of Verres, amidst charges of 
robbery and sacrilege, the enormity which most 
aroused the indignant voice of his accuser, and 
which still stands forth with strongest distinct- 
ness, arresting the sympathetic indignation of 
all who read the story, is, that away in Sicily 
he had scourged a citizen of Rome ; that the 
cry, ' I am a Roman citizen,' had been inter- 
posed in vain against the lash of the tyrant 
governor. Other charges were, that he had 
carried away productions of art, and that he 
had violated the sacred shrines. It was in the 
presence of the Roman senate that this ar- 
raignment proceeded ; in a temple of the 
forum ; amidst crowds, such as no orator had 
ever before drawn together, thronging the por- 
ticoes and colonnades, even clinging to the 
house-tops and neighboring slopes ; and under 
the anxious gaze of witnesses summoned from 
the scene of crime. But an audience grander 



far, of higher dignity, of more various people, 
and of wider intelligence, the countless multi- 
tude of succeeding generations, in every land 
where eloquence has been studied or where the 
Roman name has? been recognized, has listened 
to the accusation, and throbbed with condem- 
nation of the criminal. Sir, speaking in an 
age of light and in a land of constitutional 
liberty, where the safeguards of elections are 
justly placed among the highest triumphs of 
civilization, I fearlessly assert that the wrongs 
of much-abused Sicily, thus memorable in hi.s- 
tory, were small by the side of the wrongs ol 
Kansas, where the very shrines of popular in- 
stitutions, more sacred than any heathen altar, 
have been desecrated ; where the ballot-box, 
more precious than any work, in ivory or mar- 
ble, from the cunning hand of art, has been 
plundered ; and where the cry, 'I am an Amer- 
ican citizen,' has been interposed in vain against 
outrage of every kind, even upon life itself. 
Are you against sacrilege ? I present it for 
your execration. Are you against robbery ? 
I hold it up to your scorn. Are you for the 
protection of American citizens ? I show you 
how their dearest rights have been cloven 
down, while a tyrannical usurpation has sought 
to install itself on their very necks. 

" But the wickedness which I now begin to 
expose is immeasurably aggravated by the 
motive which prompted it. Not in any com- 
mon lust for power did this uncommon tragedy 
have its origin. It is the rape of a virgin ter- 
ritory, compelling it to the hateful embrace of 
slavery ; and it may be clearly traced to a de- 
praved longing for a new slave state, the hid- 
eous offspring of such a crime, in the hope of 
adding to the power of slavery in the national 
government. Yes, sir, when the whole world, 
alike Christian and Turk, is rising up to con- 
demn this wrong, and to make it a hissing to 
the nations, here in our republic, /orce — ay, 
sir, FORCE — has been openly employed in com- 
pelling Kansas to this pollution, and all for the 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



607 



sake of political power. There is the simple 
fact, which you will vainly attempt to deny, 
but which in itself presents an essential wick- 
edness that makes other public crimes seem 
like public virtues. 

" But this enormity, vast be3'ond comparison, 
swells to dimensions of wickedness which the 
imagination toils in vain to grasp, when it is 
understood that for this purpose are hazarded 
the horrors of intestine feud, not only in this 
distant territory, but every where throughout 
the country. Already the muster has begun. 
The strife is no longer local, but national. 
Even now, while I speak, portents hang on all 
the arches of the horizon, threatening to darken 
the broad land, which already yawns with the 
mutterings of civil war. The fury of the prop- 
agandists of slaver}', and the calm determina- 
tion of their opp9nents, are now diffused from 
the distant territory over wide-spread commu- 
nities, and the whole country, in all its extent, 
mai'shalling hostile divisions, and foreshadowing 
a strife which, unless happily averted by the 
triumph of freedom, will become war, fratri- 
cidal, parricidal war, with an accumulated 
wickedness beyond the wickedness of any 
war in human annals; justly provoking the 
avenging judgment of Providence and the 
avenging pen of history, and constituting a 
strife, in the language of the ancient writer, 
more than foreign, more than social, more than 
dvil ; but something compounded of all these 
strifes, and in itself more than war ; sed iwiius 
commune quoddam ex omnibus, et plus quam helium. 

"Buch is the crime which you are to judge. 
But the criminal also must be draa:2:ed into 
day, that you may see and measure the power 
by which all this wrong is sustained. From 
no common source could it proceed. In its 
perpetration was needed a spirit of vaiilting 
ambition which would hesitate at nothing ; a 
hardihood of purpose which was insensible to 
the judgment of mankind ; a madness for slar 

very which should disregard the constitution, 

77 



the laws, and all the great examples of our 
history ; also a consciousness of power such as 
comes from the habit of power ; a combination 
of energies found only in a hundred arms 
directed by a hundred eyes ; a control of pub- 
lic opinion, through venal pens and a prosti- 
tuted press; an ability to subsidize crowds in 
every vocation of life — the politician with his 
local importance, the lawyer with his subtle 
tongue, and even the authoiitj- of the judge 
on the bench ; and a familiar use of men in 
places high and low, so that none, from the 
president to the lowest border postmaster, 
should decline to be its tool ; all these things, 
and more, were needed ; and they were found 
in the slave power of oiu- republic. There, sir, 
stands the criminal, all unmasked before you, 
heartless, grasping, and tyrannical ; with an 
audacity beyond that of Verres, a subtlety 
beyond that of Machiavel, a meanness beyond 
that of Bacon, and an ability beyond that of 
Hastings. Justice to Kansas can be secured 
only by the prostration of this influence ; for 
this is the power behind — greater than any 
president — which succors and sustains the 
crime. Naj^, the proceedings I now arraign 
derive their fearful consequence only from this 
connection. * * * 

" My task will be divided under three differ- 
ent heads ; first. The Crime against Kansas, in 
its origin and extent ; secondly. The Apologies 
FOR THE Crime ; and, thirdly. The True Eemedy. 

" But, before entering upon the argument, I 
must say something of a general character, 
particularly in response to what has fallen from 
senators who have raised themselves to emi- 
nence on this floor in championship of human 
wronars ; I mean the senator from South Car- 
olina, [Mr. Butler,] and the senator from Illi- 
nois, [Mr. Douglas,] who, though unlike as 
Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, yet, like this 
couple, sally forth together in the same adven- 
ture. I regret much to miss the elder senator 
from his seat ; but the cause, against which he 



608 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



has run' a tilt, with such activity of animosity, 
demands that the opportunity of exposing him 
should not be lost ; and it is for the cause that 
I speak. The senator from South Carolina has 
read many books of chivalry, and believes him- 
self a chivalrous knight, with sentiments of 
honor and courage. Of course he has chosen 
a mistress to whom he has made his vows, and 
■who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to 
him ; though polluted in the sight of the 
world, is chaste in his sight — I mean the har- 
lot. Slavery. For her, his tongue is always 
profuse in words. Let her be impeached in 
character, or any proposition made to shut her 
out from the extension of her wantonness, and 
DO extravagance of manner or hardihood of 
assertion is then too great for this senator. 
The frenzy of Don Quixote, in behalf of his 
wench, Dulcinea del Toboso, is all surpassed. 
The asserted rights of Slavery, which shock 
equality of all kinds, are cloaked by a fantastic 
claim of equality. If the slave states cannot 
enjoy what, in mockery of the great fathers of 
the republic, he misnames equality under the 
constitution, — in other words, the full power 
in the national territories to compel fellow-men 
to impaid toil, to separate husband and wife, 
and to sell little children at the auction block, 
— then, sir, the chivalric senator will conduct 
the state of South Carolina out of the Union ! 
Heroic knight ! Exalted senator ! A second 
Moses come for a second exodus ! 

"But not content with this poor menace, 
which we have been twice told was " measured," 
the senator, in the unrestrained chivalry of his 
nature, has undertaken to apply opprobrious 
words to those who differ from him on this 
floor. He calls them 'sectional and fanatical ;' 
and opposition to the usurpation in Kansas he 
denounces as ' an uncalculating fanaticism.' 
To be sure, these charges lack all grace of 
originality and all sentiment of truth; but the 
adventurous senator does not hesitate. He is 
the uncompromising, unblushing representative 



on this floor of a flagrant sccfionalism, which now 
domineers over the republic, and yet, with a 
ludicrous ignorance of his own position, unable 
to see himself as others see him, or with an 
effrontery which even his white head ought 
not to protect from rebuke, he applies to those 
here who resist his scciionalism the very epithet 
which desiainates himself The men who strive 
to bring back the government to its original 
policy, when freedom, and not slavery, was 
national, while slavery, and not freedom, was 
sectional, he arraigns as sectional. This will not 
do. It involves too great a perversion of 
terras. I tell that senator that it is to himself, 
and to the ' organization ' of which he is the 
' committed advocate,' that this epithet be- 
longs. I now fasten it upon them. For my- 
self, I care little for names ; but since the ques- 
tion has been raised here, I, affirm that the 
Eepublican party of the Union is in no just 
sense sectional, but, more than any other party, 
national ; and that it now goes forth to dislodge 
from the high places of the government the 
tyrannical sectionalism of which the senator 
from South Carolina is one of the maddest 
zealots. 

" To the charge of fanaticism I also reply. 
Sir, fanaticism is found in an enthusiasm or 
exaggeration of opinions, particularly on reli- 
gious subjects ; but there may be a fanaticism 
for evil, as well as for good. Now, I will not 
deny, that there are persons among tis loving 
liberty too well for their personal good, in a 
selfish generation. Such there may be, and, 
for the sake of their example, would that there 
were more ! In calling them ' fanatics,' you 
cast contumely upon the noble army of mar- 
tyrs, from the earliest day down to this hour ; 
upon the great tribunes of human rights, by 
whom life, liberty, and happiness, on earth, 
have been secured ; upon the long line of de- 
voted patriots, who, throughout history, have 
truly loved their country ; and upon all who, 
in noble aspirations for the general good, and 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



609 



in forgetfulness of self, have stood out before 
their age, and gathei'ed into their generous 
bosoms the shafts of tyranny and wrong, in 
order to make a pathway for Truth. You dis- 
credit Luther, when alone he nailed his articles 
to the door of the church at Wittenberg, and 
then, to the imperial demand that he should 
retract, firmly replied, 'Here I stand; I cannot 
do otherwise, so help me God ! ' You discredit 
Hampden, when alone he refused to pay the 
few shillings of ship-money, and shook the 
throne of Charles I. ; you discredit Milton, 
when, amidst the corruptions of a heartless 
court, he lived on, the lofty friend of liberty, 
above question or suspicion ; you discredit 
Russell and Sidney, when, for the sake of their 
country, they calmly turned from family and 
friends, to tread the narrow steps of the scaf- 
fold ; you discredit those early founders of 
American institutions, who preferred the hard- 
ships of a wilderness, surrounded by a savage 
foe, to injustice on beds of ease ; you discredit 
our later fathers, who, few in numbers and 
weak in resources, yet strong in their cause, 
did not hesitate to brave the mighty power of 
England, already encircling the globe with her 
morning drum-beats. Y'^es, sii', of such are the 
fanatics of history, according to the senator. 
But I tell that senator, that there are charac- 
ters badly eminent, of whose fanaticism there 
can be no question. Such were the ancient 
Egyptians, who worshipped divinities in brutish 
forms ; the Druids, who darkened the forests 
of oak, in which they lived, by sacrifices of 
blood ; the Mexicans, who surrendered countr 
less victims to the propitiation of their obscene 
idols ; the Spaniards, who, under Alva, sought 
to force the Inquisition upon Holland, by a 
tyranny kindred to that now employed to force 
slavery upon Kansas ; and such were the 
Algerines, when in solemn conclave, after lis- 
tening to a speech not unlike that of the sen- 
ator from South Carolina, they resolved to con- 
tinue the slavery of white Christians, and to 



extend it to the countrymen of Washington ! 
Ay, sir, extend it ! And in this same dreary 
catalogue faithful history must record all who 
now, in an enlightened age and in a land of 
boasted freedom, stand up, in perversion of the 
constitution and in denial of immortal truth, 
to fasten a new shackle upon their fellow-man. 
If the senator wishes to see fanatics, let him 
look round among his own associates ; let him 
look at himself ■'' ■•= - 

" I. It belongs to me now, in the first place, 
to expose the Crime against Kansas, in its ori- 
gin and extent. Logically, this is the begin- 
ning of the argument. I say crime, and delib- 
erately adopt this strongest term, as better than 
any other denoting the consummate transgres- 
sion. I would go farther, if language could 
farther go. It is the Crime of Crimes, surpass- 
ing far the old crimen maj'estatis, pursued with 
vengeance by the laws of Rome, and contain- 
ing all other crimes, as the greater contains the 
less. I do not go too far, when I call it the 
Crime against Nature, from which the soul re- 
coils, and which language refuses to describe. 
To lay bare this enormity, I now proceed. 
The whole subject has already become a twice- 
told tale, and its renewed recital will be a re- 
newal of its sorrow and shame ; but I shall not 
hesitate to enter upon it. The occasion re- 
quires it from the beginning. 

"It has been well remarked by a distin- 
guished historian of our country, that, at the 
Ithuriel touch of the Missouri discussion, the 
slave interest, hitherto hardly recognized as a 
distinct element in our system, started up por- 
tentous and dilated, with threats and assump- 
tions, which are the origin of our existing 
national politics. This was in 1820. The dis- 
cussion ended with the admission of Missouri 
as a slaveholding state, and the prohibition of 
slavery in all the remaining territory west of 
the Mississippi, and north of 36° 30', leaving 
the condition of other territory south of this 
line, or subsequently acquired, untouched by 



610 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



the arranEfeinent. Here was a solemn act of 
legislation, called at the time a compromise, a 
covenant, a compact, first brought forward in 
this body by a slaveholder, vindicated by slave- 
holders in debate, finally sanctioned by slave- 
holding votes ; also upheld at the time by the 
essential approbation of a slaveholding presi- 
dent, James Monroe, and his cabinet, of whom a 
majority were slaveholders, including Mr. Cal- 
houn himself; and this compromise was made 
the condition of the admission of Missouri, with- 
out which that state could not have been re- 
ceived into the Union. The bargain was simple, 
and was applicable,of course,only tothe territory 
named. Leaving all other territory to await 
the judgment of another generation, the south 
said to the north, ' Conquer your prejudices so 
far as to admit Missouri as a slave state, and, 
in consideration of this much-coveted boon, 
slavery shall be prohibited forever in all the 
remaining Louisiana territory above 36° 30';' 
and the north yielded. 

" Li total disregard of history, the president, 
in his annual message, has told us that this 
compromise ' was reluctantly acquiesced in by 
the Southern States.' Just the contrary is 
true. It was the work of slaveholders, and 
was crowded by their concurring votes upon a 
reluctant north. At the time, it was hailed by 
slaveholders as a victory. Charles Pinckney, 
of South Carolina, in an oft-quoted letter, writ- 
ten at three o'clock on the night of its passage, 
says, ' It is considered here by the slaveholding 
states as a great triumph.' At the north, it 
was accepted as a defeat, and the friends of 
freedom every where throughout the country 
bowed their heads with mortification. But 
little did they know the completeness of their 
disaster. Little did they dream that the pro- 
hibition of slavery in the territory, which was 
stipulated as the price of their fatal capitula- 
tion, would also at the very moment of its 
maturity be wrested from them. 
_ "Time passed, and it became necessary to 



provide for this territory an organized govern- 
ment. Suddenly, without notice in the public 
press, or the prayer of a single petition, or one 
word of open recommendation from the pres- 
ident; after an acquiescence of thirty-three 
years, and the irreclaimable possession by the 
south of its special share under this compro- 
mise, in violation of every obligation of honoi-, 
compact, atid good neighborhood, and in con- 
temptuous disregard of the outgushing senti- 
ments of an aroused north, this time-honored 
prohibition, in itself a landmark of freedom, 
was overturned, and the vast region now known 
as Kansas and Nebraska was opened to slavery. 
It was natural that a measure thus repugnant 
in character should be pressed by arguments 
mutually repugnant. It was urged on two 
principal reasons, so opposite and inconsistent 
as to slap each other in the face ; one being, 
that by the repeal of the prohibition, the ter- 
ritory would be left open to the entry of slave- 
holders with their slaves, without hinderance ; 
and the other being, that the people would be 
left absolutely free to determine the question 
for themselves, and to prohibit the entry of 
slaveholders with their slaves, if they should 
think best. With some, the apology was the 
alleged rights of slaveholders ; with others, it 
was the alleged rights of the people. With 
some, it was openly the extension of slaverj^ ; 
and with others, it was openly the establish- 
ment of freedom, under the guise of popular 
sovereignty. Of course, the measure, thus 
upheld in defiance of reason, was carried 
throuo-h Congress in defiance of all the secu- 
rities of legislation ; and I mention these things 
that you may see in what foulness the present 
crime was engendered. 

"It was carried, first, by u'hipping in to its 
support, through executive influence and pat- 
ronage, men who acted against their own 
declared judgment and the known will of 
their constituents. Secondly, by foisiing out of 
place, both in the senate and house of repre- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



GU 



sentatives, important business, long pending, 
and usurping its room. Thirdly, by trampling 
under fool the rules of the house of represen- 
tatives, always before the safeguard of the 
minority. And, fourthly, by driving it to a 
close during the very session in which it origi- 
nated, so that it might not be arrested by the 
indignant voice oP the people. Such are some 
of the means by which this snap judgment was 
obtained. If the clear will of the people had 
not been disregarded, it could not have passed. 
If the government had not nefariously inter- 
posed its influence, it could not have passed. 
If it had been left to its natural place in the 
order of business, it could not have passed. If 
the rules of the house and the rights of the 
minority had not been violated, it could not 
have passed. If it had been allowed to go 
over to another Congress, when the people 
might be heard, it would have been ended; 
and then the crime we now deplore would have 
been without its first seminal life. 

" Mr. President, I mean to keep absolutely 
•within the limits of parliamentary propriety. 
I make no personal imputations ; but only with 
frankness, such as belongs to the occasion and 
my own character, describe a great historical 
act, which is now enrolled in the Capitol. Sir, 
the Nebraska bill was in every respect a swin- 
dle. It was a swindle by the south of the 
north. It was, on the part of- those who had 
already completely enjoyed their share of the 
Missouri compromise, a swindle of those whose 
share was yet absolutely untouched ; and the 
plea of unconstitutionality set up — like the 
plea of usury after the borrowed money has 
been enjoyed — did not make it less a swindle. 
Urged as a bill of peace, it was a swindle of 
the whole country. Urged as opening the 
doors to slave-masters with their slaves, it was 
a swindle of the asserted doctrine of popular 
sovereignty. Urged as sanctioning popular 
sovereignty, it was a swindle of the asserted 
rights of slave-masters. It was a swindle of a 



broad territory, thus cheated of protection 
against slavery. It was a swindle of a great 
cause, early espoused by Washington, Franklin, 
and Jefferson, surrounded by the best fathers 
of the republic. Sir, it was a swindle of God- 
given, inalienable rights. Turn it over ; look 
at it on all sides, and it is every where a swin- 
dle ; and, if the word I now employ has not 
the authority of classical usage, it has, on this 
occasion, the indubitable authority of fitness. 
No other word will adequately express the 
mingled meanness and wickedness of the cheat. 
" Its character was still further apparent in 
the general structure of the bill. Amidst over- 
flowing professions of regard for the sovereignty 
of the people in the territory, they were de- 
spoiled of every essential privilege of sov- 
ereignty. They were not allowed to choose 
their governor, secretary, chief fiistice, associate 
justices, attorney, or marshal, all of whom are 
sent from Washington ; nor were they allowed 
to regulate the salaries of any of these func- 
tionaries, or the daily allowance of the legisla- 
tive body, or even the pay of the clerks and 
door-keepers ; but they Avere left free to adopt 
slavery. And this was called popular sov- 
ereignty ! Time does not allow, nor does the 
occasion require, that I should stop to dwell on 
this transparent device to cover a transcendent 
wrong. Suffice it to say, that slavery is in 
itself an arrogant denial of human rights, and 
by no human reason can the power to estab- 
lish such a wrong be placed among the attri- 
butes of any just sovereignty. In refusing it 
such a place, I do not deny popular rights, but 
uphold them ; I do not restrain popular rights, 
but extend them. And, sir, to this conclusion 
you must yet come, imless deaf, not only to the 
admonitions of political justice, but also to the 
genius of our own constitution, under which, 
when properly interpreted, no valid claim for 
slavery can be set up any whore in the na- 
tional territory. The senator from Michigan 
[Mr. Cass] may say, in response to the senator 



612 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



from Mississippi, [Mr. Brown,] that slavery can- 
not go into the territory under the constitution 
without legislative introduction ; and permit 
me- to add, in response to both, that slavery 
cannot go there at all. Nothing can come out 
of nothing ; and there is absolutely nothing in 
the constitution out of which slavery can be 
derived, while there are provisions, which, 
when properly interpreted, make its existence 
any where within the exclusive national juris- 
diction impossible. * * * 

" Mr. President, men are wisely presumed to 
intend the natural consequences of their con- 
duct, and to seek what their acts seem to pro- 
mote. Now, the Nebraska bill, on its very 
face, openly cleared the way for slavery, and it 
is not wrong to presume that its originators 
intended the natural consequences of such an 
act, and sougli* in this way to extend slavery. 
Of course they did. And this is the first stage 
in the crime against Kansas. 

"But this was speedily followed by other 
developments. The barefaced scheme was 
soon whispered that Kansas must be a slave 
state. In conformity with this idea was the 
government of this unhappy territory organ- 
ized in all its departments ; and thus did the 
president, by whose complicity the prohibition 
of slavery had been overthrown, lend himself 
to a new comjilicity, giving to the conspirators 
a lease of connivance, amounting even to co- 
partnership. The governor, secretary, chief 
justice, associate justices, attorney, and marshal, 
with a whole caucus of other stipendiaries, 
nominated by the president and confirmed by 
the senate, were all commended as friendly to 
slavery. ' No man with the sentiments of Wash- 
ington, or Jefferson, or Franklin, found any 
favor; nor is it too much to say, that, had 
these great patriots once more come among us, 
not one of them, with his recorded, unretracted 
opinions on slavery, could have been nominated 
by the president or confirmed by the senate for 
any post in that territory. With such auspices 



the conspiracy proceeded. Even in advance 
of the Nebraska bill, secret societies were or- 
ganized in Missouri, ostensiblv to protect her 
institutions, and afterwards, under the name of 
'Self-Defensive Associations,' and of 'Blue 
Lodges,' these were multiplied throughout the 
western counties of that state, before anv coun- 
termovement from the north. It was confi- 
dently anticipated that, by the activity of these 
societies, and the interest of slaveholders every 
where, with the advantage derived from the 
neighborhood of Missouri, and the influence of 
the territorial government, slavery might be 
introduced into Kansas, quietly but surely, 
without arousing a conflict — that the crocodile 
egg might be stealthily dropped in the sun- 
burnt soil, there to be hatched unobserved 
until it sent forth its reptile monster. 

"But the conspiracy was unexpectedly balked. 
The debate, which convulsed Congress, had 
stirred the whole country. Attention from all 
sides was directed upon Kansas, which at once 
became the favorite goal of emigration. The 
bill had loudly declared that its object was ' to 
leave the people perfectly free to. form and 
regulate their domestic institutions in their own 
way ; ' and its supporters every where chal- 
lenged the determination of the question be- 
tween freedom and slavery by a competition 
of emigration. Thus, while opening the terri- 
tory to slavery, -the bill also opened it to emi- 
grants from every quarter, who might by their 
votes redress the wrong. The populous north, 
stung by a sharp sense of outrage, and inspired 
by a noble cause, poured into the debatable 
land, and promised soon to establish a suprem- 
acy of numbers there, involving, of course, a 
just supremacy of freedom. 

" Then was conceived the consummation of 
tlie crime against Kansas. What could not be 
accomplished peaceably was to be accomplished 
forcibly. The reptile monster, that could not 
be quietly and securely hatched there, was to 
be pushed full-grown into the territory. All 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



613 



efforts were now given to the dismal work of 
forcing slavery on free soil. In flagrant dero- 
gation of the very popular sovereignty, whose 
name helped to impose this bill upon the coun- 
try, the atrocious object -was now distinctly 
avowed. And the avowal has been followed 
by the act. Slavery has been forcibly intro- 
duced into Kansas, and placed under the formal 
safeguards of pretended law. How this was 
done, belongs to the argument. 

In depicting this consummation, the simplest 
outline, without one word of color, will be be.st. 
Whether regarded in its mass or its details, in 
its origin or its result, it is all blackness, illu- 
mined by nothing from itself, but only by the 
heroism of the undaunted men and women 
whom it environed. A plain statement of facts 
will be a picture of fearful truth, which faith- 
ful history will preserve in its darkest gallery. 
In the foreground all will recognize a familiar 
character, in himself a connectins- link between 
the president and the border ruffian, — less 
conspicuous for ability than for the exalted 
place he has occupied, — who once sat in the 
seat where you now sit, sir; where once sat 
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson ; also, where 
once sat Aaron Burr. I need not add the 
name of David R. Atchison. You have not 
forgotten that, at the session of Congress im- 
mediately succeeding the Nebraska bill, he came 
tardily to his duty here, and then, after a short 
time, disappeared. The secret has been long 
since disclosed. Like Catiline, he stalked into 
this chamber, reeking with conspiracy — immo 
in senattmi venit ; and then, like Catiline, he 
skulked away — ahiU, excessit, evmit, erupit — to 
join and provoke the conspirators, who at a 
distance awaited their congenial chief Under 
the influence of his malign presence the crime 
ripened to its fatal fruits, while the similitude 
with Catiline was again renewed in the sym- 
pathy, not even concealed, which he found in 
the very senate itself, where, beyond even the 



Roman example, a senator has not hesitated to 
appear as his open compurgator. *• * * 

" Thus was the crime consummated. Slavery 
now stands erect, clanking its chains on the 
territory of Kansas, surrounded by a code of 
death, and trampling upon all cherished liber- 
ties, whether of speech, the press, the bar, the 
trial by jury, or the electoral franchise. And, 
sir, all this has been done, not merely to intro- 
duce a wrong which in itself is a denial of all 
rights, and in dread of which a mother has 
lately taken the life of her offspring ; not 
merely, as has been sometimes said, to protect 
slavery in Missouri, since it is futile for this 
state to complain of freedom on the side of 
Kansas, when freedom exists without complaint 
on. the side of Iowa and also on the side of 
Illinois ; but it has been done for tlie sake of 
political power, in order to bring two new 
slaveholding senators upon this floor, and thus 
to fortify in the national government the des- 
pei'ate chances of a waning oligarchy. As the 
ship, voyaging on pleasant summer seas, is as- 
sailed by a pirate crew, and robbed for the 
sake of its doubloons and dollars, so is this 
beautiful territory now assailed in its peace and 
prosperity, and robbed, in order to wrest its 
political power to the side of slaver3^ Even 
now the black flag of the land pirates from 
Missouri waves at the mast head ; in their laws 
you hear the pirate yell, and see the flash of 
the pirate knife ; while, incredible to relate ! 
the president, gathering the slave power at his 
back, testifies a pirate sympathy. 

Sir, all this was done in the name of popular 
sovereignty. And this is the' close of the 
tragedy. Popular sovereignty, which, when 
truly understood, is a fountain of just power, 
has ended in popular slavery ; not merely in 
the subjection of the unhappy African race, 
but of this proud Caucasian blood, which you 
boast. The profession with which you began, 
of all by the people, has been lost in the 



614 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



■wretched reality of nothing for the people. Pop- 
ular sovereignty, in whose deceitful name 
pliglited faith was broken, and an ancient 
landmark of freedom was overturned, now lifts 
itself before us, like Sin, in the terrible picture 
of Milton, — 

' That seemed a woman to the waist, and fair, 
But ended foul in many a scaly fold 
Voluminous and vast, a serpent armed 
With mortal sting ; about her middle round 
A cry of hell-hounds ncA-er ceasing barked 
With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung 
A hideous peal ; yet, when they list, would creep. 
If aught disturbed their noise, into her womb. 
And kennel there, yet there still barked and howled 
Within, unseen.' 

The image is complete at all points ; and, with 
this exposure, I take my leave of the crime 
against Kansas. * * * 

" Sir, the crime cannot be denied. The presi- 
dent himself has admitted 'illegal and repre- 
hensible ' conduct. To such conclusion he was 
compelled ■ by irresistible evidence ; but what 
he mildly describes I openly arraign. Senators 
may affect to put it aside by a sneer ; or to 
reason it away by figures ; or to explain it by 
a theory, such as desperate invention has pro- 
duced on this floor, that the assassins and thugs 
of Missouri were in reality citizens of Kansas ; 
but all these efforts, so far as made, are only 
tokens of the weakness of the cause, while to 
the original crime they add another offence of 
false testimony against innocent and suffering 
men. But the Apologies for the crime are 
worse than the efforts at denial. In cruelty 
and heartlessness they identify their authors 
with the great transgression. 

" They are four in number, and fourfold in 
character. The first is the apology tyrannical; 
the second, the apology im})ccile ; the third, the 
apology absurd; and the fourth, the apology 
infamous. This is all. Tyranny, imbecility, ab- 
surdity, and infamy, all unite to dance, like the 
weird sisters, about this crime. 

" The apology tyrannical is founded on the mis- 
taken act of Governor Reeder, in authenticating 



the usurping legislature, by which it is asserted 
that, whatever may have been the actual force 
or fraud in its election, the people of Kansas 
are eflTectually concluded, and the whole pro- 
ceeding is placed under the formal sanction of 
law. Accox'ding to this .issumption, complaint 
is now in vain, and it only remains that Con- 
gress should sit and hearken to it, without cor- 
recting the wrong, as the ancient tyrant listened 
and granted no redress to the human moans that 
issued from the heated brazen bull, which subtle 
cruelty had devised. This I call the apology 
of technicality inspired by tyranny. * * * 
" Next comes the apology imbecile, which is 
founded on the alleged want of power in the 
president to arrest this crime. It is openly 
asserted, that, under the existing 'laws of the 
United States, the chief magistrate had no au- 
thority to interfere in Kansas for this purpose. 
Such is the broad statement, which, even if cor- 
rect, furnishes no apology for any proposed 
ratification of the crime, but whicTi is in reality 
untrue ; and this I call the apology of im- 
becility. 

" In other matters, no such ostentatious imbe- 
cility appears. Only lately, a vessel of war in 
the Pacific has chastised the cannibals of the 
Fejee Islands for alleged outrages on American 
citizens. But no person of ordinary intelligence 
will pretend that American citizens in the Pa- 
cific have received wrongs from these cannibals 
comparable in atrocity to those received by 
American citizens in Kansas. Ah, sir, the in- 
terests of slavery are not touched by any chas- 
tisement of the Fejees ! 

" Constantly we are informed of efibrts at New 
York, through the agency of the government, 
and- sometimes pnly on the breath of suspicion, 
to arrest vessels about to.sail on foreign voyages 
in violation of our neutrality laws or treaty 
stipulations. Now, no man familiar with the 
cases will presume to suggest that the urgency 
for these arrests was equal to the urgency for 
interposition against these successive invasions 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



6K 



from Missouri. But the slave power is not 
disturbed by such arrests at New York ! 

"At this moment, the president exults in the 
vigilance with which he has prevented the en- 
listment of a few soldiers, to be carried off to 
Halifax, in violation of our territorial sover- 
eignty, and England is bravely threatened, even 
to the extent of a rupture of diplomatic rela- 
tions, for her endeavor, though unsuccessful, 
and at once abandoned. Surely no man in 
his senses will urge that this act was any thing 
but trivial by the side of the crime against 
Kansas. But the slave power is not concerned 
in this controversy. 

" Thus, where the slave power is indifferent, 
the president will see that the laws are faith- 
fully executed ; but, in other cases, where the 
interests of slavery are at stake, he is controlled 
absolutely by this tyranny, ready at all times 
to do, or not to do, precisely as it dictates. 
Therefore it is that Kansas is left a prey to the 
propagandists of slavery, while the whole treas- 
ury, the army and navy of the United States, 
are lavished to hunt a single slave through the 
streets of Boston. You have not forgotten the 
latter instance ; but I choose to refresh it in 
3'our minds. * '■'^ ''• 

" Next comes the apology absurd, which is, 
indeed, in the nature of a pretext. It is alleged 
that a small printed pamphlet, containing the 
' Constitution and Ritual of the Gra'nd Encamp- 
ment and Eegiments of the Kansas Legion,' 
was taken from the person of one George F. 
Warren, who attempted to avoid detection hy 
chewing it. The oaths and grandiose titles of 
the pretended legion have all been set forth, 
and this poor mummery of a secret society, 
which existed only on paper, has been gravelj^ 
introduced on this floor, in order to extenuate 
the crime against Kansas. -^ '" * 

" It only remains, under this head, that I 

should speak of the apology infamons ; founded 

on false testimony against the Emigrant Aid 

Company, and assumptions of duty more false 

78 



than the testimony. Defying truth and mock- 
ing decenc_Y, this apology excels all others in 
futilit}' and audacity, while, from its utter hol- 
lowness, it proves the utter impotence of the 
conspirators to defend their crime. Falsehood, 
always infamous, in this case arouses peculiar 
scorn. An association of sincere benevolence, 
faithful to the constitution and laws, whose 
only fortifications are hotels, school houses, and 
churches ; whose only weapons are saw-mills, 
tools, and books ; whose mission is peace and 
good will, has been falsely assailed on this 
floor, and an errand of blameless virtue luis 
been made the pretext for an unpardonable 
crime. Nay, more — the innocent are sacri- 
ficed, and the guilty set at liberty. They who 
seek to do the mission of the Saviour are 
scourged and crucified, while the murderer, 
Barabbas, with the sympathy of the chief 
priests, goes at large. * * * 

" The falsehood of tlie whole accusation will 
appear in illustrative specimens. 

" A charter is set out, section by section, which 
though originally granted, was subsequently 
abandoned, and is not in reality the charter of 
the company, but is materially unlike it. 

" The company is represented as ' a powerful 
corporation, with a capital of five millions;' 
when, by its actual chaiter, it is not allowed to 
hold property above one million, and, in point of 
fact, its capital has not exceeded one hundred 
thousand dollars. 

'• Then, again, it is suggested, if not alleged, 
that this enormous capital, which I have already 
said does not exist, is invested in ' cannon and 
rifles, in powder and lead, and implements of 
war' — all of which, whether alleged or sug- 
gested, is aljsolutely false. The officers of the 
company authorize me to give to this whole 
pretension a jioint-blank denial. 

" All these allegations are of small importance, 
and I mention them only because they show 
the character of the report, and also something 
of the quicksand on which the senator from 



J16 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Illinois has chosen to plant himself. But these 
are .ill capped by the unblushing assertion that 
the proceedings of the company were ' in per- 
version of the plain provisions of an act of 
Congress ; ' and also, another vinblushing asser- 
tion, as ' certain and undeniable,' that the com- 
pany was formed to promote certain objects, 
* regardless of the rights and wishes of the peo- 
ple, as guaranteed by the constitution of the 
United States, and secured by their organic 
law ; ' when it is certain and undeniable that 
the company has done nothing in perversion 
of any act of Congress, while to the extent of 
its power it has sought to protect the rights and 
wishes of the actual people in the territory. 

" Sir, this company has violated in no respect 
the constitution or laws of the land ; not in the 
severest letter or the slightest spirit. But every 
other imputation is equally baseless. It is not 
true, as the senator from Illinois has alleged, in 
order in some way to compromise the company, 
that it was informed before the public of the 
date fixed for the election of the legislature. 
This statement is pronounced by the secretary, 
in a letter now before me, ' an unqualified false- 
hood, not havincr even the shadow of a shade 
of truth for its basis.' It is not true that men 
have been hired by the company to go to Kan- 
sas ; for every emigrant, who has gone nnder 
its direction, has himself provided the means 
for his journey. Of course, sir, it is not true, 
as has been complained by the senator from 
South Carolina, with that proclivity to error 
which marks all his utterances, that men have 
been sent by the company ' with one uniform 
gun, Sharpe's rifle ; ' for it has supplied no arms 
of any kind to any body. It is not true that 
the company has encouraged any fanatical ag- 
gression upon the people of Missouri ; for it 
has counselled order, peace, forbearance. It is 
not true that the company has chosen its emi- 
grants on account of their political opinions; 
for it has asked no questions with regard to the 
opinions of any whom it aids, and at this mo- 



ment stands ready to forward those from the 
south as well as the north, while, in the tQjrri- 
tory, all, from whatever quarter, are admitted 
to an equal enjoyment of its tempting advan- 
tages. It is not true that the company has 
sent persons merely to control elections, and 
not to remain in the territory; for its whole 
action, and all its anticipation of pecuniary 
profits, are founded on the hope to stock the 
country with pei'manent settlers, by whose la- 
bor the capital of the company shall be made to 
yield its increase, and by whose fixed interest 
in the soil the welfare of all shall be promoted. 
" Sir, it has not the honor of being an abolition 
society, or of numbering among its officers abo- 
litionists. Its president is a retired citizen, of 
ample means and charitable life, who has taken 
no part in the conflicts on slavery, and has never 
allowed his sympathies to be felt by abolition- 
ists. One of its vice-presidents is a gentleman 
from Virginia, with fiimily and friends there, 
who has always opposed the abolitionists. Its 
generous treasurer, wdio is now justly absorbed 
by the objects of the company, has always been 
understood as ranging, with his extensive con- 
nections by blood and marriage, on the side of 
that quietism which submits to all the tyranny 
of the slave power. Its directors are more 
consjjicuous for wealth and science than for 
any activity against slavery. Among these is 
an eminent lawyer of Massachusetts, Mr. Chap- 
man, — personally known, doubtless, to some 
who hear me, — who has distinguished himself 
by an austere conservatism, too natural to the 
atmosphere of courts, which does not flinch 
even from the support of the fugitive slave 
bill. In a recent address at a public meeting 
in Springfield, this gentleman thus speaks for 
himself and his associates : — 

" ' I have been a director of the society from the first, 
and have kept myself vcell informed in regard to its 
proceedings. I am not aware that any one in this 
community ever suspected me of being an aboli- 
tionist ; but I have been accused of being pro-slavery ; 
and I believe many good people think I am quite too 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



617 



Conservative on tliat subject. I take this occasion to 
say that all the plans and procoedings of the society 
have met my approbation ; and I assert that it lias 
never done a single act with which any political party 
or the people of any section of tlie country can justly 
find fault. The names of its president, Mr. Brown, 
of Providence, and of its treasurer, Mr. -Lawrence, 
of Boston, are a sufficient guaranty in the estimation 
of intelligent men against its being engaged in any 
fanatical enterprise. Its stockholders are composed 
of men of all political parties except abolitionists. 
I am not aware that it has received the patronage of 
that class of our I'cUow-citizens, and I am informed 
that some of them disapprove of its proceedings.' 

" The acts of the company have been such as 
might be expected from auspices thus severely 
careM at all pointii The secret through which, 
with small means, it has been able to accom- 
plish so much, is, that, as an mducemenl to emigror 
Hon, it has gone forward and planted capital in 
advance of popxdatvon. According to the old im- 
methodical system, this rule is reversed, and 
population has been loft to grope blindly, with- 
out the advantage of fixed centres, with mills, 
schools, and churches — all calculated to soften 
the hardships of pioneer life — such as have 
been established beforehand in Kansas. Here, 
sir, is the secret of the Emigrant Aid Company. 
By this single principle, which is now jDracti- 
cally applied for the first time in history, and 
w'hich has the simplicity of genius, a business 
association at a distance, without a large cap- 
ital, has become a beneficent instrument of 
civilization, exercising the functions of various 
societies, and in itself being a missionary soci- 
ety, a Bible society, a tract society, an education 
society, and a society for the diffusion of the 
mechanic arts. * * '•= 

" Ggd be praised ! Massachusetts, honored 
commonwealth that gives me the privilege to 
plead for Kansas on this floor, knows her rights, 
and will maintain them firmly to the end. This 
is not the first time in history that her public 
acts have been arraigned, and that her public 
men have been exposed to contumely. Thus 
was it when, in the olden time, she began the 
great battle whose fruits you all enjoy. But 



never yet has she occupied a position so lofty 
as at this hour. By the intelligence of her 
population — by the resources of her industry 
— by her commerce, cleaving every wave — 
by her manufactures, various as human skill — 
by her institutions of education, various as 
human knowledge — by her institutions of be- 
nevolence, various as human suffering — by 
the pages of her scholars and historians — ljy 
the voices of her poets and orators, she is now 
exerting an influence more subtle and com- 
manding than ever before — shooting her far- 
darting rays wherever ignorance, wretchedness, 
or wrong, prevail, and flashing light even upon 
tho.se who travel far to persecute her. Such is 
Massachusetts, and I am proud to believe that 
you may as well attempt, with puny arm, to 
topple down the earth-rooted, heaven-kissing 
granite which crowns the historic sod of Bun- 
ker Hill, as to change her fixed resolves for 
freedom every where, and especially now for 
freedom in Kansas. I exult, too, that in this 
battle, which surpasses fi\r in moral grandeur 
the whole war of the revolution, she is able to 
preserve her just eminence. To the first she 
contributed a larger number of troops than 
any other state in the Union, and larger than 
all the slave states together ; and now to the 
second, which is not of contending armies, but 
of contending opinions, on whose issue hangs 
trembling the advancing civilization of the 
country, she contributes, through the manifold 
and endless intellectual activity of her children, 
more of that divine spark by which opinions 
are quickened into life, than is contributed by 
any other state, or by all the slave states to- 
gether, while her annual productive industry 
excels in value three times the whole vaunted 
cotton crop of the whole south. 

"Sir, to men on earth it belongs only to de- 
serve success ; not to secure it ; and I know 
not how soon the eflbrts of Massachusetts will 
wear the crown of triumph. . But it cannot be 
that she acts wrong for herself or children. 



618 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, 



■when in this cause she thus encounters re- 
jDroach. No ; by the generous souls who were 
exposed at Lexington ; by those who stood 
arrayed at Bunker Hill ; by the many from 
her bosom who, on all the fields of the first 
great struggle, lent their vigorous arms to the 
cause of all ; by the children she has borne, 
whose names alone are national trophies, is 
Massachusetts now vowed irrevocably to this 
work. What belongs to the faithful servant 
she will do in all things, and Providence shall 
determine the result. * * * 

" As the apologies were fourfold, so are the 
Remedies proposed fourfold ; and they range 
themselves in natural order, under designations 
which so truly disclose their character as even 
to supersede argument. First, we have the 
remedy of tyranny : next, the remedy of folly; 
next, the remedy of injustice and civil war; 
and fourthly, the remedy of justice and peace. 
There are the four caskets ; and you are to 
determine which shall be opened by senatorial 
votes. 

" There is the remedij of tyranny, which, like its 
complement, the apology of tyranny — though 
espoused on this floor, especially by the senator 
from Illinois — proceeds from the president, and 
is embodied in a special message. It proposes 
to enforce obedience to the existing laws of 
Kansas, ' whether federal or local,' when, in fiict, 
Kansas has no ' local ' laws except those imposed 
by the usurpation from Missouri, and it calls 
for additional appropriations to complete this 
work of tyranny. ='= '^ * 

" Next comes the remedy of folly, which, indeed, 
is also a remedy of tyranny ; but its folly is so 
surpassing as to eclipse even its tyranny. It 
does not proceed from the president. With this 
proposition he is not in any way chargeable. 
It comes from the senator from South Carolina, 
who, at the close of a long speech, offered it as 
his single contribution to the adjustment of 
this question, and who thus far stands alone in 
its support. It might, therefore, fitly bear his 



name ; but that which I now give to it is a 
more suggestive synonyme. 

" This proposition, nakedly expressed, is that 
the people of Kansas should be deprived of 
their arms. That I may not do the least injus- 
tice to the senator, I quote his precise words : — 

" ' The president of the United States is tinder the 
highest and most solemn obligations to interpose ; and 
if I were to indicate the manner in which he should 
interpose in Kansas, I would point out the old com- 
mon-law process. I would serve a warrant on Sharpe's 
rifles, and if Sharpe's rifles did not answer the sum- 
mons and come into court on a day certain, or if they 
resisted the sheriff, I would summon the posse comi- 
tatus, and would have Colonel Sumner's regiment to 
be a part of that posse comUaf.us.' 

" Really, sir, has it come to this ? The rifle has 
ever been the companion of the pioneer, and 
under God, his tutelary protector against the 
red man and the beast of the forest. Never 
was this efficient weapon more needed in just 
self-defence, than now in Kansas, and at least 
one article in our national constitution must be 
blotted out, before the complete right to it can 
in any way be impeached. And jet such is 
the madness of the houi', that, in defiance of 
the solemn guaranty, embodied in the amend- 
ments to the constitution, that ' the right of the 
people to keep and bear arms shall not be 
infringed,' the people of Kansas have been 
arraigned for keeping and bearing them, and 
the senator from South Carolina has had the 
face to say openly, on this floor, that they 
should be disarmed — of course, that the fa- 
natics of slavery, his allies and constituents, 
may meet no impediment. * * * 

" Next comes the remedy of injustice and civil 
tear — organized by act of Congress. This prop- 
osition, which is also an offshoot of the original 
remedy of tyranny, proceeds from the senator 
from Illinois, [Mr. Douglas,] with the sanction 
of the committee on territories, and is embodied 
in the bill which is now pressed to a vote. 

" By this bill it is proposed, as follows : — 

" ' That whenever it shall appear, by a census to be 
taken under the direction of the governor, by the 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



619 



fiutliority of the legislature, that there shall be 
ninety-three thousand four hundred and twenty in- 
habitants (that being the number required by tiie 
present ratio of representation for a member of Con- 
gress) witliin the limits hereafter described as the 
territory of Kansas, the leg-islaiure of said territory 
sliall be, ami is hereby, authorized to provide by law 
for the election of delegates, by the people of said 
territory, to assemble in convention and form a con- 
stitution and state government, preparatory to tlieir 
admission into the Union on an equal footing with 
the original states in all respects whatsoever, by the 
name of the state of Kansas.' 

" Now, sir, consider these words carefully, and 
you will see that, however plausible and velvet- 
pawed they may seem, yet in reality they are 
most unjust and cruel. While aflfecting to ini- 
tiate honest proceedings for the formation of a 
state, they furnish to this territory no redress 
for the crime under which it suffers ; nay, they 
recognize the very usurpation in which the 
crime ended, and proceed to endow it with new 
prerogatives. It is by the authority of the legis- 
lature that the census is to be taken, which is the 
first step in the work. It is also by the authority 
of the legislature that a convention is to be called 
for the formation of a constitution, which is the 
second step. But the legislature is not obliged 
to take either of these steps. To its absolute 
wilfulness is it left to act or not to act in the 
premises. And since, in the ordinary course 
of business, there can be no action of the lesjis- 
lature till January of the next year, all these 
steps, which are preliminary in their character, 
are postponed till after that distant day; thus 
keeping this great question open, to distract 
and irritate the country. Clearly this is not 
what is required. The country desires peace 
at once, and is determined to have it. But 
this objection is slight by the side of the glaring 
tyranny, that, in recognizing the legislature and 
conferring upon it these new powers, the bill 
recognizes the existing usurpation, not only as 
the authentic government of the territory for 
the time being, but also as possessing a crea- 
tive power to reproduce itself in the new state. 
Pass this bill, and you enlist Congress in the con- 



spiracy, not only to keep the people of Kansas 
in their present subjugation, throughout their 
territorial existence, but also to protract this sub- 
jugation into their existence as a state, while you 
legalize and perpetuate the very force by which 
slavery has been already planted there. * * * 
" Next, and lastly, comes the remedy of justice 
and peace, proposed by the senator from New 
York, [Mr. Seward,] and embodied in his bill 
for the immediate admission of Kansas as a 
state of this Union, now pending as a substitute 
for the bill of the senator from Illinois. This 
is sustained by the prayer of the people of the 
territory, setting forth a constitution formed by 
a spontaneous movement, in which all there 
had opportunity to participate, without dis- 
tinction of party. Rarely has any proposition, 
so simple in character, so entirely practicable, 
so absolutely Avithin your power, been pre- 
sented, whicli promised at once such beneficent 
results. In its adoption, the crime against 
Kansas will be all happily absolved, the usur- 
pation which it established will be peacefully 
suppressed, and order will be permanently se- 
cured. By a joyful metamorphosis, this fair 
territory may be saved from outrage. 

' O help,' she cries, ' in this extremest need, 
If you who hear are deities indeed ; 
Gape, earth, and make for this dread foe a tomb. 
Or chanfjc my furm, whence all mij sorrows come.'' 

"In offering this proposition, the senator from 
New Y^ork has entitled himself to the gratitude 
of the country. He has, throughout a life of 
unsurpassed industry, and of eminent ability, 
done much for freedom, which the world will 
not let die; but he has done nothing more op- 
portune than this, and he has uttered no words 
more effective than the speech, so masterly and 
ingenious, by which he has vindicated it. * =^= 

" Mr. President, an immense space has been 
traversed, and I now stand at the goal. The 
argument in its various parts is here closed. 
The crime against Kansas has been displayed , 
in its origin and extent, beginning with the 
overthrow of the prohibition of slavery ; next 



620 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



cropping out in conspiracy on the borders of 
Missouri ; then hardening into a continuity of 
outrage, through organized invasions and mis- 
cellaneous assaults, in which all security was 
destroyed, and ending at last in the perfect sub- 
jugation of -a generous people to an unprece- 
dented iisurpation. Turning aghast from the 
crime, which, like murder, seemed to confess 
itself 'with most miraculous organ,' we have 
looked with mingled shame and indignation 
upon the four apologies, whether of tyranny, 
imbecility, absurdity, or infamy, in which it has 
been wrapped, marking especially the false tes- 
timony, congenial with the original crime, against 
the Emigrant Aid Company. Then were noted, 
in succession, the four remedies, whether of 
tyranny — folly — injustice and civil war — or 
justice and peace, which last bids Kansas, in 
conformity with past precedents and under the 
exigencies of the hour, in order to redeem her 
from usurpation, to take a place as a sovereign 
state of the Union ; and this is the true remedy. 
If in this argument I have not unworthily vin- 
dicated truth, tlien have I spoken according to 
my desires ; if imperfectly, then only according 
to my powers. But there are other things, not 
belonging to the argument, which still press for 
iitterance. 

" Sir, the people of Kansas, bone of your bone 
and flesh of your flesh, with the education of 
freemen and the rights of American citizens, 
now stand at your door. Will you send them 
away, or bid them enter ? Will you push them 
back to renew their struggles with a deadly foe, 
or will you preserve them in security and peace ? 
Will you cast them again into the den of tyran- 
ny, or will you help their despairing eflforts to 
escape ? These questions I put with no com- 
mon solicitude ; for I feel that on their just de- 
tej'mination depend all the most precious inter- 
ests of the republic ; and I perceive too clearly 
the prejudices in the way, and the accumulat- 
ing bitterness against this distant people, now 
claiming their simple birthright, while I am 



bowed with mortification, as I recognize the 
president of the United States, who should have 
been a staff to the weak and a shield to the 
innocent, at the head of this strange oppression. 

" At every stage, the similitude between the 
wrongs of Kansas, and those other wrongs 
against which our fathers rose, becomes more 
apparent. Read the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, and there is hardly an accusation which 
is there directed against the British monarch, 
which may not now be directed with increased 
force against the American president. The pai-- 
allel has a fearful particularity. Our fathers 
comnlained that the kins; had ' sent hither 
swarms of officers, to harass our people, and eat 
out their substance ; ' that he ' had combined, 
with others, to subject us to a jurisdiction for- 
eign to our constitution, giving his assent to 
their acts of pretended legislation ; ' that ' he 
had abdicated government here, by declaring 
us out of his protection, and waging war against 
us;' that 'he had excited domestic insurrection 
among us, and endeavored to bring on the in- 
habitants of our frontier the merciless savages ; ' 
that ' our repeated petitions have been answered 
only by repeated injury.' And this arraignment 
was aptly followed by the damning words, that 
' a prince, Avhose character is thus marked by 
every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit 
to be the ruler of a free people.' And surely, 
a president who has done all these things can- 
not be less unfit than a prince. At every stage, 
the responsibility is brought directly to him. 
His offence has been both of commission and 
omission. He has done that which he ought 
not to have done, and he has left undone that 
which he ought to have done. By his activity 
the prohibition of slg-very -svas overturned. By 
his failure to act, the honest emigrants in Kan- 
sas have been left a prey to wrong of all kinds. 
Nullum flagUium cxdiiit, nid per te ; nullum JIac/iiium 
sine te. And now he stands forth the most con- 
spicuous enemy of that unhappy territory. 

" As the tyranny of the British king is all 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



621 



renewed In the president, so on this floor have 
the old indignities been renewed, which embit- 
tered and fomented the troubles of our fixthers. 
The early petition of the American Congress 
to Parliament, long before any suggestion of 
independence, was opposed, like the petitions 
of Kansas, because that body ' was assembled 
without any requisition on the part of the 
supreme power.' Another petition from New 
York, presented by Edmund Burke, was flatly 
rejected, as claiming rights derogatory to par- 
liament. And still another petition from Mas- 
sachusetts Bay was dismissed as ' vexatious and 
scandalous,' while the patriot philosopher who 
bore it was exposed to peculiar contumely. 
Throughout the debates, our fathers were 
made the butt of sorry jests and supercilious as- 
sumptions. And now these scenes, with these 
precise objections, have been renewed in the 
American senate. 

" With regret I come again upon the senator 
from South Carolina, [Mr. Butler,] who, omni- 
present in this debate, overflowed with rage at 
the simple suggestion that Kansas had applied 
for admission as a state ; and, with incoherent 
phrases, discharged the loose expectoration of 
his speech, now upon her representative, and 
then upon her people. There was no extrava- 
gance of the ancient parliamentary debate 
which he did not repeat ; nor was there any 
possible deviation from truth which he did not 
make, with so much of passion, I am glad to 
add, as to save him from the suspicion of inten- 
tional aberration. But the senator touches 
nothing which he does not disflgvire with error, 
sometimes of principle, sometimes of fact. He 
shows an incapacity of accuracy, whether in 
stating the constitution or in stating the law, 
whether in the details of statistics or the di- 
versions of scholarship. He cannot ope his 
mouth, but out there flies a blunder. Surely 
he ought to be familiar with the life of Frank- 
lin ; and yet he referred to this household 
character, while acting as agent of our fathers 



in England, as above suspicion ; and this was 
done that he might give point to a false con- 
trast with the agent of Kansas ; not knowing 
that, however they may differ in genius and 
fame, in this experience they are alike — that 
Franklin, when intrusted with the petition of 
Massachusetts Bay, was assaulted by a foul- 
mouthed speaker, where he could not be heard 
in defence, and denounced as a ' thief,' even as 
the agent of Kansas has been assaulted on this 
floor, and denounced as a ' forgeiV And let not 
the vanity of the senator be inspired by the 
parallel with the British statesmen of that day ; 
for it is only in hostility to freedom that any 
parallel can be recognized. 

" But it is against the people of Kansas that 
the sensibilities of the senator ai'e particularly 
aroused. Coming, as he announces, 'from a 
state,' — ay, sir, from South Carolina, — he 
turns with lordly disgust from this newly- 
formed community, which he will not recognize 
even as ' a body politic' Pray, sir, by what 
title does he indul2;e in this egotism ? Has he 
read the history of ' the state ' which he repre- 
sents ? He cannot, surely, have forgotten its 
shameful imbecility from slavery, confessed 
throughout the revolution, followed by its more 
shameful assumptions for slavery since. He 
cannot have forgotten its wretched persistence 
in the slave trade as the very apple of its eye, 
and the condition of its participation in the 
Union. He cannot have forgotten its consti- 
tution, which is republican only in name, con- 
firming power in the hands of the i^ew, and 
founding the qualifications of its legislators on 
'a settled freehold estate or ten negroes.' 
And yet the senator, to whom that ' state ' has 
in part committed the guardianship of its good 
name, instead of moving with backward-tread- 
ing steps, to cover its nakedness, rushes for- 
ward, in the very ecstasy of madness, to expose 
it, by provoking a comparison with Kansas. 
South Carolina is old ; Kansas is young. South 
Carolina counts by centuries, where Kansas 



622 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



counts by years. But a beneficent example 
may be born in a day ; and I venture to say, 
tbat against the two centuries of the older 
'state,' may be already set the two years of 
trial, evolving corresjionding virtue, in the 
younger community. In the one, is the long 
wail of slavery ; in the other, the hymns of 
freedom. And if we glance at special achieve- 
ments, it will be difficult to find any thing in 
the history of South Carolina which presents 
so much of heroic spirit in an heroic cause, as 
appears in that repulse of the Missouri invaders 
by the beleaguered town of Lawrence, where 
even the women gave their effective efforts to 
freedom. The matrons of Eome, Avho poured 
their jewels into the treasury for the public 
defence ; the wives of Prussia, who, with del- 
icate fingers, clothed their defenders against 
French invasion ; the mothers of our own rev- 
olution, who sent forth their sons, covered over 
with prayers and blessings, to combat for hu- 
man rio;bts, did nothing of self-sacrifice truer 
than did these women on this occasion. Were 
the whole history of South Carolina blotted 
out of existence, from its very beginning down 
to the day of the last election of the senator 
to his present seat on this floor, civilization 
might lose — I do not say how little, but surely 
less than it has already gained by the example 
of Kansas, in its valiant struggle against op- 
pression, and in the development of a new 
science of emigration. Already in Lawrence 
alone there are newspapers and schools, includ- 
ing a high school ; and throughout this infant 
territory there is more of mature scholarship, 
in proportion to its inhabitants, than in all 
South Carolina. Ah, sir, I tell the senator that 
Kansas, welcomed as a free state, will be a 
' ministering angel ' to the republic, when South 
Carolina, in the cloak of darkness which she 
hoo-s, ' lies howling.' 

" The senator from Illinois [Mr. Douglas] 
naturally joins the senator from South Carolina 
in this warfare, and gives to it the superior 



intensity of his nature. He thinks that the 
national government has not completely proved 
its power, as it has never hanged a traitor; 
but; if the occasion requires, he hopes there 
will be no hesitation ; and this threat is directed 
at Kansas, and even at the friends of Kansas 
throughout the country. Again occurs the 
parallel with the struggles of our fathers, and 
I borrow the language of Patrick Henry, when, 
to the cry from the senator of ' Treason," trea- 
son,' I reply, ' If this be treason, make the most 
of it.' Sir, it is easy to call names ; but I beg 
to tell the senator that if the word ' traitor ' is 
in any way applicable to those who refuse sub- 
mission to a tj'rannical usurpation, whether in 
Kansas or elsewhere, then must some new 
word, of deeper color, be invented, to designate 
those mad spirits who would endanger and 
degrade the republic, while they betraj' all the 
cherished sentiments of the fathers, and the 
spirit of the constitution, in order to give new 
spread to slavery. Let the senator proceed. 
It will not be the first time in history that a 
scaffold erected for punishment has become a 
pedestal of honor. Out of death comes life, 
and the ' traitor ' whom he blindly executes will 
live immortal in the cause. 

'For humanity sweeps onward; where to-day the martyr stands, 
On the morrow crouches Judas, with the silver in his hands ; 
While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return 
To glean up the scattered ashes into history's golden urn.' 

" Among these hostile senators there is yet 
another, with all the prejudices of the senator 
from South Carolina, but without his generous 
impulses, who, on account of his character be- 
fore the country, and the rancor of his opposi- 
tion, deserves to be named. I mean the sen- 
ator from Virginia, [Mr. Mason,] who, as the 
author of the fugitive slave bill, has associated 
himself with a special act of inhumanity and 
tyranny. Of him I shall say little, for he has 
said little in this debate, though within that 
little was compressed the bitterness of a life 
absorbed in the support of slavery. He holds 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



623 



the commission of Virginia; but lie does not 
represent that early Virginia, so dear to our 
hearts, which gave to us the pen of Jefferson, 
by which the equality of men was declared, 
and the sword of Washington, by which inde- 
pendence was secured ; but he represents that 
other Virginia, from which Washington and 
Jefferson now avert their faces, where human 
beings are bred as cattle for the shambles, and 
where a dungeon rewards the pious mati'on 
who teaches little children to relieve their 
bondage by reading the book of life. It is 
proper that such a senator, representing such a 
state, should rail against free Kansas. * * * 
" In this contest, Kansas bravely stands forth 
— the stripling leader, clad in the panoply of 
American institutions. In calmly meeting and 
adopting a frame of government, her pe.ople 
have with intuitive promptitude performed the 
duties of freemen; and when I consider the 
difficulties by which she was beset, I find dig- 
nity in her attitude. In offering herself for ad- 
mission into the Union as a free state, she pre- 
sents a single issue for the people to decide. And 
since the slave power now stakes on this issue all 
its ill-gotten supremacy, the j^eople, while vindi- 
cating Kansas, will at the same time overthrow 
this tyranny. Thus does the contest which she 
now begins involve not only liberty for herself, 
but for the whole country. God be praised 
that she did not bend ignobly beneath the 
yoke ! Far away on the prairies, she is now 
battling for the liberty of all, against the pres- 
ident, who 'misrepresents all. Every where 
among those who are not insensible to right, 
the generous struggle meets a generous re- 
sponse. From innumerable throbbing hearts 
go forth the very words of encouragement 
which, in the sorrowful days of our fathers, 
were sent by Virginia, speaking by the pen of 
Richard Henry Lee, to Massachusetts, in the 
person of her popular tribune, Samuel 
Adams : — 

79 



' Chantilly, Va., June 23, 1774. 
' I hope the good people of Boston will not lose 
their spirits, under their present heavy oppression, 
for they will certainly be supported by the otiier col- 
onies ; and the cause for which they suffer is so glo- 
rious and so deeply interesting to the present and 
future generations, that all America will owe, in a 
great measure, their political salvation to the present 
virtue of Massachusetts Bay.' — American Archives, 
ilh series, Vol. I. p. 446. 

" In all this sjanpathy there is strength. But 
in the cause itself there is angelic power. Un- 
seen of men, the great spirits of history com- 
bat by the side of the people of Kansas, breath- 
ing a divine courage. Above all towers the 
majestic form of Washington, once more, as on 
the bloody field, bidding them to remember 
those rights of human nature for which the 
war of independence was waged. Such a 
cause, thus sustained, is invincible. 

"The contest, which, beginning in Kansas, 
has reached us, will soon be transferred from 
Congress to a broader stage, where every cit- 
izen will be not only spectator, but actor ; and 
to their judgment I confidently appeal. To 
the people, now on the eve of exercising the 
electoral franchise, in choosing a chief magis- 
trate of the republic, I appeal, to vindicate the 
electoral franchise in Kansas. Let the ballot-box 
of the Union, with multitudinous might, protect 
the ballot-box in that territory. Let the voters 
every where, while rejoicing in their own rights, 
help to guard the equal rights of distant fellow- 
citizens; that the shrines of popular institutions, 
now desecrated, may be sanctified anew ; that 
the ballot-box, now plundered, may be restored ; 
and that the cry, ' I am an American citizen,' 
may not be sent forth in vain against outrage 
of every kind. In just regard for free labor in 
that territory, which it is sought to blast by 
unwelcome association with slave labor; in 
Christian sympathy with the slave, whom it is 
proposed to task and to sell there ; in stern 
condemnation of the crime which has been 
consummated on that beautiful soil ; in rescue 



624 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



of fellow-citizens now subjugated to a tyranni- 
cal usurpation ; in dutiful respect for the early 
fathers, whose aspirations are now ignobly 
thwarted ; in the name of the constitution, 
which has been outraged ; of the laws trampled 
down; of justice banished; of humanity de- 
graded ; of peace destroyed ; of freedom 
crushed to earth ; and in the name of the 
heavenly Father, whose service is perfect free- 
dom, I make this last appeal." 

One consequence of this speech was a most 
melancholy and disgraceful occui'rence, the 
record of which it is painful to be obliged 
to make. On the 22d of May, after the sen- 
ate adjourned, while Mr. Sumner was writing at 
his desk in the senate chamber, Mr. Preston S. 
Brooks, a member of the house from South Car- 
olina, and a nephew of Mr. Butler, came up to 
him, and denouncing him as a libeller of South 
Carolina and a slanderer of his relative, said 
that he w^as about to chastise him. Then, 
while two of his colleagues stood near to pre- 
vent interference, the South Carolina member 
assaulted Mr. Sumner before he could rise from 
his seat, with a heavy cane of gutta percha, 
inflicting upon his head repeated and heavy 
blows till he was prostrate and senseless. This 
outrage created an intense feeling among the 
political friends of Mr. Sumner, in and out of 
Congress, and was condemned by men of all 
parties. In the senate and in the house indig- 
nant speeches were made by the members from 
Massachusetts and other states ; but when in the 
house an attempt was made to expel the man 
who had brought disgrace upon it, there were 
not votes enough (two thirds being required) 
to carry it. Mr. Brooks was fined by a crim- 
inal court, and one of his coadjutors, Mr. Keitt, 
was censured, but they retained their seats. 
The injuries to Mr. Sumner were very serious. 
It was feared at first that they might terminate 
fatally ; but though that was fortunately not 
the case, he did not recover his health and 



strength so as to resume his duties for a long 
period, and not until he had been in Europe 
for some time for the purpose of medical treat- 
ment. His seat for three years remained va- 
cant — a sad commentary upon the unhappy 
occurrence. Before he returned to the senate 
his assailant had passed away by a painful death. 

The committee appointed to investigate the 
troubles in Kansas, upon their return submitted 
a voluminous report of the testimony they had 
taken, and the facts which had come to their 
knowledge. Their conclusions were, that citi- 
zens of Missouri had illegally interfered in 
Kansas affairs, arid that but for the frauds per- 
petrated by them in the elections, which pre- 
vented an expression of the will of the actual 
settlers, Kansas would be a free state. The 
committee reported against the admission of 
either of the contestants, Reeder or Whitfield, 
to a seat as delegate, and recommended that 
steps be taken to secure a free and fair election 
in the territory. Mr. Oliver submitted a mi- 
nority report, disagreeing with the conclusions 
of the majority, and to some extent slighting 
the testimony. 

But before the report was acted upon, the 
committee on territories in the house reported 
a bill for the admission of Kansas into the 
Union as a state, with the Topeka constitution. 
This bill was rejected on the 30th of June by 
a vote of one hundred and six to one hundred 
and five. This vote was so close that a recon- 
sideration was carried the next day, and on the 
3d of July the bill was passed by a vote of 
ninety-nine to ninety-seven. In the senate a 
bill was passed for the purpose of securing a 
fair expression of the will of the people of 
Kansas, and allowing the formation of a state 
constitution ; but the bill for admitting Kansas 
into the Union did not receive the vote of that 
branch. 

Aflliirs in Kansas continued to grow worse 
after the sacking of Lawrence. That event 
and the circumstances attending it, which we 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



mrt 



have mentioned somewhat in detail as the crisis 
in the early history of the territory, served to 
exasperate the free state settlers, and to excite 
them to acts of retaliation which they had not 
before attempted. Some of them had been 
robbed and driven from their homes, and, be- 
coming desperate, were ready to do any thing 
to retaliate on their oppressors ; but the ma- 
jority yet hoped for a favorable issue, and that, 
by peaceful adherence to their principles, Kan- 
sas might before long become a free state. 
They had suffered much by losses, robbery, 
and forced neglect of their private affairs in 
the times of excitement, and it was absolutely 
necessai'y for most of them to attend to their 
farms and their business. Those who were less 
disposed to peace found opportunities to meet 
parties of marauders belonging to the compa- 
nies which had come from the south. There 
were frequent collisions and some bloodshed, 
and portions of the territory were in a state 
of civil war, — men of neither party being safe 
from the guerilla warfai'e which for a time was 
carried on. A reference to the pro-slavery pa- 
pers of the territory and of Western Missouri, 
of that day, will show how the excitement was 
kept up and the warfare encouraged. Most of 
the free state papers were already stopped. 
To put down this sort of warfare Governor 
Shannon called on the United States dragoons, 
and small troops were soon riding through the 
territory to drive out the marauders. The 
governor at the same time undertook to disarm 
the free state people, whether peaceful citizens 
or not. 

Governor Shannon, who never had any qual- 
ifications for the post he held, soon made him- 
self obnoxious to his own friends, or rather to 
the party to whom he had made himself sub- 
servient. His course was foolish and inefficient 
for any good, and by his habits he disgraced 
the position which he held. When the ma- 
rauding parties of Missourians and other lawless 
men of the pro-slavery party were driven out 



by the dragoons; they indignantly turned upon 
the governor, who had called the troops into 
the field. The governor, therefore, determined 
to resign, and left the territory for that pur- 
pose. He was, however, persuaded to return, 
and soon after was removed by the president. 

As the time for the reassembling of the 
state legislature, on the 4th of July, approached, 
the free state men hoped that their cause, which 
for the time seemed to have been utterly de- 
feated, might receive a new impulse. But 
orders had been issued from Washina;ton that 
this legislature must not be pei'mitted to as- 
semble. Governor Robinson was a prisoner, 
and most of the other leading men of the 
free state party were out of the territory, either 
on public business or for personal safety. When 
the legislature assembled, the members did not 
all attend, and there was no disposition to resist 
the orders of the government. Colonel Sum 
ner, who marched to Topeka with a large force 
of dragoons to enforce the orders, met the 
legislature at the time appointed for their 
meeting, and performed what he acknowledged 
was the most painful duty of his life. No 
resistance was made, and the legislature dis- 
persed. The Avar department stated afterwards 
that it was not satisfied that Colonel Sumner 
was justifiable in dispersing the meeting at 
Topeka. 

Although the free state cause seemed for the 
present to be prostrate, quiet was by no means 
restored. The sacking of Lawrence had aroused 
the sympathies of the people in the states, and 
emigrants, prepared for fighting, went into the 
territory. Such companies were not permitted 
to enter Kansas through Missouri, and the rights 
of citizens of the United States were repeatedly 
violated by the authorities or people of that 
state. Parties, however, entered the territory 
throuarh Iowa and Nebraska. The free state 
men formed military organizations, and several 
conflicts occurred between them and their op- 
ponents with various success, each party taking 



626 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



prisoners and arms, and numerous lives being 
lost. The Missourians were again in the field, 
and the aspect of afiairs became worse than 
ever. Matters were probably not improved by 
the course of the acting governor, Woodson, 
who proclaimed the territory in a state of in- 
surrection. 

While matters were in this condition, Mr. 
John W. Geary, of Pennsylvania, who had been 
appointed to succeed Governor Shannon, went 
to Kansas to enter upon his duties. He was a 
man of energy and character, and he proceed- 
ed at once to take measures for the pacifica- 
tion of the discordant elements, instead of ex- 
citing them, as his predecessor had done. He 
issued proclamations charging the disturbed 
* state of the territory mainly upon persons 
residing beyond its limits ; announcing his de- 
termination to uphold the organic law of the 
territory, which guaranteed the right of self- 
government to the people ; and demanding 
obedience to the present laws as long as they 
were legally in force. He declared that he 
would do justice at all hazards, knowing no 
party or section. He soon ordered the dis- 
bandment of the volunteer militia, summoned 
by the late acting governor, and commanded 
all bodies of men, armed and equipped without 
authority from the government, to disband, or 
quit the territory. It was apparent that the 
new governor was disposed to take a different 
course from that of the last, and though the 
free state men had learned not to put much con- 
fidence in the officers appointed by the federal 
government, they by degrees became more 
assured of his intentions to do justice. The 
election for members of the territorial legisla- 
ture and delegate to Congress was to take place 
early in October, and the governor promised 
that measures should be taken to protect the 
settlers from invasion on that day. These and 
other measures served in some degree to re- 
store quiet. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Relations with Spain. — Mr. Perry and Mr. Soule. — Relationa 
with Great Britain. — Violation of Neutrality Laws by the Brit- 
ish Minister. — The British Government requested to recall the 
Minister and certain Consuls. — Refusal. — Mr. Crampton dis- 
missed and Exequaturs of British Consuls revoked. — Presi- 
dential Nominations. — The Canvass. — The Result of the 
Election. 

But the affairs of Kansas did not wholly 
occupy public attention in 1856, although, 
from the importance of the principles involved 
and the effect of the contest there upon the 
future of our country, we have given much 
space to them. 

After the return of Mr. Soule from Spain, 
Mr. Perry, the United States secretary of lega- 
tion at that court, had charge of the negotia- 
tions, and an arrangement was effected by 
which the difficulties and demands between the 
two countries could be settled. The idea of 
purchasing Cuba having subsided for the present, 
the relations between the countries became 
more friendly. In a letter to the president 
Mr. Perry reviewed the difficulties which had 
arisen between himself and Mr. Soule, and also 
the manner in which the latter had conducted 
negotiations, charging him with misapprehend- 
ing the feelings of the people of Spain and trans- 
mitting erroneous information to Washington. 
It was quite evident that Mr. Perry was correct 
in some of his statements, but the administrar 
tion deemed it proper to recall him. 

During the spring the friendly relations be- 
tween the United States and Enojland were 
somewhat disturbed by the proceedings of the 
British minister at Washington, Mr. Crampton, 
and several of the British consuls in the Unit- 
ed States, in relation to enlistments for the 
British army. These proceedings occurred the 
preceding year, as already mentioned, and cer- 
tain persons were prosecuted at Philadelphia for 
violating the neutrality laws, by procuring such 
enlistments for service against a power (Russia) 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



627 



with whom the United States were at peace. 
A remonstrance against these proceedings was 
sent to the British government, and the subject 
occasioned some diplomatic correspondence, in 
the course of which it was declared that the 
British government had, while seeking to in- 
crease their forces by recruits coming from the 
United States into the provinces, given express 
orders that nothing should be done to infringe 
the neutrality laws of the United States. And 
the English government had also, when com- 
plaint was made, given orders to stop all ar- 
rangements for the enlistment of such recruits 
coming from the United States. The recruit- 
ing, however, in some form continued, and occa- 
sioned fresh complaints. It appeared, too, that 
the British minister at Washington, and the 
British consuls at New York, Philadelphia, and 
Cincinnati, were more or less directly concerned 
in the proceedings. The government, there- 
fore, requested that those agents be recalled 
by the English government. To this request, 
while disavowing any intention to infringe the 
neutrality laws or to give any cause of offence 
to the United States, the British government 
refused to accede, stating that it was not be- 
lieved that those agents had given any cause 
for such a demand. The United States gov- 
ernment, while accepting the conciliatory and 
apologetic course of the British ministry with 
regard to the enlistments, insisted that the rep- 
resentatives of England, above named, had per- 
sisted in acting in viqla^on of the known 
wishes of the government and the neutrality 
laws ; and as the British government did not 
see fit to recall them, the president determined 
to discontinue further intercourse with Mr. 
Crampton as minister from that government, 
and revoked the exequaturs of the British 
consuls at New York, Philadelphia, and Cin- 
cinnati. 

This dismissal of Mr. Crampton occasioned 
some discussion both in the United States and 
England, where there were not a few who did 



not disapprove of the president's course. The af- 
fair, however, though it was expected to produce 
some irritation, was not such as could be con- 
sidered a serious cause of offence, and friendly 
relations between the two countries were soon 
resumed. In due time the British government 
sent Lord Napier to be Mr. Crampton's successor. 

The subject of the most general and intense 
interest during this year was the presidential 
canvass. On the 2 2d of February, the national 
convention of the Ameiican party assembled 
at Philadelphia, and nominated Ex-President 
Fillmore for the presidency and Andrew J. 
Donelson, of Tennessee, for the vice-presidency. 
There had been a warm contest, just previous, 
in the " national council " of the party, in rela- 
tion to their principles, or platform, and as the 
principles adopted were not satisfactory to 
many of the northern men, they refused to be 
bound by them or by the nomination of the 
party. 

On the second day of June, the Democratic 
national convention was held at Cincinnati. 
There were three leading candidates for the 
nomination, President Pierce, Mr. Douglas, and 
Mr. Buchanan. Great efforts were made by 
the friends of these several gentlemen to se- 
cure the nomination of their fiivorite, and there 
were some not very friendly thrusts at some of 
the candidates. On the seventeenth ballot 
James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, received the 
unanimous nomination. The result appeared 
to give general satisfaction to the party, and 
was regarded on all sides as the strongest nom- 
ination which the Democratic party could make. 
J. C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, was nominated 
for the vice-presidency. 

On the 17th of June, the national conven- 
tion of the Repubhcan party was held at Phila- 
delphia. This party, by its declared principles, 
stood most directly in opposition to the Demo- 
cratic party and its policy. The principal can- 
didates were John C. Fremont, of California, 
and John McLean, of Ohio, an associate justice 



628 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



of the Supreme Court of the United States. 1 
Upon the first formal ballot Colonel Fremont 
received all the ballots but thirty-eight. and the 
nomination was then made unanimous. William 
L. Dayton, of New Jersey, was then nominated 
for the vice-presidency. 

The members of the American party who 
were dissatisfied with the declared principles 
of that party and with the nomination of Mr. 
Fillmore held a convention in New York, where 
they expressed their preference for Nathaniel 
P. Banks, of Massachusetts, for the presidency, 
and William F. Johnston, of Pennsylvania, for 
the vice-presidency. The convention then pre- 
sented these names to the Republican conven- 
tion. The latter having made their nomina- 
tions, the American convention nominated 
Colonel Fremont for the presidency, and Mr. 
Johnston for the vice-presidency. For some 
time tliere appeared to be a difficulty in uniting 
these two parties in a way which should give 
their combined vote to their candidate for the 
presidency. This was finally arranged in most 
of the states where the dissenting Americans 
had an organization, and a union of forces was 
thus effected. 

After the adjournment of Congress, which 
took place on the 18th of August, public atten- 
tion was turned almost entirely to the presi- 
dential canvass. It was carried on with much 
spirit and not a little acrimony, the affairs of 
Kansas furnishing a subject for much of the 
controversy. The Republican party was con- 
fined chiefly to the free states, their policy 
being to restrain the further extension of 
slavery ; but in some of the border states, 
especially in Missouri, there were considerable 
numbers who supported their principles and 
nominations. The American and the Demo- 
cratic party, of course, were organized in all 
the states ; but the contest was really between 
the Democratic and Republican parties. At 
last the important day came when the nation 
— of twenty millions — should declare their 



choice for the highest office in the republic ; 
and notwithstanding the previous excitement, 
and threats, and forebodings, in which the dif- 
ferent parties had shared, when the contest was 
over and the ballots had been cast, all was 
peace, and the people pursued their ordinary 
avocations, submitting quietly to the will of 
the majority. 

The result of the election was the success 
of the Democratic party. James Buchanan was 
elected president, and John C. Breckinridge 
was elected vice-president. They received the 
votes of nineteen state.s, .being one hundred 
and seventy-four electoral votes. John C. Fi-e- 
mont and William L. Dayton received the 
votes of eleven states, being one hundred and 
fourteen electoral votes. Millard Fillmore and 
A. J. DoneLson received the vote of one state, 
(Maryland,) being eight electoral votes. The 
popular vote was not so strongly in favor of 
the successful candidates as the electoral vote. 
The Democratic popular vote in all the states 
was one million eight hundred and fifty-nine 
thousand three hundred and thirty-seven ; the 
Republican jDopular vote was one million three 
hundred forty-one thousand eight hundred and 
twelve ; and the American popular vote was eight 
hundred eighty-eight thousand and fifty-five ; 
so that the Democratic party, while they had a 
majority of fifty-two electoral votes, (out of 
two hundred and ninety-six cast,) were really in 
a minority on the popular vote. 



CHAPTER Vin. 

Second Session of the Thirty-fourth Congress. — President's Mes- 
sage. — International Law. — Privateering. — Rules proposed 
by Paris Congress. — Mr. Marcy's Letter. — Concurrence of 
the Russian Government. — Revenue. — Rension of the Taiiff. 
— Atlantic Telegraph. — State of Minnesota. — End of Pres- 
ident Pierce's Administration. 

The second session of the thirty-fourth Con- 
gress commenced December 1st. The last 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



629 



annual message of President Pierce was trans- 
mitted the next day. In it the president dis- 
cussed at length the position of parties in the 
recent canvass, the slavery question, and the 
policy of the repeal of the Missouri compro- 
mise. This part of the message is partisan in 
its tone and arguments, but as a defence of the 
policy of the Democratic party on these ques- 
tions, we submit it to the reader. Whether or 
not the president's statements and conclusions 
are just or sustained by history, the careful 
and candid reader and observer of events may 
judge. 

" It is impossible to misapprehend the great 
principles, which, by their recent political ac- 
tion, the people of the United States have 
sanctioned and announced. 

" They have asserted the constitutional equal- 
ity of each and all of the states of the Union 
as states ; they have affirmed the, constitutional 
equality of each and all of the citizens of the 
United States as citizens, whatever their reli- 
gion, wherever their birth, or their residence ; 
they have maintained the inviolability of the 
constitutional rights of the different sections 
of the Union ; and they have proclaimed their 
devoted and unalterable attachment to the 
Union and to the constitution, as objects of 
interest superior to all subjects of local or sec- 
tional controversy, as the safeguard of the 
rights of all, as the spirit and the essence of 
the liberty, peace, and greatness of the re- 
public. 

"In doing this, they have, at the same time, 
emphatically condemned the idea of organizing 
in these United States mere geographical par- 
ties; of marshalling in hostile array towards 
each other the different parts of the country, 
north or south, east or west. 

" Schemes of this nature, fraught with incal- 
culable mischief, and which the considerate 
sense of the people has rejected, could have 
had countenance in no part of the country, 
had they not been disguised by suggestions 



plausible in appearance, acting upon an excited 
state of the public mind, induced by causes 
temporary in their character, and, it is to be 
hoped, transient in their influence. 

" Perfect liberty of association for political 
objects, and the widest scope of discussion, are 
the received and ordinary conditions of gov- 
ernment in our country. Our institutions, 
framed in the spirit of confidence in the intel- 
ligence and integrity of the people, do not for- 
bid citizens, either individually or associated 
togethei', to attack by writing, speech, or any 
other methods short of physical force, the con- 
stitution and the very existence of the Union. 
Under the shelter of this great liberty, and 
protected by the laws and usages of the gov- 
ernment they assail, associations have been 
formed, in some of the states, of individuals, 
who, pretending to seek only to prevent the 
spread of the institution of slavery into the 
present or future inchoate states of the Union, 
are really inflamed with desire to change the 
domestic institutions of existing states. To 
accomplish their objects, they dedicate them- 
selves to the odious task of depreciating the 
government organization which stands in their 
way, and of calumniating, with indiscriminate 
invective, not only the citizens of particular 
states, with whose laws they find fault, but all 
others of their fellow-citizens throughout the 
country who do not participate with them in 
their assaults upon the constitution, framed and 
adopted by our fiithers, and claiming for the 
privileges it has secured, and the blessings it 
has conferred, the steady support and gratefui 
reverence of their children. They seek an 
object which they well know to be a revolu- 
tionary one. They are perfectly aware that 
the change in the relative condition of the 
white and black races in the slaveholding 
states, which they would promote, is beyond 
their lawful authority; that to them it is a 
foreign object; that it cannot be effected by 
any peaceful instrumentality of theirs; that 



630 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



for them, and the states of which they are cit- 
izens, the only path to its accomplishment is 
through burning cities, and ravaged fields, and 
slaughtered populations, and all there is most 
terrible in foreign, complicated with civil and 
servile war ; and that the first steji in the at- 
tempt is the forcible disruption of a country 
embracing in its broad bosom a degree of lib- 
erty, and an amount of individual and public 
prosperity, to which there is no parallel in his- 
tory, and substituting in its place hostile gov- 
ernments, driven at once and inevitably into 
mutual devastation and fratricidal carnage, 
transforming the now peaceful and felicitous 
brotherhood into a vast permanent camp of 
armed men, like the rival monarchies of Europe 
and Asia. Well knowing that such, and such 
only, are the means and the consequences of 
their plans and purposes, they endeavor to 
prepare the people of the United States for 
civil war by doing every thing in their power 
to deprive the constitution and the laws of 
moral authority, and to undermine the fabric 
of the Union by appeals to passion and sec- 
tional prejudice, by indoctrinating its people 
with reciprocal hatred, and by educating them 
to stand face to face as enemies, rather than 
shoulder to shoulder as friends. 

" It is by the agency of such unwarrantable 
interference, foreign and domestic, that the 
minds of many, otherwise good citizens, have 
been so inflamed into the passionate condem- 
nation of the domestic institutions of the 
Southern States, as at length to pass insensibly 
to almost equally passionate hostility towards 
their fellow-citizens of those states, and thus 
finally to fall into temporary fellowship with 
the avowed and active enemies of the consti- 
tution. Ardently attached to liberty in the 
abstract, they do not stop to consider practi- 
cally how the objects they would attain can be 
accomplished, nor to reflect that, even if the 
evil were as great as they deem it, they have 
no remedy to apply, and that it can be only 



aggravated by their violence and unconstitu- 
tional action. A question which is one of the 
most difificult of all the problems of social in- 
stitution, political economy, and statesmanship, 
they treat with unreasoning intemperance of 
thought and language. Extremes beget ex- 
tremes. Violent attack from the north finds 
its inevitable consequence in the growth of a 
spirit of angry defiance at the south. Thus in 
the progress of events we had reached that 
consummation, which the voice of the people 
has now so pointedly rebuked, of the attempt 
of a portion of the states, by a sectional organ- 
ization and movement, to usurp the control of 
the government of the United States. 

" I confidently believe that the great body 
of those who inconsiderately took this fatal 
step are sincerely attached to the constitution 
and the Union. They would, upon delibera- 
tion, shrink with unaifected horror from any 
conscious act of disunion or civil war. But 
they have entered into a path which leads 
nowhere, unless it be to civil war and disunion, 
and which has no other possible outlet. They 
have proceeded thus far in that direction in 
consequence of the successive stages of their 
progress having consisted of a series of sec- 
ondaiy issues, each of which professed to be 
confined within constitutional and peaceful 
Ifmits, but which attempted indirectly what 
few men were willing to do directly, that is, to 
act aggressively against the constitutional 
rights of nearly one half of the thirty-one 
states. 

" In the long series of acts of indirect ag- 
gression, the first was the strenuous agitation, 
by citizens of the Northern States, in Congress 
and out of it, of the question of negro eman- 
cipation in the Southern States. 

" The second step in this path of evil con- 
sisted of acts of the people of the Northern 
States, and in several instances of their gov- 
ernments, aimed to facilitate the escape of per- 
sons held to service in the Southern States, 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



631 



and to prevent their extradition when reclaimed 
according to law and in virtue of express pro- 
visions of the constitution. To promote this 
object, legislative enactments and other means 
were adopted, to take away or defeat rights 
which the constitution solemnly guarantied. 
In order to nullify the then existing act of 
Congress concerning the extradition of fugi- 
tives from service, laws were enacted, in many 
states, forbidding their ofl&cers, under the se- 
verest penalties, to participate in the execution 
of any act of Congress whatever. In this way 
that system of harmonious cooperation between 
the authorities of the United States and of the 
several states, for the maintenance of their 
common institutions, which existed in the early 
years of the republic, was destroyed ; conflicts 
of jurisdiction came to be frequent ; and Con- 
gress found itself compelled, for the support of 
the constitution, and the vindication of its 
power, to authorize the ajDpointment of new 
officers, charged with the execution of its acts, 
as if they and the officers of the states were 
the ministers, respectively, of foreign govern- 
ments in a state of mutual hostility, rather 
than fellow-magistrates of a common country, 
peacefully subsisting under the protection of 
one well-constituted Union. Thus here, also, 
aggression was followed by reaction ; and the 
attacks upon the constitution at this point did 
but serve to raise up new barriers for its de- 
fence and security. 

" The third stage of this unhappy sectional 
controversy was in connection with the organi- 
zation of territorial governments, and the ad- 
mission of new states into the Union. When 
it was proposed to admit the state of Maine, 
by separation of territory from that of Massa- 
chusetts, and the state of Missouri, formed of a 
portion of the territory ceded by France to the 
United States, representatives in Congress ob- 
jected to the admission of the latter, unless 
with .conditions suited to particular views of 
public policy. The imposition of such a con- 



dition was successfully resisted. But, at the 
same period, the question was presented of 
imposing restrictions upon the I'esidue of the 
territory ceded by France. That question was, 
for the time, disposed of by the adoption of a 
geographical line of limitation. 

"In this connection it should not be for- 
gotten, that when France, of her own accord, 
resolved, for considerations of the most far- 
sighted sagacity, to cede Louisiana to the 
United States, and that accession was accepted 
by the United States, the latter expressly en- 
gaged that ' the inhabitants of the ceded terri- 
tory shall be incorporated in the Union of the 
United States, and admitted as soon as possible, 
according to the principles of the federal con- 
stitution, to the enjoyment of all the rights, 
advantages, and immunities of citizens of the 
United States ; and in the mean time they shall 
be maintained and protected in the free en- 
joyment of their liberty, property, and the 
religion which they profess ; ' that is to say, 
while it remains in a territorial condition, its 
inhabitants are maintained and protected in the 
free enjoyment of their liberty and property, 
with a right then to pass into the condition of 
states on a footing of perfect equality with the 
original states. 

" The enactment which established the re- 
strictive geographical line was acquiesced in 
rather than approved by the states of the 
Union. It stood on the statute book, however, 
for a number of years ; and the people of the 
respective states acquiesced in the reenactment 
of the principle as applied to the state of 
Texas ; apd it was proposed to acquiesce in its 
further application to the territory acquired 
by the United States from Mexico. But this 
proposition was successfully resisted by the 
representatives from the Northern States, who, 
regardless of the statute line, insisted upon 
applying restriction to the new territory gen- 
erally, whether lying north or south of it, 
thereby repealing it as a legislative compro- 



632 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



mise, and, on the part of the north, persistently 
violating the compact, if compact there was. 

"Thereupon this enactment ceased to have 
binding virtue in any sense, whether as respects 
the north or the south 5 and so in effect it was 
treated on the occasion of the admission of the 
state of California, and the organization of the 
territories of New Mexico, Utah, and Wash- 
ington. 

■ " Such was the state of this question, when 
the time arrived for the organization of the 
territories of Kansas and Nebraska. In the 
progress of constitutional inquiry and reflec- 
tion, it had now at length come to be seen 
clearly that Congress does not possess constitu- 
tional power to impose restrictions of , this 
character uj^on any present or future state of 
the Union. 

" In a long series of decisions, on the fullest 
argument, and after the most deliberate con- 
sideration, the Supreme Court of the United 
States had finally determined this point, in 
every form under which the question could 
arise, whether as affecting public or private 
rights, in questions of the public domain, of 
religion, of navigation, and of servitude. 

"The several states of the Union are, by 
force of the constitution, co-equal in domestic 
legislative power. Congress cannot change a 
law of domestic relation in the state of Maine ; 
no more can it in the state of Missouri. Any 
statute which proposes to do this is a mere 
nullity; it takes away no right, it confers none, 
K it remains on the statute book unrepealed, 
it remains there only as a monument of error, 
and a beacon of warning to the legislator and 
the statesman. To repeal it will be only to 
remove imperfection from the statutes, without 
affecting, either in the sense of permission or 
of prohibition, the action of the states, or of 
their citizens. 

" Still, when the nominal restriction of this 
nature, already a dead letter in law, was in 
terms repealed by the last Congress, in a clause 



of the act organizing the territories of Kansas 
and Nebraska, that repeal was made the occa- 
sion of a wide-spi-ead and dangerous agitation. 

" It was alleged that, the original enactment 
being a compact of perpetual moral obligation, 
its repeal constituted an odious breach of faith. 

" An act of Congress, while it remains unre- 
pealed, more especially if it be constitutionally 
valid in the judgment of those public function- 
aries whose duty it is to pronounce on that 
point, is undoubtedly binding on the conscience 
of each good citizen of the republic. But in 
what sense can it be asserted that the enact- 
ment in question was invested with perpetuity 
and entitled to the respect of a solemn com- 
pact ? Between whom was the compact ? No 
distinct, contending powers of the government, 
no separate sections of the Union, treating as 
such, entered into treaty stipulations on the 
subject. It was a mere clause of an act of 
Congress, and, like any other controverted 
matter of legislation, received its final shape, 
and was passed by compromise of the conflict- 
ing opinions or sentiments of the members of 
Congress. But if it had moral authority over 
men's consciences, to whom did this authority 
attach ? Not to those of the north, who had 
repeatedly refused to confirm it by extension, 
and who had zealously striven to establish 
other and incompatible regulations upon the 
subject. And if, as it thus appears, the sup- 
posed compact had no obligatory force as to 
the north, of course it could not have had any 
as to the south, for all such compacts must be 
mutual, and of reciprocal obligation. 

" It has not unfrequently happened that law- 
givers, with undue estimation of the value of 
the law they give, or in the view of imparting 
to it peculiar strength, make it perpetual in 
terms; but they cannot thus bind the con- 
science, the judgment, and the will of those 
who may succeed them, invested with similar 
responsibilities, and clothed with equal author- 
ity. More careful investigation may prove the 



HISTORY OP THE UNITED STATES. 



633 



law to be unsound in princij^le. Experience 
may show it to be imperfect in detail and im- 
practicable in execution. And then both rea- 
son and right combine not merely to justify, 
but to require, its repeal. 

" The constitution, supreme as it is over all 
the departments of the government, legislative, 
executive, and judicial, is open to amendment 
by its very terms ; and Congress or the states 
may, in their discretion, propose, amendments 
to it, solemn compact though it in truth is be- 
tween the sovereign states of the Union. In 
the present instance, a political enactment, 
which had ceased to have legal power or au- 
thority of any kind, was repealed. The posi- 
tion assumed, that Congress had no moral 
right to enact such repeal, was strange enough, 
and singularly so in view of the fact that the 
argument came from those who openly refused 
obedience to existing laws of the land, having 
the same popular designation and quality as 
compromise acts; nay, more, who unequiv- 
ocally disregarded and condemned the most 
positive and obligatory injunctions of the con- 
stitution itself, and sought, by every means 
within their reach, to deprive a portion of 
their fellow-citizens of the equal enjoyment of 
those rights and privileges guarantied alike to 
all by the fundamental compact of our Union. 

"This argument against the repeal of the 
statute line in question was accompanied by 
another of congenial character, and, equally 
with the former, destitute of foundation in rea- 
son and truth. It was imputed that the meas- 
ure originated in the conception of extending 
the limits of slave labor beyond those previ- 
ously assigned to it, and that such was its nat> 
ural as well as intended effect ; and these base- 
less assumptions wefe made, in the Northern 
States, the ground of unceasing assault upon 
constitutional right. 

"The repeal, in terms, of a statute which 
was already obsolete, and also null for uncon- 
stitutionality, could have no influence to ob- 



struct or to promote the propagation of con- 
flicting views of political or social institution. 
When the act organizing the territories of 
Kansas and Nebraska was passed, the inherent 
effect upon that portion of the public domain 
thus opened to legal settlement, was to admit 
settlers from all the states of the Union alike, 
each%ith his convictions of public policy and 
private interest, there to found in their discre-> 
tion, subject to such limitations as the constitu- 
tion and acts of Congress might prescribe, new 
states, hereafter to be admitted into the Union. 
It was a free field, open alike to all, whether 
the statute line of assumed restriction were 
repealed or not. That repeal did not open to 
free competition of the diverse opinions and 
domestic institutions a field which, without 
such repeal, would have been closed against 
them : it found that field of competition already 
opened, in fact and in law. All the repeal did 
was to relieve the statute book of an objec- 
tionable enactment, unconstitutional in effect 
and injurious in terms to a large portion of 
the states. 

" Is it the fact that, in all the unsettled re- 
gions of the United States, if emigration be 
left free to act in this respect for itself, without 
legal prohibitions on either side, slave labor 
will spontaneously go every where, in pref- 
erence to free labor ? Is it the fact, that the 
peculiar domestic institutions of the Southern 
States possess relatively so much of vigor that, 
wheresoever an avenue is freely opened to all 
the world, they will penetrate to the exclusion 
of those of the Northern States ? Is it the 
fact, that the former enjoy, compared with the 
latter, such irresistibly superior vitality, inde- 
pendent of climate, soil, and all other acciden- 
tal circumstances, as to be able to produce the 
supposed result, in spite of the assumed moral 
and natural obstacles to its accomplishment, 
and of the more numerous population of the 
Northern States ? 

" The argument of those who advocate the 



634 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



enactment of new laws of restriction, and con- 
demn the repeal of old ones, in effect avers 
that their particular views of government have 
no self-extending or self-sustaining power of 
their own, and will go nowhere unless forced 
by act of Congress. And if Congress do but 
pause for a moment in the policy of stern 
coercion ; if it venture to tiy the expeifhient 
of leaving men to judge for themselves what 
institutions will best suit them; if it be not 
strained up to perpetual legislative exertion on 
this point ; if Congress proceed thus to act in 
the very spirit of liberty, it is at once charged 
with aiming to extend slave labor into all the 
new territories of the United States. 

" Of course, these imputations on the inten- 
tions of Congress in this respect, conceived as 
they were in prejudice, and disseminated in 
passion, are utterly destitute of any justifica- 
tion in the nature of things, and contrary to 
all the fundamental doctrines and principles of 
civil liberty and self-government. 

" While, therefore, in general, the people of 
the Northern States have never, at any time, 
arrogated for the federal government the power 
to interfere directly with the domestic condi- 
tion of persons in the Southern States, but, on 
the contrary, have disavowed all such inten- 
tions, and have shrunk from conspicuous afiil- 
iation with those few who pursue their fanat- 
ical objects avowedly through the contemplated 
means of revolutionary change of the govern- 
ment, and with acceptance of the necessary 
consequences, — a civil and servile war, — yet 
many citizens have suffered themselves to be 
drawn into one evanescent political issue of 
agitation after another, appertaining to the 
same set of opinions, and which subsided as 
rapidly as they arose, when it came to be seen, 
as it uniformly did, that they were incompatible 
with the compacts of the constitution and the 
existence of the Union. Thus, when the acts 
of some of the states to nullify the existing 
extradition law imposed upon Congress the 



duty of passing a new one, the country was 
invited by agitators to enter into party organi- 
zation for its repeal ; but that agitation speedily 
ceased by reason of the impracticability of its 
object. So, when the statute restriction upon 
the institutions of new states, by a geograph- 
ical line, had been repealed, the country was 
urged to demand its restoration, and that pro- 
ject also died almost with its birth. Then fol- 
lowed the cry of alarin from the north against 
imputed southern encroachments ; which cry 
sprang in reality from the spirit of revolution- 
ary attack on the domestic institutions of the 
south, and, after a troubled exi.stence of a few 
months, has been I'ebuked by the voice of a 
patriotic people. 

" Of this last agitation, one lamentable fea- 
ture was, that it was carried on at the imme- 
diate expense of the peace and happiness of 
the people of the territory of Kansas. That 
was made the battle-field, not so much of 
opposing factions or interests within itself, as 
of the conflicting passions of the whole people 
of the United States. Eevolutionary disorder in 
Kansas had its origin in projects of intervention, 
deliberately arranged by certain members of 
that Congress which enacted the law for the 
organization of the territory. And when prop- 
agandist colonization of Kansas had thus been 
undertaken in one section of the Union, for 
the systematic promotion of its peculiar views 
of policy, there ensued, as a matter of course, 
a coimter action, with opposite views, in other 
sections of the Union." 

In respect to foreign affairs, the president 
stated that the " United States continued in the 
enjoyment of amicable relations with all for- 
eign powers." Negotiations were pending with 
several governments for tlie settlement of dif- 
ficulties of more or less consequence, but with 
the probability of successful residts. In Cen- 
tral America there were some difiiculties ; es- 
pecially with New Granada, on account of a 
riotous attack on the premises of the railroad 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



635 



company, by which the lives of several Amer- 
ican citizens were lost, and much projoerty 
destroyed. The interests of the citizens of the 
United States on the routes across the isthmus, 
Avhich are used so much by them, and are so 
important as connecting the Atlantic and Pa- 
cific states, in the opinion of the president 
demanded more protection, and if not aftbrded 
by the states of Central America, such protec- 
tion should be given by our own government. 

We have already mentioned that the United 
States had by negotiation endeavored to secui'e 
from other powers the recognition of certain 
principles with regard to the security of en- 
emy's property under a neutral flag, and of 
a neutral's property on board enemy's ships. 
The representatives of the great powers of Eu- 
rope, at the Paris congress of plenipotentiaries, 
adopted a declaration embodying these two 
rules, with the addition of two others, one abol- 
ishing privateering, and the other requiring that 
blockades, to be binding, must be maintained by 
a force sufficient actually to prevent access to 
the place blockaded. The latter rule the Unit- 
ed States were willing to adopt, but to the 
rule abolishing privateering the president urged 
objections, as it was likely to affect injuriously 
the United States ; but he proposed to accept 
it with a further provision that " private prop- 
erty of the subjects or citizens of a belligerent 
should be exempt from seizure by the public 
armed vessels of the other belligerent, except 
it be contraband." This proposition was re- 
ceived favorably by some of the powers, and 
there was a prospect that the rule would be 
adopted into the code of international law. 

The following is a part of the correspond- 
ence on this subject : — 

^Extract from a Despatch of His Excellency Count Walewski 
to Count de Sartiges, May, 1856. 

"The plenipotentiaries assembled in the 
congress of Paris have come to an agreement 
on the terms of a declaration intended to settle 



the principles of maritime law in so much as it 
concerns neutrals during war. Herewith I 
have the honor to transmit to you a copy of 
that act, which fully meets the tendencies of 
our epoch, and at once puts an end to the use- 
less calamities which a custom equally repro- 
bated by reason and by humanity superadded 
to those which fatally result from a state 
of war. 

" The congress have not overlooked the fact, 
that their work, in order that it may prove 
complete, must secure the assent of all the 
maritime powers, since such governments only 
as shall have acceded to the arrangement can 
be mutually bound by it. On this score, we 
attach peculiar value to the concui-rence of the 
United States, that will not consent, we confi- 
dently trust, to hold off from a concert of 
action which defines a new and essential prog- 
ress in international relations. 

" The determination of the congress at Paris 
defines the object which it is intended to attain. 
The clashing constructions given to the rights 
of neutrals have, up to the last war, proved a 
source of deplorable conflicts ; whilst privateer- 
ing inflicted on the commerce and navigation 
of non-belligerent states an injury so much the 
more grievous, as it gave room for the most 
calamitous excesses. 

" These, count, are the events which, for our 
part, we are happy in striving to repel, and we 
feel convinced that the concurrence of the 
United States will not be withheld in a ques- 
tion every way worthy of the philanthropic 
spirit of the American people — a question 
which at once, and in a high degree, concerns 
the development and security of commercial 
transactions. 

" The plenipotentiaries sent to the congress 
have, as you may see in protocol number 
twenty-four, bound themselves, in the name of 
their respective governments, to enter, for the 
future, into no arrangement, on the application 
of maritime law in time of war, without stip- 



eye 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



ulating for a strict observance of the four 
points resolved by the declaration. The con- 
currence Avhich we solicit at the hands of those 
governments vfhich were not represented in 
the Paris conferences can, consequently, apply 
to those principles only laid down in said dec- 
laration, and which are indivisible. 

" Legation op Fkance in the United States." 

Annex to Protocol No. 23. 
DECLARATION. 

" The plenipotentiaries who signed the treaty 
of Paris of the thirtieth of March, one thou- 
sand eight hundred and fifty-six, assembled in 
conference, considering — 

" That maritime law, in time of war, has long 
been the subject of deplorable disputes ; 

" That the uncertainty of the law, and of 
the duties in such a matter, gives rise to differ- 
ences of opinion between neutrals and belliger- 
ents, which may occasion serious difficulties, 
and even conflicts ; 

"That it is, consequently, advantageous to 
establish a uniform doctrine on so important a 
point ; 

" That the plenipotentiaries assembled in 
congress at Paris cannot better respond to the 
intentions by which their governments are ani- 
mated, than by seeking to introduce into in- 
ternational relations fixed principles in this 
respect ; 

" The above-mentioned plenipotentiaries, be- 
ing duly authorized, resolved to concert among 
themselves as to the means of attaining this 
object ; and, having come to an agreement, 
have adopted the following solemn declara- 
tion : — 

" 1. Privateering is, and remains, abolished ; 

" 2. The neutral flag covers enemy's goods, 
with the exception of contraband of war ; 

" 3. Neutral goods, with the exception of 
contraband of war, are not hable to capture 
under enemy's flag ; 



" 4. Blockades, in order to be binding, must 
be effective : that is to say, maintained by a 
force sufficient really to prevent access to the 
coast of the enemy. 

" The governments of the undersigned plen- 
ipotentiaries engage to bring the present dec- 
laration to the knowledge of the states which 
have not taken part in the congress of Paris, 
and to invite them to accede to it. 

" Convinced that the maxims which they 
now proclaim cannot but be received with 
gratitude by the whole world, the undersigned 
plenipotentiaries 3oubt not that the efforts of 
their governments to obtain the general adop- 
tion thereof will be ci'owned with full success. 

" The present declaration is not and shall not 
be binding, except between those powers who 
have acceded, or shall accede, to it. 

" Done at Paris, the sixteenth of April, one 
thousand eight hundred and fifty-six." 

[ The eagnatiues follow.] 

Protocol No. 24. — Sitting of April 1^, 1856. 
EXTRACT. 

" On the proposition of Count Walewski, and 
recognizing that it is for the general interest to 
maintain the indivisibility of the four principles 
mentioned in the ' declaration ' signed this day, 
the plenipotentiaries agree that the powers 
which shall have signed it, or which shall have 
acceded to it, cannot hereafter enter into any 
arrangement in regard to the application of 
the right of neutrals in time of war, which 
does not at the same time rest on the four 
principles which are the object of the said 
' declaration.' " 

Mr. Marcy to the Count de Sartiges. 

" Department or State, •\ 

Washington, JtUy 28, 1856. ) 

" The undersigned, secretary of state of the 
United States, has laid before the president 
' the declaration concerning maritime law, 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



637 



adopted by the plenipotentiaries of Great Brit- 
ain, Austria, France, Prussia, Eussia, Sardinia, 
and Turkey, at Paris, on the 16th of April, 
1856, which the Count de Sartiges, envoy ex- 
traordinary and minister plenipotentiary of 
France, has presented, in behalf of the emperor 
of the French, to the government of the Unit- 
ed States, for the pui'pose of obtaining its ad- 
hesion to the principles therein contained. 

" Nearly two years since, the president sub- 
mitted, not only to the powers represented in 
the late congress at Paris, but to all other mar- 
itime nations, the second and third propositions 
contained in that ' declaration,' and asked their 
assent to them as permanent principles of in- 
ternational law. The propositions thus sub- 
mitted by the president were, — 

" ' 1. That free ships make free goods ; that 
is to say, that the effects or goods belonging to 
subjects or citizens of a power or state at war 
are free from capture or confiscation when 
found on board of neutral vessels, with the 
exception of articles contraband of war. 

" ' 2. That the property of neutrals on board 
an enemy's vessel is not subject to confiscation, 
unless the same be contraband of war.' 

" It will be perceived that these propositions 
are substantially the same as the second and 
third in the ' declaration ' of the congress at 
Paris. 

" Four of the governments with which nego- 
tiations were opened on the subject by the 
United States have signified their acceptance 
of the foregoing propositions. Others were 
inclined to defer acting on them until the re- 
turn of peace should furnish a more auspicious 
time for considering such international ques- 
tions. The proceeding of the congress of the 
plenipotentiaries at Paris will, as a necessary 
consequence, defeat the pending negotiations 
with the United States, if the two following 
propositions, contained in protocol number 
twenty-four, are acceded to : first, that the four 
principles shall be indivisible ; and, second, 



that the powers Avhich have signed or may 
accede to the ' declaration,' shall not enter into 
any arrangement, in regard to the application 
of the right of neutrals in time of war, which 
does not, at the same time, rest on the four 
principles which are the object of said ' decla- 
ration.' As the indivisibility of the four prin- 
ciples, and the limitation upon the sovereign 
attribute of negotiating with other powers, are 
not a part of the ' declaration,' any nation is at 
liberty to reject either or both, and to act upon 
the ' declaration ' without restriction, acceding 
to it in whole or in part. In deliberating on 
this important subject, it behooves all powers 
to consider, and, if they think proper, to act 
upon this distinction. All the powers which 
may accede to that ' declaration,' and the sub- 
sequent restrictions contained in the twenty- 
fourth protocol, will assume an obligation which 
takes from them the liberty of assenting to the 
propositions submitted to them by the United 
States, unless they at the same time surrender 
a principle of maritime law which has never 
been contested — the right to employ priva- 
teers in time of war. 

" The second and third principles get forth in 
the 'declaration,' being those submitted to other 
maritime powers for adoption by this govern- 
ment, it is most anxious to see incorporated, by 
general consent, into the code of maritime law, 
and thus placed beyond future controTersy or 
question. Such a result, securing so many 
advantages to the commerce of neutral nations, 
might have been reasonably expected, but for 
the proceedings of the congress at Paris, which 
require them to be purchased by a too costly 
sacrifice — the surrender of a right which may 
well be considered as essential to the freedom 
of the seas. 

" The fourth principle contained in the ' dec- 
laration,' namely, 'Blockades, in order to be 
binding, must be effective, — that is to say, 
maintained by a force sufficient really to pre- 
vent access to the coast of the enemy, — can 



-6S8 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



hardly be regarded as one falling within that 
class with which it was the object of the con- 
gress to interfere ; for this rule has not, for a 
long time, been regarded as uncertain, or the 
cause of any 'deplorable disputes.' If there 
have been any disputes in regard to blockades, 
the uncertainty was about the facts, but not 
the law. Those nations which have resorted 
to what are appropriately denominated ' paper 
blockades,' have rarel}^, if ever, undertaken 
afterwards to justify their conduct upon prin- 
ciple, but have generally admitted the illegal- 
ity of tha practice, and indemnified the injured 
parties. What is to be adjudged ' a force suffi- 
cient really to prevent access to a coast of the 
enemy,' has often been a severely contested 
question ; and certainly the declaration, which 
merely reiterates a general undisputed maxim 
of maritime law, does nothing towards reliev- 
ing the subject of blockade from that embar- 
rassment. What force is requisite to constitute 
an effective blockade, remains as unsettled and 
as questionable as it was before the congress 
at Paris adopted the ' declaration.' 

" In regard to the right to employ privateers, 
which is declared to be abolished by the first 
principle put forth in the ' declaration,' there 
was, if possible, less uncertainty. The right to 
resort to privateers is as clear as the right to 
use public armed ships, and as incontestable as 
any other right appertaining to belligerents. 
The policy of that law has been occasionally 
questioned, not, however, by the best authori- 
ties; but the law itself has been universally 
admitted, and most nations have not hesitated 
to avail themselves of it ; it is as well sustained 
by practice and public opinion as any other to 
be found in the maritime code. 

"There is scarcely any rule of international 
law which particular nations, in their treaties, 
have not occasionally suspended or modified in 
regard to its application to themselves. Two 
treaties only can be found, in which the con- 
tracting parties have agreed to abstain from 



the employment of privateers in case of war 
between them. The first was a treaty between 
the King of Sweden and the States General of 
the United Provinces, in 1675. Shortly after 
it was concluded the parties were involved in 
war, and the stipulation concerning privateers 
was entirely disregarded by both. The second 
was the treaty of 1785, between the United 
States and the King of Prussia. When this 
treaty was renewed, in 1799, the clause stip- 
ulating not to resort to privateering was omit- 
ted. For the last half century there has been 
no arrangement, by treaty or otherwise, to 
abolish the right, until the recent proceedings 
of the plenipotentiaries at Paris. 

" By taking the subject of privateering into 
consideration, that congress has gone beyond 
its professed object, which was, as it declared, 
to remove the uncertainty on points of mari- 
time law, and thereby prevent ' differences of 
opinion between neutrals and belligerents, and, 
consequently, serious difficulties and even con- 
flicts.' So far as the principle in regard to 
privateering is concerned, the ^proceedings of 
the congress are in the nature of an act of 
legislation, and seek to change a well-settled 
principle of international law. 

" The interest of commerce is deeply con- 
cerned in the establishment of the two prin- 
ciples which the United States has submitted 
to all maritime powers ; and it is much to be 
regretted that the powers represented in the 
congress at Paris, fully approving them, should 
have endangered their adoption by uniting 
them to another inadmissible principle, and 
making the failure of all the necessary conse- 
quence of the rejection of any one. To three 
of the four principles contained in the 'dec- 
laration,' there would not probably be a serious 
objection from any quarter ; but to the other a 
vigorous resistance must have been anticipated. 

" The policy of the law which allows a resort 
to privateers has been questioned, for reasons 
which do not command the assent of this gov- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



639 



ernment. Without entering into a full discus- 
sion on this point, the undersigned will con- 
front the ordinary and chief objection to that 
policy by authority which will be regarded 
with profound respect, particularly in France. 
In a commentary on the French ordonnance 
of 1681, Vahn says, — 

"'However lawful and time-honored this 
mode of warfare may be, it is, nevertheless, 
disapproved of by some pretended philosophers. 
According to their notions, such is not the way 
in which the state and the sovereign are to be 
served ; whilst the profits which individuals 
may derive from the pursuits are illicit, or at 
least disgraceful. But this is the language of 
bad citizens, who, under the stately mask of a 
spurious wisdom, and of a craftily sensitive 
conscience, seek to mislead the judgment by a 
concealment of the secret motive which gives 
birth to their indifference for the welfare and 
advantage of the state. Such are as worthy 
of blame as are those entitled to praise who 
generously expose their property and their 
lives to the dangers of privateering.' * * * 

" It is fair to presume that the strong desire 
to ameliorate the severe usages of war by 
exempting private property upon the ocean 
from hostile seizure, to the extent it is usually 
exempted on land, was the chief inducement 
which led to the ' declaration,' by the congress 
at Paris, that 'privateering is, and remains, 
aboHshed.' 

" The undersigned is directed by the presi- 
dent to say, that to this principle of exempting 
private property upon the ocean, as well as 
upon the land, applied without restriction, he 
yields a most ready and willing assent. The 
undersigned cannot better express the presi- 
dent's views upon the subject, than by quoting 
the language of his annual message to Con- 
gress, of December 4, 1854 : — 

" ' The proposition to enter into engagements 
to forego a resort to privateers, in case this 
country should be forced into a war with a 

81 



great naval power, is not entitled to more 
favorable consideration than would be a prop- 
osition to agree not to accept the services of 
volunteers for operations on land. When the 
honor or rights of our country require it to 
assume a hostile attitude, it confidently relies 
upon the patriotism of its citizens, not ordina- 
rily devoted to the military profession, to aug- 
ment the army and navy, so as to make them 
fully adequate to the emergency which calls 
them into action. Tlie proposal to surrender 
the right to employ privateers is professedly 
founded upon the principle that private prop- 
erty of unoffending non-combatants, though 
enemies, should be exempt from the ravages 
of war ; but the proposed surrender goes but 
little way in carrying out that principle, which 
equally requires that such private property 
should not be seized or molested by national 
ships of war. Should the leading powers of 
Europe concur in proposing, as a rule of inter- 
national law, to exempt private property upon 
the ocean from seizure by public armed cruis- 
ers as well as by privateers, the United States 
wiU readily meet them on that broad ground.' 

"The reasons in favor of the doctrine that 
private property should be exempted from 
seizure in the operations of war, are considered 
in this enlightened age so controlling as to 
have secured its partial adoption by all civilized 
nations ; but it would be difficult to find any 
substantial reasons for the distinction now 
recognized in its application to such property 
on land, and not to that which is found upon 
the ocean. 

" If it be the object of the 'declaration' adopt- 
ed at Paris to abolish this distinction, and to 
give the same security from the ravages of war 
to the property of belligerent subjects on the 
ocean as is now accorded to such property 
upon the land, the congress at Paris has fallen 
short of the proposed result, by not placing 
individual effects of belligerents beyond the 
reach of public armed ships, as well as pri- 



640 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



vateers. If such property is to remain exposed 
to seizure by ships belonging to the navy of 
the adverse party, it is extremely difficult to 
perceive why it should not, in like manner, be 
exposed to seizure by privateers, which are in 
fact but another branch of the public force of 
the nation commissioning them. 

"If the principle of capturing private prop- 
erty on the ocean and condemning it as prize 
of war be given up, that property would, and 
of right ought to be, as secure from molestation 
by public armed vessels as by privateers ; but 
if that principle be adhered to, it would be 
"worse than useless to attempt to confine the 
exercise of the right of capture to any partic- 
ular description of the public force of the bel- 
ligerents. There is no sound principle by 
which such a distinction can be sustained ; no 
capacity which could trace a definite line of 
separation pi'oposed to be made ; and no proper 
tribunal to which a disputed question on that 
subject could be referred for adjustment. The 
pretence that the distinction may be supported 
upon the ground that ships not belonging per- 
manently to a regular navy are more likely to 
disregard the rio;hts of neutrals than those 
which do belong to such a navy, is not well 
sustained by modern experience. If it be urged 
that a participation in the prizes is calculated 
to stimulate cupidity, that, as a peculiar objec- 
tion, is removed by the fact that the same pas- 
sion is addressed by the distribution of prize 
money among the officers and crews of ships 
of a regular navy. Every nation which au- 
thorizes privateers is as responsible for their 
conduct as it is for that of its navy, and will, 
as a matter of prudence, take proper precau- 
tion and security against abuses. 

" But if such a distinction were to be at- 
tempted, it would be very difficult, if not im- 
practicable, to define the particular class of the 
public maritime force which should be regarded 
as privateers. ' Deplorable disputes,' more in 
number, and more difficult of adjustment, would 



arise from an attempt to discriminate between 
privateers and public armed ships. 

" If such a discrimination were attempted, 
every nation would have an undoubted right 
to declare what vessels should constitute its 
navy, and wdiat should be requisite to give 
them the character of public armed ships. 
These are matters which could not be safely or 
prudently left to the determination or super- 
vision of any foreign power ; yet the decision 
of such controversies would naturally fall into 
the hands of predominant naval powers, which 
would have the ability to enforce their judg- 
ments. It cannot be offensive to urge weaker 
powers to avoid as far as possible such an arbit- 
rament, and to maintain with firmness every 
existing barrier against encroachments from 
such a quarter. 

"No nation which has a due sense of self- 
respect will allow any other, belligerent or 
neutral, to determine the character of the force 
which it may deem proper to use in prosecu<>- 
ing hostilities ; nor will it act wisely if it vol- 
untarily surrenders the right to resort to any 
means, sanctioned by international law, which, 
under any circumstances, may be advanta- 
geously used for defence or aggression. 

" The United States consider powerful navies 
and large standing armies, as permanent estab- 
lishments, to be detrimental to national pros- 
perity, and dangerous to civil liberty. The 
expense of keeping them up is burdensome to 
the people ; they are, in the opinion of this 
government, in some degree, a menace to peace 
among nations. A large force, ever ready to 
be devoted to the pux'poses of war, is a tempta- 
tion to rush into it. The policy of the United 
States has ever been, and never more than 
now, adverse to such establishments ; and they 
can never be brought to acquiesce in any 
change in international law which may render 
it necessary for them to maintain a powerful 
navy or large regular army in time of peace. 
If forced to vindicate their rights by arms, they 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



641 



are content, in the present af?pect of interna- 
tional relations, to rely, in military operations 
on land, mainly upon volunteer troops, and for 
the protection of their commerce, in no incon- 
siderable degree, upon their mercantile marine. 
If this country were deprived of these re- 
sourcfes, it would be obliged to change its policy 
and assume a military attitude before the world. 
In resisting an attempt to change the existing 
maritime law that may produce such a result, 
it looks beyond its own interest, and embraces 
in its view the interest of all such nations as 
are not likely to be dominant naval powers. 
Their situation in this respect is similar to that 
of the United States, and to them the protec- 
tion of commerce and the maintenance of 
international relations of peace appeal as 
strongly as to this country to withstand the 
proposed change in the settled law of nations. 
To such nations the surrender of the right to 
resort to privateers would be attended with 
consequences most adverse to their commercial 
prosperity without any compensating advan- 
tages. Most certainly no better reasons can 
be given for such a surrender, than for forego- 
ing the right to receive the services of volun- 
teers ; and the proposition to abandon the 
former is entitled, in the judgment of the pres- 
ident, to no more favor than a similar propo- 
sition in relation to the latter. This opinion 
of the importance of privateers to the com- 
munity of nations, excepting only those of 
great naval strength, is not only vindicated by 
history, but sustained by high authority. The 
following passage in the treatise on maritime 
prizes, to which I have before referred, deserves 
particular attention : — 

"'Privateers are especially useful to those 
powers whose navy is inferior to that of their 
enemies. Belligerents, with powerful and ex- 
tensive naval armaments, may cruise upon the 
seas with their national navies ; but should 
those states, whose naval forces are of less 
power and extent, be left to their own resources. 



they could not hold out in a maritime war; 
whilst by the equipment of privateers they 
may succeed in inflicting upon the enemy an 
injury equivalent to that which they them- 
selves sustain. Hence governments have fre- 
quently been known, by every possible appli- 
ance, to favor privateering armaments. It has 
even occurred that sovereigns, not merely sat- 
isfied with issuing letters of marque, have also 
taken, as it were, an interest in the armament. 
Thus did Louis XIV. frequently lend out his 
ships, and sometimes reserve for himself a 
share in the prizes.' 

"It certainly ought not to excite the least 
surprise that strong naval powers should be 
willing to forego the practice, comparatively 
useless to them, of employing privateers, upon 
condition that weaker powers agree to part 
with their most effective means of defending 
their maritime rights. It is, in the opinion of 
this government, to be seriously apprehended 
that if the use of privateers be abandoned, the 
dominion over the seas will be surrendered to 
those powers which adopt the policy and have 
the means of keeping up large navies. The 
one which has a decided naval superiority 
would be potentially the mistress of the ocean, 
and by the abolition of privateering, that dom- 
ination would be more firmly secured. Such 
a power engaged in a war with a nation infe- 
rior in naval strength, would have nothing to 
do for the security and protection of its com- 
merce but to look after the ships of the regular 
navy of its enemy. These might be held in 
check by one half, or less, of its naval force, 
and the other might sweep the commerce of 
its enemy from the ocean. Nor would the 
injurious effects of a vast naval superiority to 
weaker states be much diminished if that su- 
perioiity was shared among three or four great 
powers. It is unquestionably the interest of 
such weaker states to discountenance and re- 
sist a measure which fosters the growth of 
regular naval establishments. 



642 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



"In discussing the effect of the proposed 
measure — the abohtion of privateering — a 
reference to the existing condition of nations 
is almost unavoidable. An instance will at 
once present itself in regard to two nations 
where the commerce of each is about equal, 
and about equally wide spread over the world. 
As commercial powers, they approach to an 
equality ; but as naval powers, there is great 
disparity between them. The regular navy of 
one vastly exceeds that of the other. In case 
of a war between them, only an inconsiderable 
part of the navy of the one would be required 
to prevent that of the other from being used 
for defence or aggression, while the remainder 
would be devoted to the unembarrassed em- 
ployment of destroying the commerce of the 
weaker in naval strength. The fatal conse- 
quences of this great inequality of naval force 
between two such belligerents would be in part 
remedied by the use of privateers ; in that 
case, whil 

of the other in every 
obliged to distribute and employ their respec- 
tive navies in the work of protection. This 
statement only illustrates what would be the 
case, with some modification, in every war 
where there may be considerable disparity in 
the naval strength of the belligerents. 

" History throws much light upon this ques- 
tion. France, at an early period, was without 
a navy ; and in her wars with Great Britain 
and Spain, both then naval powers, she resorted 
with signal good effect to privateering, not only 
for protection, but successful aggression. She 
obtained many privateers from Holland, and 
by this force gained decided advantages on the 
ocean over her enemy. Whilst in that con- 
dition, France could hardly have been expected 
to originate or concur in a proposition to abol- 
ish privateering. The condition of many of 
the smaller states of the world is now, in rela- 
tion to naval powers, not much vralike that of 
France in the middle of the sixteenth century. 



while either might assail the commerce 
sea, they would be 



At a later period, during the reign of Louis 
XIV. several expeditions were fitted out by 
him, composed wholly of privateers, which were 
most effectively employed in prosecuting hos- 
tilities with naval powers. 

" Those who may have at any time a control 
on the ocean will be strongly tempted to* regu- 
late its use in a manner to subsei've their own 
interests and ambitious projects. The ocean is 
the common property of all nations ; and in- 
stead of yielding to a measure which will be 
likely to secure to a few — possibly to one — an 
ascendency over it, each should pertinaciously 
retain all the means it possesses to defend the 
common heritage. A predominant power upon 
the ocean is more menacing to the well-being 
of others than such a power on land ; and all 
are alike interested in resisting a measure cal- 
culated to facilitate the permanent establish- 
ment of such a domination, whether to be 
wielded by one power or shared among a few 
others. 

" The injuries likely to result from surren- 
dering the dominion of the seas to one or a 
few nations which have powerful navies, arise 
mainly from the practice of subjecting private 
property on the ocean to seizure by belliger- 
ents. Justice and humanit}^ demand that this 
practice should be abandoned, and that the 
rule in relation to such property on land should 
be extended to it when found upon the high 
seas. 

"The president, therefore, proposes to add 
to the first proposition in the ' declaration ' of 
the congress at Paris the following words : 
' And that the private property of the subjects 
or citizens of a belligerent on the high seas 
shall be exempted from seizure by public anned 
vessels of the other belligerent, except it be 
contraband.' Thus amended, the government 
of the United States will adopt it, together 
with the other three principles contained in 
that ' declaration.' 

" I am directed to communicate the approval 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



643 



of the president to the second, third, and fourth 
propositions, independently of the first, should 
the amendment be unacceptable. The amend- 
ment is commended by so many powerful con- 
siderations, and the principle which calls for it 
has so long had the emphatic sanction of all 
enlightened nations in military operations on 
land, that the president is reluctant to believe 
it will meet with any serious opposition. With- 
out the proposed modification of the first 
principle, he cannot convince himself that it 
would be wise or safe to change the existing 
law in regard to the right of privateering. 

"If the amendment should not be adopted, 
it will be proper for the United States to have 
some understanding in regard to the treatment 
of their privateers when they shall have occa- 
sion to visit the ports of those powers which 
are, or may become, parties to the ' declaration ' 
of the congress at Pans. The United States 
will, upon the ground of right and comity, 
claim for them the same consideration to which 
they are entitled, and which was extended to 
them, under the law of nation,s, before the at- 
tempted modification of it by that congress. 

" As connected with the subject herein dis- 
cussed, it is not inappropriate to remark, that 
a due regard to the fair claims of neutrals would 
seem to require some modification, if not an 
abandonment, of the doctrine in relation to 
contraband trade. Nations which preserve the 
relations of peace should not be injuriously 
affected in their commercial intercourse by 
those which choose to involve themselves in 
war, provided the citizens of such peaceful na- 
tions do not compromise their character as 
neutrals by a direct interference with the mili- 
tary operations of the belligerents. The laws 
of siege and blockade, it is believed, afford all 
the remedies against neutrals that the parties 
to the war can justly claim. Those laws inter- 
dict all trade with the besieged or blockaded 
places. A further interference with the ordi- 
nary' pursuits of neutrals, in no wise to blame 



for an existing state of hostilities, is contrary 
to the obvious dictates of justice. If this view 
of the subject could be adopted, and practically 
observed by all civilized nations, the right of 
search, which has been the source of so much 
annoyance and of so many injuries to neutral 
commerce, would be restricted to such cases 
only as justified a suspicion of an attempt to 
trade with places actually in a state of siege 
or blockade. 

"Humanity and justice demand that the 
calamities incident to war should be strictly 
limited to the belligerents themselves, and to 
those who voluntarily take part with them ; 
but neutrals abstaining in good faith from such 
complicity ought to be left to pursue their or- 
dinary trade with either belligerent, without 
restrictions in respect to the articles entering 
into it. 

"Though the United States do not propose 
to embarrass the other pending negotiations 
relative to the rights of neutrals, by pressing 
this change in the law of contraband, they will 
be ready to give it their sanction whenever 
there is a prospect of its favorable reception by 
other maritime powers. 

" The undersigned avails himself of this op- 
portunity to renew to the Count de Sartiges 
the assurance of his high consideration. 

"W. L. Marcy. 

"The Count de Saetiges, &c., &c., &c." 

Mr. De Stoeckl to Mr. Marcy. 

[Translation.] 

"Imperial Legation or Ritss.a, > 

Washington, November 28, 1856. J 

" The imdersigned, charge d'affaires of his 
majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, has 
the honor, in compliance with the order of his 
government, of addressing the following com- 
munication to the Honorable Mr. Marcy, secre- 
tary of state of the United States : — 

"The attention of the emperor has, in an 
eminent degree, dwelt on the proposition by 



644 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



which the United States answered the invita- 
tion which had been extended to them to accede 
to the 'declaration' of the 14th of April. His 
majesty entirely concurs in the views of the 
government of the United States which the 
Honorable Mr. Marcy has laid down in his 
equally lucid as tempei'ate note of the 28th of 
July. The proposition of the federal govern- 
ment, in the opinion of his imperial majesty, 
deserves so much the more to be taken into 
consideration that the honorable secretary of 
state argues not for the exclusive interests of 
the United States, but for those of the whole 
of mankind. 

" The imperial government would have room 
for self-gratulation should its concurrence con- 
tribute to the adoption of the proposition of 
the United States, and should all the powers, 
by a common resolution, proclaimed in the face 
of the world, agree to apply to private property 
on the seas the same principles of inviolability 
which belligerents profess for property on land. 

"The vmdersigned is accordingly instructed 
to notify to the Honorable Mr. Marcy that his 
majesty the emperor accepts, for his part, the 
condition under which the United States con- 
sent to the abolition of privateering — namely, 
that the private property of the subjects and 
citizens of the contracting parties shall in time 
of war be respected by their respective naval 
forces, as well as by those of all the powei-s 
which may join in this ' declaration.' 

"The undersigned is equally instructed to 
declare to the honorable secretary of state that, 
should the proposition of the United States be- 
come the subject of a collective deliberation, 
the vote of the imperial cabinet is pledged to 
them. 

" The undersigned improves this opportunity 
to tender to Mr. Marcy the assurance of his 
very high consideration. Stoeckl." 

The revenues for the fiscal year ending July 
1, 1856, were seventy-three millions nine hun- 



dred and eighteen thousand one hundred and 
forty-one dollars, Avhich, with the balance on 
hand at the commencement of the year, made 
the total resources ninety-two millions eight 
hundred and fifty thousand one hundred and 
seventeen dollars. The expenditures, including 
three millions of dollars, in execution of the 
treaty with Mexico, and upwards of twelve 
million dollars of debt, were seventy-two mil- 
lions nine hundred and forty-eight thousand 
seven hundred and ninety-two dollars ; leaving 
a balance in the treasury at the above date 
of nearly twenty millions of dollars. The rev- 
enues of the current year were estimated by 
the secretary of the treasury to be ample for 
all expenditures, leaving still a balance in the 
treasury. In view of the receipts being larger 
than necessary for an economical administra- 
tion of the government, the president recom- 
mended a revision of the tariff, in order to 
reduce the revenue from the customs. 

This subject of the revision of the tariff was 
a prominent question before Congress, and sev- 
eral schedules were submitted by the different 
interests of the country. There was something 
of a contest between the iron interest and the 
manufacturing interest ; but finally, after some 
compromise, a bill was reported, and with 
amendments passed both houses by a large 
vote. This tariff was intended to carry out 
the president's views with regard to a reduc- 
tion of the revenue, and it was estimated that 
it would effect such a reduction to the amount 
of twenty millions of dollars. The business of 
the country up to that time had been prosperous, 
and had it continued so the new tarifi' might 
have afibrded a sufficient revenue for the wants 
of the government ; but the sequel showed 
that a measure for such a reduction was not 
required at this time. 

Among the other acts passed at this session 
of Congress was one in relation to the Atlantic 
telegraph, which it was proposed to lay down 
in the Atlantic between Ireland and Newfound- 



I 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



G45 



land, and thus connect the two continents by 
a daily and even hourly intercommunication. 
The bill provided for paying to the company 
— an English corporation, but represented in 
America — a sum not exceeding seventy thou- 
sand dollars annually, until the net profits 
reached six per cent, on the capital, and after 
that a sum not exceeding fifty thousand dol- 
lars. For this consideration the United States 
government was to be placed on an equal foot- 
ing with that of Great Britain, in the transmis- 
sion of intelligence, — the governments having 
precedence in all cases, — and the citizens of 
the United States were to have the same 
privilege as the subjects of Great Britain. By 
subsequent arrangement the United States 
government was to furnish one or more 
steamers to aid in laying down the cable. 
The Niagara and Susquehanna, two of the finest 
vessels in the navy, were commissioned for this 
purpose. 

Acts were also passed authorizing the people 
of Minnesota to form a constitution and state 
government, for the purpose of admission into 
the Union, appropriating half a million dollars 
for the construction of a wagon road to the 
Pacific from Fort Kearney, via Salt Lake City, 
and for various other purposes, of which it is 
not necessary to make mention here. Many 
important bills, as is too often the case, were 
acted upon in haste, amid the confusion which 
attends the close of the session, especially when 
it is also the termination of the Congress. At 
this time there was the additional excitement 
arising from the approaching inauguration of a 
new president, and many were more disposed to 
think of the policy of the incoming adminis- 
tration than of the business to be consummated 
by that which was about to end. But the pub- 
lic business being finally accomplished as far 
as it was possible in such a state of things, 
the thirty-fourth Congress came to a close, 
and the administration of Franklin Pierce was 
ended. 



As we stated at the commencement of this 
Book, President Pierce had come into office 
under very favorable circumstances, and the 
nation was disposed to look with favor upon 
his administration. Whether or not he real- 
ized the reasonable expectations of the country, 
or redeemed the pledges, direct and implied, 
which, in his inaugural address and his first 
message, had been given, we leave for the can- 
did reader to judge. 



CHAPTER IX. 

The Bred Scott Case. — Opinion of the Supreme Court. — 
Views of Mr. Benton on the Missouri Compromise and tlie 
Decision of the Court. — His Strictures on the President's 

Message. 

As a matter of history belonging to Presi- 
dent Pierce's administration, though not deliv- 
ered till after his term had expired, and in its 
effects reaching far into future administrations, 
the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United 
States in the case of Dred Scott vs. John A. 
Sandford should find a place in this chapter. 
That opinion may be regarded as an exposition 
of the progress of slavery thus far, and an indi- 
cation of what might be its future progress — 
the goal of Mr. Pierce's administration and the 
starting point of Mr. Buchanan's. It was an 
opinion which touched the hearts and interests 
of the people of this country more nearly and 
more generally than perhaps any other decision 
of that court since its establishment; for it 
undertook to decide a political question of vital 
importance, and in a way which ignores the 
history of the past and disregards the hopes 
of the future. 

The facts were these : Dred Scott and his 
wife were slaves belonging to a surgeon in the 
United States army, who took them with him 
into Illinois, where they resided some time, at 
Fort Snelling. Subsequently they were taken 



646 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



into Missouri, where they had always been held 
as slaves. Scott claimed his freedom and that 
of his wife, on the ground that they had by 
the act of their master been carried into free 
territory, Illinois being within the territory in 
which, by the celebrated ordinance of 1787, 
slavery was forever prohibited. The District 
Court of Missouri gave judgment for the mas- 
ter. In the Supreme Court it was decided that 
the court below had no jurisdiction, because 
the plaintiffs were not citizens of the United 
States in the sense in which that word is used 
in the constitution. But it was not so much 
the decision of the courf as its arguments and 
dicta on points which were not directly before 
it for adjudication, that gave this case so much 
consequence. 

As a paper of much importance, and of last- 
ing interest, from its bearing on questions which 
must sooner or later be decided by the political 
power, we make the following extracts from 
the opinion of the court, as delivered by Chief 
Justice Taney, with whom six of the associate 
justices concurred, and also extracts from the 
dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Curtis, with 
whom Mr. Justice McLean concurred. 

Mr. Chief Justice Taney delivered the opin- 
ion of the court. 

"This case has been twice argued. After 
the argument at the last term, diflFerences of 
opinion were found to exist among the mem- 
bers of the court ; and as the questions in con- 
troversy are of the highest importance, and 
the court was at that time much pressed by 
the ordinary business of the term, it was deemed 
advisable to continue the case, and direct a 
re-argument on some of the points, in order 
that we might have an opportunity of giving 
to the whole subject a more deliberate consid- 
eration. It has accordingly been again argued 
by counsel, and considered by the court : and 
I now proceed to deliver its opinion. 



" There are two leading questions presented 
by the record : — 

"1. Had the Circuit Court of the United 
States jurisdiction to hear and determine the 
case between tlxese parties ? And 

" 2. If it had jurisdiction, is the judgment it 
has given erroneous or not ? 

"The plaintiff in error, who was also the 
plaintiff in the court below, was, with his wife 
and children, held as slaves by the defendant, 
in the state of Missouri ; and he brought this 
action in the Circuit Court of the United States 
for that district, to assert the title of himself 
and his family to freedom. * * * 

" This is certainly a very serious question, and 
one that now for the first time has been brought 
for decision before this court. But it is brought 
here by those who have a right to bring it, and 
it is our duty to meet it and decide it. 

" The question is simply this : C&n a negro, 
whose ancestors were imported into this coun- 
try, and sold as slaves, become a member of 
the political community formed and brought 
into existence by the constitution of the United 
States, and as such become entitled to all the 
rights, and privileges, and immunities, guaran- 
tied by that instrument to the citizen? One 
of which rights is the privilege of suing in a 
court of the United States in the cases specified 
in the constitution. 

" It will be observed that the plea applies to 
that class of persons only whose ancestors 
were negroes of the African race, and imported 
into this country, and sold and held as slaves.. 
The only matter in issue before the court, 
therefore, is, whether the descendants of such 
slaves, when they shall be emancipated, or who 
are born of parents who had become free be- 
fore their birth, are citizens of a state, in the 
sense in which the word ' citizen ' is used in the 
constitution of the United States. And this 
being the only matter in dispute on the plead- 
ings, the court must be understood as speaking 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



647 



in this opinion of that class only ; that is, of 
those persons who are the descenclants of Afri- 
cans who were imported into this country, and 
sold as slaves. 

"The situation of this population was alto- 
gether unlike that of the Indian race. The 
latter, it is true, formed no part of the colonial 
communities, and never amalgamated with 
them in social connections or in government. 
But although they were uncivilized, they were 
yet a free and independent people, associated 
together in nations or tribes, and governed by 
their own laws. Many of these political com- 
munities were situated in territories to which 
the white race claimed the ultimate right of 
dominion. But that claim was acknowledged 
to be subject to the right of the Indians to oc- 
cupy it as long as they thought proper, and 
neither the English nor colonial governments 
claimed or exercised any dominion over the 
tribe or nation by whom it was occuj)ied, nor 
claimed the right to the possession of the terri- 
tory, until the tribe or nation consented to cede 
it. These Indian governments were regarded 
and treated as foreign governments, as much so 
as if an ocean had separated the red man from 
the white ; and their freedom has constantly 
been acknowledged, from the time of the first 
emigration to the English colonies to the pres- 
ent day, by the different governments which 
succeeded each other. Treaties have been ne- 
gotiated with them, and their alliance sought 
for in war ; and the people who compose these 
Indian political communities have always been 
treated as foreigners not living under our gov- 
ernment. It is true that the course of events 
has brought the Indian tribes within the limits 
of the United States under subjection to the 
white race ; and it has been found necessary, 
for their sake as well as our own, to reo^ard 
them as in a state of pupilage, and to legislate 
to a certain extent over them and the territory 
they occupy. But they may, without doubt, 

like the subjects of any other foreign govern- 

82' 



ment, be naturalized by the authority of Con- 
gress, and become citizens of a state, and of the 
United States ; and if an individual should 
leave his nation or tribe, and take up his abode 
among the white population, he would be enti- 
tled to all the rights and privileges which 
would belong to an emigrant from any other 
foreign people. 

"We proceed to examine the case as pre- 
sented by the pleadings. 

"The words 'people of the United States' 
and ' citizens' are synonymous terms, and mean, 
the same thing. They both describe the politi- 
cal body who, according to our republican in- 
stitutions, form the sovereignty, and who hold 
the power and conduct the government through 
their representatives. They are what we fa- 
miliarly call the ' sovereign people,' and every 
citizen is one of this people, and a constituent 
member of this sovereignty. The question be- 
fore us is, whether the class of persons described 
in the plea in abatement compose a portion of 
this people, and are constituent members of 
this sovereignty. We think they are not, and 
that they ai-e not included, and were not 
intended to be included, under the word 
' citizens ' in the constitution, and can therefore 
claim none of the rights and privileges which 
that instrument provides for and secures to 
citizens of the United States. On the con- 
trary, they were at that time considered as a 
subordinate and inferior class of beings, who 
had been subjugated by the dominant race, and 
whether emancipated or not, yet remained sub- 
ject to their authority, and had no rights or 
privileges but such as those who held the power 
and the government might choose to grant 
them. 

" It is not the province of the court to decide 
upon the justice or injustice, the policy or im- 
policy, of these laws. The decision of that 
question belonged to the political or law-mak- 
ing power ; to those who formed the sovereignty 
and framed the constitution. The duty of the 



648 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



court is, to interpret the instrument they have 
framed, with the best lights -vve can obtain on 
the subject, and to administer it as we find it, 
according to its true intent and meaning when 
it was adopted. * * * 

" In the opinion of the court, the legislation 
and histories of the times, and the language 
used in the Declaration of Independence, show 
that neither the class of persons who had been 
imported as slaves, nor their descendants, 
whether they had become free or not, were 
then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor 
intended to be included in the general words 
used in that memorable instrument. 

" It is difficult at this day to realize the state 
of public opinion, in relation to that unfortu- 
nate race, which prevailed in the civilized and 
enlightened portions of the world at the time 
of the declaration of independence, and when 
the constitution of the United States was 
framed and adopted. But the public history 
of every European nation displays it in a man- 
ner too plain to be mistaken. 

" They had, for more than a century before, 
been regarded as beings of an inferior order, 
and altogether unfit to associate with the white 
race, either in social or political relations ; and 
so far inferior, that they had no rights which 
the white man was bound to respect ; and that 
the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced 
to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and 
sold, and treated as an ordinary article of mer- 
chandise and traffic, whenever a profit could be 
made by it. This opinion was at that time 
fixed and universal in the civilized portion of 
the white race. It was regarded as an axiom 
in morals as well as in politics, which no one 
thought of disputing, or supposed to be open 
to dispute ; and men in every grade and posi- 
tion in society daily and habitually acted upon 
it in their private pursuits, as well as in mat- 
ters of public concern, without doubting for a 
moment the correctness of this opinion. 

"And in no nation was this opinion more 



firmly fixed, or more uniformly acted upon 
than by the English government and English 
people. They not only seized them on the 
coast of Africa, and sold them, or held them in 
slavery for their own use, but they took them 
as ordinary articles of merchandise to every 
country where they could make a profit on 
them, and were far more extensively engaged 
in this commerce than any other nation in the 
world. 

"The opinion thus entertained and acted 
upon in England was naturally impressed upon 
the colonies they founded on this side of the 
Atlantic. And, accordingly, a negro of the 
African race was regarded by them as an arti- 
cle of property, and held, and bought, and sold 
as such, in every one of the thirteen colonies 
which united in the declaration of independ- 
ence, and afterwards formed the constitution 
of the United States. The slaves were more 
or less numerous in the different colonies, as 
slave labor was found more or less profit- 
able. But no one seems to have doubted the 
correctness of the prevailing opinion of the 
time. 

" The legislation of the different colonies fur- 
nishes positive and indisputable proof of this 
fact. * * * 

" This state of public opinion had undergone 
no change when the constitution was adopted, 
as is equally evident from its provisions and 
language. 

" The brief preamble sets forth by whom it 
was formed, for what purposes, and for whose 
benefit and protection. It declares that it is 
formed by the j^eople of the United States ; that 
is to say, by those who were members of the 
different political communities in the several 
states ; and its great object is declared to be to 
secure the blessings of liberty to themselves 
and their posterity. It speaks in general 
terms of the people of the United States, and 
of citizens of the several states, when it is pro- 
viding for the exercise of the powers granted 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



649 



or the privileges secured to the citizen. It 
does not define what description of persons are 
intended to be included under these terms, or 
who shall be regarded as a citizen and one of 
the people. It uses them as terms so well un- 
derstood, that no further description or defini- 
tion was necessary. 

" But there are two clauses in the constitu- 
tion which point directly and specifically to the 
negro race as a separate class of persons, and 
show clearly that they were not regarded as a 
portion of the people or citizens of the govern- 
ment then formed. 

" One of these clauses reserves to each of the 
thirteen states the right to import slaves until 
the year 1808, if it thinks proper. And the 
importation which it thus sanctions was un- 
questionably of pei'sons of the race of which 
we are speaking, as a traffic in slaves in the 
United States had always been confined to 
them. And by the other provision the states 
pledge themselves to each other to maintain 
the right of property of the master, by deliver- 
ing up to him any slave who may have escaped 
from his service, and be found within their re- 
spective territories. By the first above-men- 
tioned clause, therefore, the right to purchase 
and hold this property is directly sanctioned 
and authorized for twenty years by the people 
who framed the constitution. And by the sec- 
ond, they pledge themselves to maintain and 
uphold the right of the master in the manner 
specified, as long as the government they then 
formed should endure. And these two provis- 
ions show, conclusively, that neither the de- 
scription of persons therein referred to, nor 
their descendants, were embraced in any of the 
other provisions of the constitution ; for cer- 
tainly these two clauses were not intended to 
confer on them or their posterity the blessings 
of liberty,or any of the personal rights so care- 
fully provided for the citizen. 

"No one of that race had ever migrated to 
the United States voluntarily ; all of them had 



been brought here as articles of merchandise. 
The number that had been emancipated at that 
time were but few in comparison with those 
held in slavery ; and they were identified in the 
public mind with the race to which they be- 
longed, and regarded as a part of the slave 
population rather than the free. It is obvious 
that they were not even in the minds of the 
framers of the constitution when they were 
conferring special rights and privileges upon 
the citizens of a state in every other part of 
the Union. 

" Indeed, when we look to the condition of 
this race in the several states at the time, it is 
impossible to believe that these rights and 
privileges were intended to be extended to 
them. 

" It is very true, that in that portion of the 
Union where the labor of the negro race was 
found to be unsuited to the climate and un- 
profitable to the master, but few slaves were 
held at the time of the declaration of inde- 
pendence ; and when the constitution was 
adopted, it had entirely worn out in one of 
them, and measures had been taken for its 
gradual abolition in several others. But this 
change had not been produced by any change 
of opinion in relation to this race ; but because 
it was discovered, from experience, that slave 
labor was unsuited to the climate and produc- 
tions of these states; for some of the states, 
where it had ceased, or nearly ceased, to exist, 
were actively engaged in the slave trade, pro- 
curing cargoes on the coast of Africa, and 
transporting them for sale to those parts of the 
Union where their labor was found to be profit- 
able, and suited to the climate and productions. 
And this traffic was openly carried on, and for- 
tunes accumulated by it, without reproach from 
the people of the states where they resided. 
And it can hardly be supposed that, in the 
states where it was then countenanced in its 
worst form, — that is, in the seizure and trans- 
portation, — the people could have regarded 



650 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



those who were emancipated as entitled to 
equal rights with themselves. 

"And we may here again refer, in support 
of this proposition, to the plain and unequivocal 
language of the laws of the several states, 
some passed after the declaration of independ- 
ence and before the constitution was adopted, 
and some since the government went into 
operation. * * * 

" The legislation of the states therefore shows, 
in a manner not to be mistaken, the inferior 
and subject condition of that race at the time 
the constitution was adopted, and long after- 
wards, throughout the thirteen states by which 
that instrument was framed ; and it is hardly 
consistent with the respect due to these states, 
to suppose that they regarded, at that time, as 
fellow-citizens and members of the sovereignty, 
a class of beings whom they had thus stigma- 
tized ; whom, as we are bound, out of resjject 
to the state sovereignties, to assume they had 
deemed it just and necessary thus to stigma- 
tize, and upon whom they had impressed such 
deep and enduring marks of inferiority and 
degradation ; or, that when they met in con- 
vention to form the constitution, they looked 
upon them as a portion of their constituents, 
or designed to include them in the provisions so 
carefully inserted for the security and protec- 
tion of the liberties and rights of their citizens. 
It cannot be supposed that they intended to 
secure to them rights, and privileges, and rank, 
in the new political body throughout the 
Union, which every one of them denied within 
the limits of its own dominion. More espe- 
cially, it cannot be believed that the large slave- 
holding states regarded them as included in the 
word 'citizens,' or would have consented to a 
constitution which might compel them to re- 
ceive them in that character from another state. 
For if they were so received, and entitled to 
the privileges and immunities of citizens, it 
would exempt them from the operation of the 
Bpecial laws and from the police regulations 



which they considered to be necessary for theii 
own safety. It would give to persons of the 
negro race, who were recognized as citizens in 
any one state of the Union, the right to enter 
every other state whenever they pleased, singly 
or in companies, without pass or passport, and 
without obstruction, to sojourn there as long 
as they pleased, to go where they pleased at 
every hour of the day or night without moles- 
tation, unless they committed some violation 
of law for which a white man would be pun- 
ished ; and it would give them the full liberty 
of speech in public and in private upon all 
subjects upon which its own citizens might 
speak ; to hold public meetings upon political 
affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever 
they went. And all of this would be done in the 
face of the subject race of the same color, both 
free and slaves, and inevitably producing dis- 
content and insubordination among them, and 
endangering the peace and safety of the state. 

" It is impossible, it would seem, to believe 
that the great men of the slaveholding states, 
who took so large a share in framing the con- 
stitution of the United States, and exercised so 
much influence in procuring its adoption, could 
have been so forgetful and regardless of their 
own safety and the safety of those who trusted 
and confided in them. 

" Besides, this want of foresight and care 
would have been utterly inconsistent with the 
caution displayed in providing for the admis- 
sion of new members into this political familj^ 
For, when they gave to the citizens of each 
state the privileges and immunities of citizens 
in the several states, they at the same time 
took from the several states the power of natu- 
ralization, and confined that power exclusively 
to the federal government. No state was 
willing to permit another state to determine 
who should or should not be admitlted as one 
of its citizens, and entitled to demand equal 
rights and privileges with their own people, 
within their own territories. The right of natu- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



651 



ralization was therefore, with one accord, sur- 
rendered by the states, and confided to the fed- 
eral government. And this power granted to 
Congress to estabhsh a uniform rule of naiiir 
ralization is, by the well-understood meaning of 
the word, confined to persons born in a foreign 
country, under a foreign government. It is 
not a power to raise to the rank of a citizen 
any one born in the United States, who, from 
birth or parentage, by the laws of the country, 
belongs to an inferior and subordinate class. 
And when we find the states guarding them- 
selves from the indiscreet or improper admis- 
sion by other states of emigrants from other 
countries, by giving the power exclusively to 
Congress, we cannot fail to see that they could 
never have left with the states a much more 
important power — that is, the power of trans- 
forming into citizens a numerous class of per- 
sons, who in that character would be much 
more dangerous to the peace and safety of a 
large portion of the Union, than the few for- 
eigners one of the states might improperly 
naturalize. The constitution, upon its adop- 
tion, obviously took from the states all power 
by any subsequent legislation to introduce as a 
citizen into the political family of the United 
States any one, no matter where he was born, 
or what might be Ms character or condition ; 
and it gave to Congress the power to confer 
this chai-acter upon those only who were born 
outside of the dominions of the United States. 
And no law of a state, therefore, passed since 
the constitution was adopted, can give any 
right of citizenship outside of its own terri- 
tory. 

" K clause similar to the one in the constitu- 
tion, in relation to the rights and immunities 
of citizens of one state in the other states, was 
contained in the Articles of Confederation. 
But there is a difference of language which is 
worthy of note. The provision in the Articles 
of Confederation was, ' that the free inhabitants 
of each of the states, paupers, vagabonds, and 



fugitives from justice excepted, should be enti- 
tled to all the piivileges and immunities of free 
citizens in the several states.' 

" It will be observed, that under this confed- 
eration, each state had the right to decide for 
itself, and in its own tribunals, whom it would 
acknowledge as a free inhabitant of another 
state. The term/ree inhabUavi, in the generality 
of its terms, would certainly include one of the 
Afi'ican race who had been manumitted. But 
no example, Ave think, can be found of his ad- 
mission to all the privileges of citizenship in 
any state of the Union after these Articles 
were formed, and while they continued in 
force. And, notwithstanding the generality of 
the words ' free inhabitants,' it is very clear 
that, according to their accepted meaning in 
that day, they did not include the African race, 
whether free or not ; for the fifth section of the 
ninth article provides that Congress should 
have the power ' to agree upon the number of 
land forces to be raised, and to make requisi- 
tions from each state for its quota in proportion 
to the number of ivhite inhabitants in such state, 
which requisition should be binding.' 

" Words could hardly have been used which 
more strongly mark the line of distinction be- 
tween the citizen and the subject; the free and 
the subjugated races. The latter were not 
even counted when the inhabitants of a state 
were to be embodied in proportion to its num- 
bers for the general defence. And it cannot 
for a moment be supposed, that a class of per- 
sons thus separated and rejected from those 
who formed the sovereignty of the states, were 
yet intended to be included under the words 
'free inhabitants,' in the preceding article, to 
whom privileges and immunities were so care- 
fully secured in every state. 

" But although this clause of the Articles of 
Confederation is the same in principle with 
that inserted in the constitution, yet the com- 
prehensive word ' inhabitant,' which might be 
construed to include an emancipated slave, is 



eaz 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



omitted ; and the privilege is confined to citi- 
zens of the state. And this alteration in words 
■would hardly have been made, unless a differ- 
ent meaning was intended to be conveyed, or a 
possible doubt removed. The just and fair in- 
ference is, that as this privilege was about to be 
placed under the protection of the general gov- 
ernment, and the words expounded by its tri- 
bunals, and all power in relation to it taken 
from the state and its courts, it was deemed 
prudent to describe with precision and caution 
the persons to whom this high privilege was 
given — and the word ' citizen ' was on that ac- 
count substituted for the words ' free inhabitant' 
The word ' citizen ' excluded, and no doubt in- 
tended to exclude, foreigners who had not be- 
come citizens of some one of the states when 
the constitution was adopted ; and also every 
description of persons who were not fully 
recognized as citizens in the several states. 
This, upon any fair construction of the instru- 
ments to which we have referred, was evidently 
the object and purpose of this change of words. 

" To all this mass of proof we have still to 
add, that Congress has repeatedly legislated 
upon the same construction of the constitution 
that we have given. Three laws, two of which 
were passed almost immediately after the gov- 
ernment went into operation, will be abundant- 
ly sufficient to show this. The two first are 
particularly worthy of notice, because many of 
the men who assisted in framing the constitu- 
tion, and took an active part in procuring its 
adoption, were then in the halls of legislation, 
and certainly luiderstood what they meant 
when they used the words ' people of the United 
States ' and ' citizen ' in that well-considered 
instrument. 

" The first of these acts is the naturalization 
law, which was passed at the second session of 
the first Congress, March 26, 1790, and confines 
the right of becoming citizens ' to aliens being 
free white persons.' 

"Now, the constitution does not limit the 



j power of Congress in this respect to white per- 
sons. And they may, if they think proper, 
authorize the naturalization of any one, of any 
color, who was born under allegiance to another 
government. But the language of the law- 
above quoted shows that citizenship at that 
time was perfectly understood to be confined to 
the white race : and that they alone constituted 
the sovereignty in the government. * * 

" Another of the early laws of which we have 
spoken, is the first militia law, which was 
passed in 1792, at the first session of the second 
Congress?. The language of this law is equally- 
plain and significant with the one just men- 
tioned. It directs that every ' free able-bodied 
white male citizen' shall l>e enrolled in the 
militia. The word ' white ' is evidently used to 
exclude the African race, and the word ' citizen' 
to exclude unnaturalized foreigners ; the latter 
; forming no part of the sovereignty, owing it no 
j allegiance, and therefore under no obligation to 
defend it. The African race, however, born in 
the country, did owe allegiance to the govern- 
. ment, whether they were slave or free ; but it 
I is repudiated and rejected from the duties and 
' obligations of citizenship in marked language. 

" The third act to which we have alluded is 
even still more decisive ; it was passed as late 
as 1813 (2 Stat. 809,) and it provides, 'That 
from and after the termination of the war in 
which the United States are now engaged with 
Great Britain, it shall not be lawful to employ, 
on board of any public or private vessels of the 
United States, any person or persons except 
citizens of the United States, or persons of col- 
or, natives of the United States:' 

"Here the line of distinction is drawn in ex- 
press words. Persons of color, in the judgment 
of Congress, were not included in the word 
' citizens,' and they are described as another and 
different class of persons, and authorized to be 
employed, if born in the United States. * * 

" But it is said that a person may be a citi- 
zen, and entitled to that character, although he 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



653 



does not possess all the rights which may be- 
long to other citizens ; as, for example, the 
right to vote, or to hold particular offices ; and 
that yet, when he goes into another state, he 
is entitled to be recognized there as a citizen, 
although the state may measure his rights by 
the rights which it allows to persons of a like 
character or class resident in the state, and re- 
fuse to him the full rights of citizenship. 

" This argument overlooks the language of 
the provision in the constitution of which we 
arc speaking. 

"Undoubtedly, a person may be a citizen, 
that is, a member of the community who form 
the sovereignty, although he exercises no share 
of the political power, and is incapacitated from 
holding particular offices. Women and minors, 
who form a part of the political family, cannot 
vote ; and when a property qualification is re- 
quired to vote or hold a particular office, those 
who have not the necessary qualification can- 
not vote or hold the office, yet they are citi- 
zens. 

" So, too, a person may be entitled to vote by 
the law of the state, who is not a citizen even 
of the state itself And in some of the states 
of the Union foreigners not naturalized are 
allowed to vote. And the state may give the 
right to free negroes and mulattoes, but that 
does not make them citizens of the state, and 
still less of the United States. And the pro- 
vision in the constitution giving privileges and 
immunities in other states, does not apply to 
them. 

" Neither does it apply to a person who, be- 
ing the citizen of a state, migrates to another 
state. For then he becomes subject to the 
laws of the state in which he lives, and he is no 
longer a citizen of the state from which he re- 
moved. And the state in which he resides may 
then, unquestionably, determine his status or 
condition, and place him among the class of 
persons who are not recognized as citizens, but 
belong to an inferior and subject race ; and 



may deny him the privileges and immunities 
enjoyed by its citizens. 

" But so far as mere rights of person are con- 
cerned, the provision in question is confined to 
citizens of a state who are temporarilj^ in 
another state without taking up their residence 
there. It gives them no political rights in the 
state, as to voting or holding office, or in any 
other respect. For a citizen of one state has 
no right to participate in the government of 
another. But if he ranks as a citizen in the 
state to which he belongs, within the meaning 
of the constitution of the United States, then, 
whenever he goes into another state, the con- 
stitution clothes him, as to the rights of person, 
with all the privileges and immunities which 
belong to citizens of the state. And if persons 
of the African race are citizens of a state, and 
of the United States, they would be entitled to 
all of these privileges and immunities in every 
state, and the state could not restrict them ; for 
they would hold these privileges and immuni- 
ties under the paramount authority of the fed- 
eral government, and its courts would be 
bound to maintain and enforce them, the con- 
stitution and laws of the state to the contrary 
notwithstanding. And if the states could limit 
or restrict them, or place the party in an 
inferior grade, this clause of the constitution 
would be unmeaning, and could have no opera- 
tion ; and would give no rights to the citizen 
when in another state. He would have none 
but what the state itself chose to allow him. 
This is evidently not the construction or mean- 
ing of the clause in question. It guaranties 
rights to the citizen, and the state cannot with- 
hold them. And these rights are of a charac- 
ter and would lead to consequences which make 
it absolutely certain that the African race were 
not included under the name of citizens of a 
state, and were not in the contemplation of the 
framers of the constitution when these privi- 
leges and immunities were provided for the 
protection of the citizen in other states. 



654 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



"The case of Legrand vs. Darnall (2 Peters, 
664) has bee referred to for the purpose of 
showing that this court has decided that the 
descendant of a slave may sue as a citizen in a 
court of the United States ; but the case itself 
shows that the question did not arise, and 
could not have arisen, in the case. * * 

" No one, we presume, supposes that any 
change in public opinion or feeling, in relation 
to this unfortunate race, in the civilized nations 
of Europe or in this countr}', should induce the 
court to give to the words of the constitution 
a more liberal construction in their favor than 
they were intended to bear when the instru- 
ment was fi-amed and adopted. Such an argu- 
ment would be altogether inadmissible in any 
tribunal called on to interpret it. If any of 
its provisions are deemed unjust, there is a 
mode prescribed in the instrument itself b}' 
which it may be amended ; but while it re- 
mains unaltered, it must be construed now as 
it was understood at the time of its adoption. 
It is not only the same in words, but the same 
in meaning, and delegates the same powers to 
the government, and reserves and secures the 
same rights and privileges to the citizen ; and 
as long as it continues to exist in its present 
form, it speaks not only in the same words, 
but with the same meaning and intent with 
which it spoke when it came from the hands 
of its framers, and was voted on and adopted 
by the people of the United States. Any 
other rule of construction would abrogate the 
judicial character of this court, and make it 
the mere reflex of the popular opinion or pas- 
sion of the day. This court was not created 
by the constitution for such purposes. Higher 
and graver trusts have been confided to it, 
and it must not falter in the path of duty. 

" What the construction was at that time, we 
think, can hardly admit of doubt. We have 
the language of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence and of the Articles of Confederation, in 
addition to the plain words of' the constitution 



itself; we have the legislation of the diflbrent 
states, before, about the time, and since, the 
constitution was adopted ; we have the legisla- 
tion of Congress, from the time of its adoption 
to a recent period ; and we have the constant 
and uniform action of the executive depart- 
ment, all concurring together, and leading to 
the same result. And if any thing in relation 
to the construction of the constitution can be 
regarded as settled, it is that which we now 
give to the word ' citizen ' and the word ' people.' 

" And upon a full and careful consideration 
of the subject, the court is of opinion, that, 
upon the facts stated in the plea in abatement, 
Dred Scott was not a citizen of Missouri within 
the meaning of the constitution of the United 
States, and not entitled as such to sue in its 
courts ; and, consequently, that the Circuit 
Court had no jurisdiction of the case, and that 
the judgment on the plea in abatement is er- 
roneous. 

" We are aware that doubts are entertained 
by some of the members of the court, whether 
the plea in abatement is legally before the 
court upon this writ of error; but if that plea is 
regarded as waived, or out of the case upon any 
other ground, yet the question as to the juris- 
diction of the Circuit Court is presented on the 
face of the bill of exception itself, taken by 
the plaintiff at the trial ; for he admits that he 
and his wife were born slaves, but endeavors 
to make out his title to freedom and citizenship 
by showing that they were taken by their 
owner to certain places, hereinafter mentioned, 
where slavery could not by law exist, and that 
they thereby became free, and upon their re- 
turn to Missouri became citizens of that state. 

" Now, if the removal of which he speaks did 
not give them their freedom, then by his own 
admission he is still a slave ; and whatever 
opinions may be entertained in favor of the 
citizenship of a free person of the African race, 
no one supposes that a slave is a citizen of the 
state or of the United States. If, therefore, 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



655 



the acts done by his owner did not make them 
free persons, he is still a slave, and certainly in- 
capable of suing in the character of a citizen. 

'•' The principle of law is too well settled to 
be disputed, that a court can give no judgment 
for either party, where it has no jurisdiction ; 
and if, upon the showing of Scott himself, it 
appeared that he was still a slave, the case 
ought to have been dismissed, and the judg- 
ment against him, and in favor of the defend- 
ant for costs, is, like that on the plea in abate- 
ment, erroneous, and the suit ought to have 
been dismissed by the Circuit Court for want 
of jurisdiction in that court. * * * 

" The plea in abatement is not a plea to the 
jurisdiction of this court, but to the jurisdic- 
tion of the Circuit Court. And it appears by 
the record before us, that the Circuit Court 
committed an error in deciding that it had ju- 
risdiction upon the facts in the case, admitted 
by the pleadings. It is the duty of the appel- 
late tribunal to correct this error; but that 
could not be done by dismissing the case for 
want of jurisdiction here — for that would leave 
the erroneous judgment in full force, and the 
injured party without remedy. And the ap- 
pellate court therefore exercises the power for 
which alone appellate courts are constituted, 
by reversing the judgment of the court below 
for this error. It exercises its proper and ap- 
propriate jurisdiction over the judgment and 
proceedings of the Circuit Court, as they ap- 
pear upon the record brought up by the writ 
of error. 

"The correction of one error in the court 
below does not deprive the appellate court of 
the power of examining further into the record, 
and correcting any other material errors which 
may have been committed by the inferior court. 
There is certainly no rule of law — nor any 
practice — nor any decision of a court — which 
even questions this power in the appellate tri- 
bunal. On the contrary, it is the daily prac- 
tice of this court, and of all appellate courts 

83 



where they reverse the judgment of an inferior 
court for error, to correct by its opinions what- 
ever errors may appear on the record material 
to the case ; and they have always held it to 
be their duty to do so where the silence of the 
court might lead to misconstruction or future 
controversy, and the point has been relied on 
by either side, and argued before the court. 

" In the case before us, we have already de- 
cided that the Circuit Court erred in decidinsr 
that it had jurisdiction upon the facts admitted 
by the pleadings. And it appears that, in the 
further progress of the case, it acted upon the 
erroneous principle it had decided on the plead- 
ings, and gave judgment for the defendant, 
where, upon the facts admitted in the excep- 
tion, it had no jurisdiction. 

" We are at a loss to understand upon what 
principle of law, applicable to appellate juris- 
diction, it can be supposed that this court has 
not judicial authority to correct the last-men- 
tioned error, because they had before corrected 
the former ; or by what process of reasoning 
it can be made out, that the error of an inferior 
court in actually pronouncing judgment for one 
of the parties, in a case in which it had no 
jurisdiction, cannot be looked into or corrected 
by this court, because we have decided a similar 
question presented in the pleadings. The last 
point is distinctly presented by the facts con- 
tained in the plaintiff's own bill of exceptions, 
which he himself brings here by this writ of 
error. It was the point which chiefly occupied 
the attention of the counsel on both sides in 
the argument; and the judgment which this 
court must render upon both errors is precisely 
the same. It must, in each of them, exercise 
jurisdiction over the judgment, and reverse it 
for the errors committed by the court below ; 
and issue a mandate to the Circuit Court to 
conform its judgment to the opinion pronounced 
by this court, by dismissing the case for want 
of jurisdiction in the Circuit Court. This is 
the constant and invariable practice of this 



CjC 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



court, where it reverses "a judgment for want 
of jurisdiction in the Circuit Court. '''■ * 

" We proceed, therefore, to inquire whether 
the facts relied on by the plaintiff entitled him 
to his freedom. 

"The case, as he himself states it, on the 
record brought here by his writ of error, is 
this : — 

" The plaintiff was a negro slave, belonging 
to Dr. Emerson, who was a surgeon in the 
army of the United States. In the year 1834, 
he took the plaintiff from the state of Missouri 
to the military post at Rock Island, in the state 
of Illinois, and held him there as a slave until 
the month of April or May, 1836. At the time 
last mentioned, said Dr. Emerson removed the 
plaintiff from said military post at Rock Island 
to the military post at Fort Snelling, situate 
on the west bank of the Mississippi River, in 
the territory known as Upper Louisiana, ac- 
quired by the United States of France, and 
situate north of the latitude of thirty-six de- 
grees thirty minutes north, and north of the 
state of Missouri. Said Dr. Emerson held the 
plaintiff in slavery at said Fort Snelling from 
said last-mentioned date until the year 1838. 

" In the year 1835, Harriet, who is named in 
the second count of the plaintiff's declaration, 
was the negro slave of Major Taliaferro, who 
belonged to the army of the United States. 
In that year, 1835, said Major Taliaferro took 
said Harriet to said Fort Snelling, a military 
post, situated as hereinbefore stated, and kept 
her there as a slave until the year 1836, and 
then sold and delivered her as a slave, at said 
Fort Snelling, unto the said Dr. Emerson here- 
inbefore named. Said Dr. Emerson held said 
Harriet in slavery at said Fort Snelling until 
the year 1838. 

"In the year 1836, the plaintiff and Harriet 
intermarried at Fort Snelling, with the consent 
of Dr. Emerson, who then claimed to be their 
master and owner. Eliza and Lizzie, named in 
the third count of the plaintiff's declaration. 



are the fruit of that marriage. Eliza is about 
fourteen years old, and was born on board the 
steamboat Gipsejr, north of the north line of 
the state of Missouri, and upon the River Mis- 
sissippi. Lizzie is about seven years old, and 
was born in the state of Missouri, at the mili- 
tary post called Jefferson Barracks. 

" In the year 1838, said Dr. Emerson removed 
the plaintiff and said Harriet, and their said 
daughter Eliza, from said Fort Snelling to the 
state of Missouri, where they have ever since 
resided. 

" Before the commencement of this suit, said 
Dr. Emerson sold and conveyed the plaintiff, 
and Harriet, Eliza, and Lizzie, to the defendant, 
as slaves, and the defendant has ever since 
claimed to hold them, and each of them, as 
slaves. 

" In considering this part of the controversy, 
two questions arise : 1. Was he, together with 
his fiimily, free in Missouri by reason of the 
stay in the territory of the United States here- 
inbefore mentioned ? And, 2. If they were 
not, is Scott himself free by reason of his re- 
moval to Rock Island, in the state of Illinois, 
as stated in the above admissions 1 

" We proceed to examine the first question. 

" The act of Congress, upon which the plain- 
tiff relies, declares that slavery and involuntary 
servitude, except as a punishment for crime, 
shall be forever prohibited in all that part of 
the territory ceded by France, under the name 
of Louisiana, which lies north of thirty-six de- 
grees thirty minutes north latitude, and not in- 
cluded within the limits of Missouri. And the 
difficulty which meets us at the threshold of 
this part of the inquiry is, whether Congress 
was authorized to pass this law under any of 
the powers granted to it by the constitution ; 
for if the authority is not given by that instru- 
ment, it is the duty of this court to declare it 
void and inoperative, and incapable of confer- 
ring freedom upon any one who is held as a 
slave under the laws of any one of the states. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



^57 



" The counsel for the plaintiff has laid much 
stress upon that article in the constitution 
■which confers on Congress the power to ' dis- 
pose of and make all needful rules and regula- 
tions respecting the territory or other property 
belonging to the United States ; ' but, in the 
judgment of the court, that provision has no 
bearing on the present controversy, and the 
power there given, whatever it may be, is con- 
fined, and was intended to be confined, .to the 
territory which at that time belonged to, or 
was claimed by, the United States', and was 
Avithin their boundaries as settled by the treaty 
with Great Britain, and can have no influence 
upon a territory afterwards acquired from a 
foreign government. It was a special provision 
for a known and particular territor}-, and to 
meet a present emergency, and nothing more. 

." A brief summary of the history of the times, 
as well as the careful and measured terms in 
which the article is framed, will show the cor- 
rectness of this proposition. 

" It will be remembered that, from the com- 
mencement of the revolutionary war, serious 
difficulties existed between the states, in rela- 
tion to the disposition of large and unsettled 
territories which were included in the char- 
tered limits of some of the states. And some 
of the other states, and more especially Mary- 
land, which had no unsettled lands, insisted 
that as the unoccupied lands, if wrested from 
Great Britain, would owe their preservation to 
the common purse and the common sword, the 
money arising from them ought to be applied 
in just proportion among the several states to 
pay the expenses of the war, and ought not to 
be appropriated to the use of the state in 
whose chartered limits they might happen to 
lie, to the exclusion of the other states, by 
whose combined efforts and common expense 
the territory was defended and preserved 
against the claim of the British government. 

"These difficulties caused much uneasiness 
during the war, while the issue was in some 



degree doubtful, and the future boundaries of 
the United States yet to be defined by treaty, 
if we achieved our independence. 

" The majority of the Congress of the con- 
federation obviously concurred in opinion with 
the state of Mai-yland, and desired to obtain 
from the states which claimed it a cession of 
this territory, in order that Congress might 
raise money on this security to carry on the 
war. This appears by the resolution passed on 
the 6th of September, 1780, strongly urging 
the states to cede these lands to the United 
States, both for the sake of peace and union 
among themselves, and to maintain the public 
credit ; and this was followed by the resolution 
of October 10th, 1780, by which Congress 
pledged itself, that if the lands were ceded, as 
recommended by the resolution above men- 
tioned, they should be disposed of for the com- 
mon benefit of the United States, and be setr 
tied and formed into distinct republican states, 
which should become members of the Federal 
Union, and have the same rights of sovereignty, 
and freedom, and independence, as other states. 

"But these difficulties became much more 
serious after peace took place, and the boun- 
daries of the United States were established. 
Every state, at that time, felt severely the 
pressure of its war debt; but in Virginia, and 
some other states, there were large territories 
of unsettled lands, the sale of which would 
enable them to discharge their obligations with- 
out much inconvenience ; while other states, 
which had no such resource, saw before them 
many years of heavy and burdensome taxa- 
tion ; and the latter insisted, for the reasons 
before stated, that these unsettled lands should 
be treated as the common property of the 
states, and the proceeds applied to their com- 
mon benefit. 

" The letters from the statesmen of that day 
will show how much this controversy occupied 
their thoughts, and the dangers that were ap- 
prehended from it. It was the disturbing 



65S 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



element of the time, and fears were entertained 
that it might dissolve the confederatioir by 
■which the states were then united. 

" These fears and dangers were, however, at 
once removed, when the state of Virginia, in 
1784, voluntarily ceded to the United States 
the immense tract of country lying north-west 
of the Eiver Ohio, and which was within the 
acknowledged limits of the state. The only 
object of the state, in making this cession, was 
to put an end to the threatening and exciting 
controversy^, and to enable the Congress of that 
time to dispose of the lands, and appropriate 
the proceeds as a common fund for the common 
benefit of the states. It was not ceded because 
it was inconvenient to the state to hold and 
govern it, nor from any expectation that it 
could be better or more conveniently governed 
by the United States. 

" The example of Virginia was soon after- 
wards followed by other states, and, at the time 
of the adoption of the constitution, all of the 
states, similarly situated, had ceded their un- 
appropriated lands, except North Carolina and 
Georgia. The main object for which these ces- 
sions were desired and made, was on account 
of their money value, and to put an end to a 
dangerous controversy, as to who was justly en- 
titled to the proceeds when the lands should be 
sold. It is necessary to bring this part of the 
history of these cessions thus distinctly into 
view, because it will enable us the better to com- 
prehend the phraseology of the article in the con- 
stitution, so often referred to in the argument. 

" Undoubtedly the powers of sovereignty and 
the eminent domain were ceded with the land. 
This was essential, in order to make it effectual, 
and to accomplish its objects. But it must be 
remembered that, at that time, there was no 
government of the United States in existence 
with enumerated and limited powers; what 
was then called the United States, were thir- 
teen separate, sovereign, independent states, 
which had entered into a league or confedera- 



tion for their mutual pi'otection and advantage, 
and the Congress of tlie United States was 
composed of the representatives of these sep- 
arate sovereignties, meeting together, as equals, 
to discuss and decide on certain measures 
which the states, by the Articles of Confedera- 
tion, had agreed to submit to their decision. 
But this confederation had none of the attri- 
butes of sovereignty in legislative, executive, 
or judicial power. It was little more than a 
congress of ambassadors, authorized to repre- 
sent separate nations in matters in which they 
had a common concern. 

" It was this Congress that accepted the ces- 
sion from Virginia. They had no power to 
accept it under the Articles of Confederation. 
But they had an undoubted right, as independ- 
ent sovereignties, to accept any cession of ter- 
ritory for their common benefit, which all (Jf 
them assented to ; and it is equally clear, that 
as their common property, and having no supe- 
rior to conti'ol them, they had the right to 
exercise absolute dominion over it, subject only 
to the restrictions which Virginia had imposed 
in her act of cession. There was, as we have 
said, no government of the United States then 
in existence with special enumerated and 
limited powers. The territory belonged to 
sovereigntie.s, who, subject to the limitations 
above mentioned, had a right to establish any 
form of government they pleased, by compact 
or treaty among themselves, and to regulate 
rights of person and rights of property in the 
territory, as they might deem proper. It was 
by a Congress representing the authority of 
these several and separate sovereignties, and 
acting under their authority and command, 
(but not from any authority derived from the 
Articles of Confederation,) that the instru- 
ment usually called the ordinance of 1787 was 
adopted ; regulating in much detail the princi- 
ples and the laws by which this territory should 
be governed ; and among other provisions 
slavery is prohibited in it. We do not question 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



(559 



tlie power of the states, by agreement among 
themselves, to pass this ordinance, nor its obli- 
gatory force in the territory, while the confed- 
eration or league of the states in their separate 
sovereign character continued to exist. 

" This was the state of things when the con- 
stitution of the United States was formed. 
The territory ceded by Virginia belonged to 
several confederated states as common prop- 
erty, and they had united in establishing in it 
a system of government and jurisprudence, in 
order to prepare it for admission as states, ac- 
cording to the terms of the cession. They 
were about to dissolve this federative Union, and 
to surrender a poi-tion of their independent 
sovereignty to a new government, which, for 
certain purposes, would make the people of the 
several states one people, and which was to be 
supreme and controlling within its sphere of 
action throughout the United States ; but this 
government was to be carefully limited in its 
powers, and to exercise no authority beyond 
those expressly granted by the constitution, or 
necessarily to be implied from the language of 
the instrument, and the objects it was intended 
to accomplish ; and as this league of states 
would, upon the adoption of the new govern- 
ment, cease to have any power over the terri- 
tory, and the ordinance they had agreed upon 
be incapable of execution, and a mere nullity, 
it was obvious that some provision was neces- 
sary to give the new government sufficient 
power to enable it to carry into effect the ob- 
jects for which it was ceded, and the compacts 
and agreements, which the states had made 
with each other in the exercise of their powers 
of sovereignty. It was necessary that the 
lands should be sold to pay the war debt;, that 
a government and system of jurisprudence 
should be maintained in it, to protect the citi- 
zens of the United States who should migrate 
to the territory, in their rights of person and 
of property. It was also necessary that the 
new government, about to be adopted, should 



be authorized to maintain the claim of the 
United States to the unappropriated lands in 
North Carolina and Georgia, which had not 
then been ceded, but the cession of which was 
confidently anticipated upon some terms that 
would be arranged between the general gov- 
ernment and these two states. And, moreover, 
there were many articles of value besides this 
property in land, such as arms, military stores, 
munitions, and ships of war, which were the 
common proj^erty of the states, when acting in 
their independent characters as confederates, 
which neither the new government nor any 
one else would have a right to take possession 
of, or control, without authority from them ; 
and it was to place these things under the 
guardianship and protection of the new gov- 
ernment, and to clothe it with. the necessary 
powers, that the clause was inserted in the 
constitution, which gives Congress the power 
to ' dispose of and make all needful rules and 
regulations respecting the territory or other 
property belonging to the United States.' It 
was intended for a specific purpose, to provide 
for the things we have mentioned. It was to 
transfer to the new government the property 
then held in common by the states, and to give 
to that government power to apply it to the 
objects for which it had been destined by mu- 
tual agreement among the states before their 
league was dissolved. It applied only to the 
property which the states held in common at 
that time, and has no reference whatever to 
any territory or other property which the new 
sovereignty might afterwards itself acquire. 

" The language used in the clause, the ar- 
rangement and combination of the powers, 
and the somewhat unusual phraseology it uses, 
when it speaks of the political power to be ex- 
ercised in the government of the territory, all 
indicate the design and meaning of the clause 
to be such as we have mentioned. It does 
not speak of any territory, nor of territories, 
but uses language which, according to its 



660 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



legitimate me.ming, points to a particular 
thing. The power is given in relation only to 
the territory of the United States : that is, to 
a territory then in existence, and then known 
or claimed as the territory of the United States. 
It begins its enumeration of powers by that of 
disposing — in other words, making sale — of the 
lands, or raising money from them, which, as 
we have already said, was the main object of 
the cession, and which is accordingly the first 
thing provided for in the article. It then gives 
the power which was necessarily associated 
with the disposition and sale of the lands ; that 
is, the power of making needful rules and regu- 
lations respecting the territory. And whatever 
construction may now be given to these words, 
every one, we think, must admit that they are 
not the worda usually employed by statesmen 
in giving supreme power of legislation. They 
are certainly very unlike the words used in the 
power granted to legislate over ten'itory which 
the new government might afterwards itself 
obtain by cession from a state, either for its 
seat of government, or for forts, magazines, 
arsenals, dock yards, and other needful build- 
ings. 

"And the same power of making needful 
rules respecting the territory is, in precisely 
the same language, applied to the other property 
belonging to the United States — associating 
the power over the territory in this respect 
with the power over movable or personal prop- 
erty — that is, the ships, arms, and munitions 
of war, which then belonged in common to the 
state sovereignties. And it will hardly be said 
that this power, in relation to the lastrmen- 
tioned objects, was deemed necessary to be thus 
specially given to the new government, in order 
to authorize it to make needful rules and regu- 
lations respecting the ships it might itself 
build, or arms and munitions of war it might 
itself manufacture or provide for the public 
service. 

" No one, it is believed, would think a mo- 



ment of deriving the power of Congress to 
make needful rules and regulations in relation 
to property of this kind from this clause of 
the constitution. Nor can it, upon any fair 
construction, be applied to any property but 
that which the new government was about to 
receive from the confederated states. And if 
this be true as to this property, it must be 
equally true and limited as to the territory, 
which is so carefully and precisely coupled with 
it — and like it, referred to as property in the 
power granted. The concluding words of the 
clause appear to render this construction irre- 
sistible ; for, after the provisions we have men- 
tioned, it proceeds to say, ' that nothing in the 
constitution shall be so construed as to preju- 
dice any claims of the United States, or of any 
particular state.' 

"Now, as we have before said, all of the 
states, except North Carolina and Georgia, had 
made the cession before the constitution was 
adopted, according to the resolution of Congress 
of October 10, 1780. The claims of other 
states, that the unappropriated lands in these 
two states should be applied to the common 
benefit, in like manner was still insisted on, but 
refused by the states. And this member of 
the clause in question evidently applies to them, 
and can apply to nothing else. It was to ex- 
clude the conclusion that either party, by 
adopting the constitution, would surrender 
what they deemed their rights. And when 
the latter 2:)rovision relates so obviously to the 
unappropriated lands not yet ceded by the 
states, and the first clause makes provision for 
those then actually ceded, it is impossible, by 
any just rule of construction, to make the first 
provision general, and extend to all territories 
which the federal government might in any 
way afterwards acquire, when the latter is 
plainly and unequivocally confined to a par- 
ticular territory ; which was a part of the same 
controversy, and involved in the same dispute, 
and depended upon the same principles. The 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



661 



union of the two provisions in the same clause 
shows that they were kindred subjects; and 
that the whole clause is local, and relates only 
to lands within the limits of the United States, 
which had been or then were claimed by a 
state ; and that no other territory was in the 
mind of the framers of the constitution, or in- 
tended to be embraced in it. Upon any other 
construction it would be impossible to account 
for the insertion of the last provision in the 
place where it is found, or to comprehend why 
or for what object it was associated with the 
previous provision. 

"This view of the subject is confirmed by 
the manner in which the present government 
of the United States dealt with the subject as 
soon as it came into existence. It must be 
borne in mind that the same states that formed 
the confederation also formed and adopted the 
new government, to Avhich so large a portion 
of their former sovereign powers were surren- 
dered. It must also be borne in mind that all 
of these same states which had then ratified 
the new constitution were represented in the 
Congress which passed the first law for the 
government of this territory ; and many of the 
members of that legislative body had been 
deputies from the states under the confedera- 
tion — had united in adopting the ordinance of 
1787, and assisted in forming the new govern- 
ment under which they were then acting, and 
whose powers they were then exercising. And 
it is obvious, from the law they passed to carry 
into effect the principles and provisions of the 
ordinance, that they regarded it as the act of 
the states done in the exercise of their legiti- 
mate powers at the time. The new govern- 
ment took the territory as it found it, and in 
the condition in which it was transferred, and 
did not attempt to undo any thing that had 
been done. And, among the earliest laws 
passed under the new government, is one 
reviving the ordinance of 1787, which had be- 
come inoperative, and a nullity, upon the 



adoption of the constitution. This law intro- 
duces no new form or principles for its govern- 
ment, but recites, in the preamble, that it is 
passed in order that this ordinance may con- 
tinue to have full effect, and proceeds to make 
only those rules and regulations which were 
needful to adapt it to the new government, into 
whose hands the power had fallen. It appears, 
therefore, that this Congress regarded the pur- 
poses to which the land in this territory was to 
be applied, and the form of government and 
principles of jurisprudence which were to pre- 
vail there, while it remained in the territorial 
state, as already determined on by the states 
when they had full power and right to make 
the decision; and that the new government, 
having received it in this condition, ought to 
carry substantially into effect the plans and prin- 
ciples which had been previously adopted by the 
states, and which, no doubt, the states antici- 
pated when they surrendered their power to 
the new government. And if we regard this 
clause of the constitution as pointing to this 
territory, with a territorial government already 
established in it, which had been ceded to the 
states for the purposes hereinbefore mentioned 
— every word in it is perfectly appropriate, 
and easily understood, and the provisions it 
contains are in perfect harmony with the ob- 
jects for which it was ceded, and with the con- 
dition of its government as a territory at the 
time. We can, then, easily account for the 
manner in which the first Congress legislated 
on the subject — and can also understand why 
this power over the territory was associated in 
the same clause with the other property of the 
United States, and subjected to the like power 
of making needful rules and regulations. But 
if the clause is construed in the expanded sense 
contended for, so as to embrace any territory 
acquired from a foreign nation by the present 
government, and to give it in such territory a 
despotic and unlimited power over persons and 
property, such as the confederated states might 



662 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



exercise in their common property, it would be 
difficult to account for the phraseology used, 
when compared with other grants of power — 
and also for its association with the other pro- 
vision'; ia the same clause. 

•' Tiie constitution has always been remarka- 
ble for the felicity of its arrangement of dif- 
ferent subjects, and the perspicuity and appro- 
priateness of the language it uses. But if this 
clause is construed to extend to territory ac- 
quired by the present government from a for- 
eign nation, outside of the limits of any char- 
ter from the British government to a colony, it 
would be difficult to sa}^ why it was deemed 
necessary to give the government the power 
to sell any vacant lands belonging to the sov- 
ereignty which might be found within it ; and 
if this was necessary, why the grant of this 
power should precede the power to legislate 
over it and establish a government there ; and 
still more difficult to say, why it was deemed 
necessary so specially and particularly to grant 
the power to make needful rules and regula- 
tions in relation to any personal or movable 
property it might acquire there. For the 
words other propedi/, necessarily, by every known 
rule of interpretation, must mean property of 
a different description from territory or land. 
And the difficulty would perhaps be insur- 
mountable in endeavoring to accoimt for the 
last member of the sentence, which provides 
that ' nothing in this constitution shall be so 
construed as to prejudice any claims of the 
United States or any particular state,' or to say 
how any particular state could have claims in 
or to a territory ceded by a foreign govern- 
ment, or to account for associating this provis- 
ion with the preceding provisions of the clause, 
with which it would appear to have no con- 
nection. 

"The words 'needful rules and regulations' 
would seem, also, to have been cautiously used 
for some definite object. They are not the 
words usually employed by statesmen, when 



they mean to give the jDOwers of sovereignty, 
or to establish a government, or to authorize 
its establishment. Thus, in the law to renew 
and keep alive the ordinance of 1787, and to 
reestablish the government, the title of the 
law is, 'An act to provide for the government 
of the territory north-west of the River Ohio.' 
And in the constitution, when granting the 
power to legislate over the territory that may 
be selected for the seat of government inde- 
pendently of a state, it does not say Congress 
shall have power ' to make all needful rules and 
regulations respecting the territory ; ' but it 
declares that ' Congress shall have power to 
exercise exclusive legislation in all cases what- 
soever over such District (not exceeding ten 
miles square) as may, by cession of particular 
states and the acceptance of Congress, become 
the seat of the government of the United 
States.' 

" The words ' rules and regulations ' are 
usually employed in the constitution in speak- 
ing of some particular specified power which 
it means to confer on the government, and not, 
as we have seen, when granting general pow- 
ers of legislation ; as, for example, in the par- 
ticular power to Congress ' to make rules for 
the government and regulation of the land and 
naval forces, or the particular and specific 
power to regulate commerce ; ' ' to establish a 
uniform rule of naturalization ; ' ' to coin money 
and regulate the value thereof And to con- 
strue the words of which we are speaking as a 
general and unlimited grant of sovereignty 
over territories which the government might 
afterwards acquire, is to use them in a sense 
and for a purpose for which they were not 
used in any other part of the instrument. But 
if confined to a particular territory, in which a 
government and laws had already been estab- 
lished, but which would require some altera- 
tions to adapt it to the new government, the 
words are peculiarly applicable and appropriate 
for that purpose. * * * 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



66[ 



" This brings us to examine by what pro- ! 
vision of the constitution the present federal 
government, under its delegated and restricted 
powers, is authorized to acquire territory out- 
side of the original limits of the United States, 
and what powers it may exercise therein over 
the pei'son or property of a citizen of the 
United States, while it remains a territory, and 
until it shall be admitted as one of the states 
of the Union. 

" There is certainly no power given by the 
constitution to the federal government to es- 
tablish or maintain colonies bordering on the 
United States or at a distance, to be ruled and 
governed at its own pleasure ; nor to enlarge 
its territorial limits in any way, except by the 
admission of new states. That power is plainly 
given ; and if a new state is admitted, it needs 
no further legislation by Congress, because the 
constitution itself defines the relative rights, 
and powers, and duties of the state, and the 
citizens of the state, and the federal govern- 
ment. But no power is given to acquire a ter- 
ritory to be held and governed permanently in 
that character. 

" And indeed the power exercised by Con- 
gress to acquire territory and establish a gov- 
ernment there, according to its own unlimited 
discretion, was viewed with great jealousy by 
the leading statesmen of the day. And in the 
Federalist, (No. 38,) written by Mr. Madison, he 
speaks of the acquisition of the north-western 
territory by the confederated states, by the 
cession from Virginia, and the establishment of 
a governlAent there, as an exercise of power 
not warranted by the Articles of Confederation, 
and dangerous to the liberties of the people. 
And he urges the adoption of the constitution 
as a security and safeguard against such an ex- 
ercise of power. 

" We do not mean, however, to question the 
power of Congress in this respect. The power 
to expand the territory of the United States, 
by the admission of new states, is plainly 

84 



given ; and in the construction of this power 
by all the departments of the government, it 
has been held to authorize the acquisition of 
territory, not fit for admission at the time, but 
to be admitted as soon as its population and 
situation would entitle it to admission. It is 
acquired to become a state, and not to be held 
as a colony and governed by Congress with 
absolute authority ; and as the propriety of 
admitting a new state is committed to the 
sound discretion of Congress, the power to ac- 
quire territory for that purpose, to be held by 
the United States until it is in a suitable con- 
dition to become a state upon an equal footing 
with the other states, must rest upon the same 
discretion. It is a question for the political 
department of the government, and not the 
judicial ; and whatever the political depart- 
ment of the government shall recognize as 
within the limits of the United States, the judi- 
cial department is also bound to recognize, and 
to administer in it the laws of the United 
States, so far as they apply, and to maintain in 
the territory the authority and rights of the 
government, and also the personal rights and 
rights of property of individual citizens, as 
secured by the constitution. All we mean to 
say on this point is, that, as there is no express 
regulation in the constitution defining the power 
which the general government may exercise 
over the person or property of a citizen in a 
territory thus acquired, the court must neces- 
sarily look to the provisions and principles of 
the constitution, and its distribution of powers, 
for the rules and principles by which its decis- 
ion must be governed. 

" Taking this rule to guide us, it may be safe- 
ly assumed that citizens of the United States 
who migrate to a territory belonging to the 
people of the United States, cannot be ruled as 
mere colonists, dependent upon the will of the 
general government, and to be governed by 
any laws it may think proper to impose. The 
principle upon which our governments rest, 



664 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



and upon which alone they continue to exist, 
is the union of states, sovereign and independ- 
ent within their own limits in their intei'nal 
and domestic concerns, and bound together as 
one people by a general government, possess- 
ing certain enumerated and restricted powers, 
delegated to it by the people of the several 
states, and exercising supreme authority with- 
in the scope of the powers granted to it 
throughout the dominion of the United States. 
A power, therefore, in the general government 
to obtain and hold colonies and dependent ter- 
ritories, over which they might legislate with- 
out restriction, would be inconsistent with its 
own existence in its present form. Whatever 
it acquires, it acquires for the benefit of the 
people of the several states who created it. 
It is their trustee acting for them, and charged 
with the duty of promoting the interests of 
the whole people of the Union in the exercise 
of the powers specifically granted. 

"At the time when the territory in question 
was obtained by cession from France, it con- 
tained no population fit to be associated to- 
gether and admitted as a state ; and it there- 
fore was absolutely necessary to hold posses- 
sion of it, as a territory belonging to the United 
States, until it was settled and inhabited by a 
civilized community capable of self-government, 
and in a condition to be admitted on equal 
terms with the other states as a member of the 
Union. . But, as we have before said, it was ac- 
quired by the general government, as the rep- 
resentative and trustee of the people of the 
United States, and it must therefore be held in 
that character for their common and equal bene- 
fit; for it was the people of the several states, 
acting through their agent and representative, 
the federal government, who in fact acquired 
the territory in question, and the government 
holds it for their common use until it shall be 
associated with the other states as a member 
of the Union. * * * 

" But the power of Congress over the person 



or property of a citizen can never be a mere 
discretionary power under our constitution 
and form of government. The powers of the 
government and the rights and privileges of the 
citizen are regulated and plainly defined by the 
constitution itself And when the territory be- 
comes a part of the United States, the federal 
government enters into possession in the char- 
acter impressed upon it by those who created 
it. It enters upon it with its powers over the 
citizen strictly defined, and limited by the con- 
stitution, from which it derives its own exist- 
ence, and by virtue of which alone it continues 
to exist and act as a government and sov- 
ereignty. It has no power of any kind beyond 
it ; and it cannot, when it enters a territory of 
the United States, put off its character, and 
assume discretionary or despotic powers which 
the constitution has denied to it. It cannot 
create for itself a new character separated from 
the citizens of the United States, and the duties 
it owes them under the provisions of the con- 
stitution. The territory being a part of the 
United States, the government and the citizen 
both enter it under the authority of the con- 
stitution, with their respective rights defined 
and marked out ; and the federal government 
can exercise no power over his person or prop- 
erty beyond what that instrument confers, 
nor lawfully deny any right which it has re- 
served. 

"A reference to a few of the provisions of 
the constitution will illustrate this proposition. 

" For example, no one, we presume, will con- 
tend that Congress can make any la% in a ter- 
ritory respecting the establishment of religion, 
or the free exercise thereof, or abridging the 
freedom of speech or of the press, or the right 
of the people of the territory peaceably to as- 
semble, and to petition the government for the 
redress of grievances. 

" Nor can Congress deny to the people the 
right to keep and bear arms, nor the right to 
trial by jury, nor compel any one to be a 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



665 



witness against himself in a criminal pro- 
ceeding. 

"These powers, and others, in relation to 
rights of person, which it is not necessary here 
to enumerate, are, in express and positive 
terms, denied to the general government; and 
the I'ights of private property have been 
guarded with equal care. Thus the rights of 
property are united with the rights of person, 
and placed on the same ground by the fifth 
amendment to the constitution, which provides 
that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, 
and property, without due process of law. 
And an act of Congress which deprives a citi- 
zen of the United States of his liberty or prop- 
erty, merely because he came himself or brought 
his property into a particular territory of the 
United States, and who had committed no 
offence against the laws, could hardly be digni- 
fied with the name of due process of law. 

"So, too, it will hardly be contended that 
Congress could by law quarter a soldier in a 
house in a territory without the consent of the 
owner, in time of peace ; nor in time of war, 
but in a manner prescribed by law. Nor could 
they by law forfeit the property of a citizen in 
a territory, who was convicted of treason, for a 
longer period than the life of the person con- 
victed; nor take private property for public 
use without just compensation. 

" ^he powers over person and property of 
which we speak are not only not granted to 
Congress, but are in express terms denied, and 
they are forbidden to exercise them. And this 
prohibition is not confined to the states, but 
the words are general, and extend to the whole 
territory over which the constitution gives it 
power to legislate, including those portions of 
it remaining under territorial government, as 
well as that covered by states. It is a total 
absence of power eveiy where within the do- 
minion of the United States, and places the 
citizens of a territory, so far as these rights are 
concerned, on the same footing with citizens of 



the states, and guards them as firmly and 
plainly against any inroads which the general 
government might attempt, under the plea of 
implied or incidental powers. And if Congress 
itself cannot do this — if it is beyond the pow- 
ers conferred on the federal government — it 
will be admitted, we presume, that it could not 
authorize a tenntorial government to exercise 
them. It could confer no power on any local 
government, established by its authority, to 
violate the provisions of the constitution. 

"It seems, however, to be supposed, that 
there is a difference between property in a 
slave and other property, and that different 
rules may be applied to it in expounding the 
constitution of the United States. And the 
laws and usages of nations, and the writings of 
eminent jurists upon the relation of master and 
slave, and their mutual rights and duties, and 
the powers which governments may exercise 
over it, have been dwelt upon in the argument. 

" But in considering the question before us, 
it must be borne in mind that there is no law 
of nations standing between the people of the 
United States and their government, and inter- 
fering with their relation to each other. The 
powers of the government, and the rights of 
the citizen under it, are positive and practical 
regulations plainly written down. The people 
of the United States have delegated to it cer- 
tain enumerated powers, and forbidden it to ex- 
ercise others. It has no power over the person 
or property of a citizen but what the Citizens 
of the United States have granted. And no 
laws or usages of other nations, or reasoning 
of statesmen or jurists upon the relations of 
master and slave, can enlarge the powers of the 
government, or take from the citizens the rights 
they have reserved. And if the constitution 
recognizes the right of property of the master 
in a slave, and makes no distinction between 
that description of property and other prop- 
erty owned by a citizen, no tribunal, acting 
under the authority of the United States, 



666 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



whether it be legislative, executive, or judicial, 
has a right to draw such a distinction, or deny 
to it the benefit of the provisions and guar- 
antees which have been provided for the pro- 
tection of private property against the en- 
croachments of the government. 

" Now, as we have already said in an earlier 
part of this -opinion, upon a different point, the 
right of property in a slave is distinctly and 
expressly affirmed in the constitution. The 
right to traffic in it, like an ordinary article of 
merchandise and property, was guarantied to 
the citizens of the United States, in every state 
that might desire it, for twenty years. And 
the government in express terms is pledged to 
protect it in all future time, if the slave escapes 
from his owner. This is done in plain words 
— too plain to be misunderstood. And no 
word can be found in the constitution which 
gives Congress a greater power over slave 
property, or which entitles property of that 
kind to less protection than property of any 
other description. The only power conferred 
is the power coupled with the duty of guarding 
and protecting the owner in his rights. 

" Upon these considerations, it is the opinion 
of the court that the act of Congress which 
prohibited a citizen from holding and owning 
property of this kind in the territory of the 
United States north of the line therein men- 
tioned, is not warranted by the constitution, 
and is therefore void ; and that neither Dred 
Scott finmself, nor any of his family, were made 
free by being carried into this territory ; even 
if they had been carried there by the owner, 
with the intention of becoming a permanent 
resident. * * * 

"Upon the whole, therefore, it is the judg- 
ment of this court, that it appears by the rec- 
ord before us that the plaiptifT in error is not 
a citizen of Missouri, in the sense in which that 
word is used in the constitution ; and that the 
Circuit Court of the United States, for that 
reason, had no jurisdiction in the case, and 



could give no judgment in it. Its judgment 
for the defendant must, consequently, be re- 
versed, and a mandate is.sued, directing the suit 
to be dismissed for want of jurisdiction." 

The dissenters from the opinion of the court 
were Associate Justices McLean of Ohio and 
Curtis of Massachusetts. 

Mr. Justice Curtis said, — 

" I dissent from the opinion pronounced by 
the chief justice, and from the judgment which 
the majority of the court think it proper to 
render in this case. The plaintiff alleged, in 
his declaration, that he was a citizen of the 
state of Missouri, and that the defendant was 
a citizen of the state of New York. It is not 
doubted that it was necessary to make each 
of these allegations, to sustain the jurisdiction 
of the Circuit Court. The defendant denied, 
by a plea to the jurisdiction, either sufficient or 
insufficient, that the plaintiff" was a citizen of 
the state of Missouri. The plaintiff" demurred 
to that plea. The Circuit Court adjudged the 
plea insufficient, and the first question for our 
consideration is, whether the sufficiency of that 
plea is before this court for judgment, upon this 
writ of error. The part of the judicial power 
of the United States, conferred by Congress on 
the Circuit Courts, being limited to certain de- 
scribed cases and controversies, the question 
whether a particular case is within the cogni- 
zance of a Circuit Court, may be raised by a 
plea to the jurisdiction of such court. When 
that question has been raised, the Circuit Court 
must, in the first instance, pass upon and de- 
termine it. Whether its determination be 
final, or subject to review b}' this appellate 
court, must de2:)end upon the will of Congress ; 
upon which body the constitution has conferred 
the power, with certain restrictions, to establish 
inferior courts, to determine their jurisdiction, 
and to regulate the appellate power of this 
court. The twenty-second section of the judi- 
ciary act of 1789, which allows a writ of error 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



667 



from final judgments of Circuit Courts, pro- 
vides that there shall be no reversal in this 
court, on such writ of error, for error in ruling 
any plea in abatement, other than a plea to the 
jurisdiction of the court. Accordingly it has been 
held, from the origin of the court to the pres- 
ent day, that Circuit Courts have not been 
made by Congress the final judges of their 
own jurisdiction in civil cases ; and that when 
a record comes here upon a writ of error or 
appeal, and, on its inspection, it appears to this 
court that the Circuit Court had not jurisdic- 
tion, its judgment must be reversed, and the 
cause remanded, to be dismissed for want of 
jurisdiction. 

" It is alleged by the defendant in error, in 
this case, that the plea to the jurisdiction was 
a sufiicient plea ; that it shows, on inspection 
of its allegations, confessed by the demurrer, 
that the plaintiff was not a citizen of the state 
of Missouri ; that, upon this record, it must ap- 
pear to this court that the case was not within 
the judicial power of the United States, as de- 
fined and granted by the constitution, because 
it was not a suit by a citizen of one state 
against a citizen of another state. 

" To this it is answered, first, that the defend- 
ant, by pleading over, after the plea to the 
jurisdiction was adjudged insufficient, finally 
waived all benefit of that plea. 

"When that plea was adjudged insufficient, 
the defendant was obliged to answer over. He 
held no alternative. He could not stop the 
further progress of the case in the Circuit 
Court by a writ of error, on which the suffi- 
ciency of his plea to the jurisdiction could be 
tried in this court, because the judgment on 
that plea was not final, and no writ of error 
would lie. He was forced to plead to the 
merits. It cannot be true, then, that he waived 
the benefit of his plea to the jurisdiction by 
answering over. Waiver includes consent. 
Here there was no consent. And if the benefit 
of the plea was finally lost,, it must be, not by 



any waiver, but because the laws of the United 
States have not provided any mode of review- 
ing the decision of the Circuit Court on such a 
plea, when that decision is against the defend- 
ant. This is not the law. Whether the decis- 
ion of the Circuit Court on a plea to the juris- 
diction be against the plaintiff, or against the 
defendant, the losing party may have any al- 
leged error in law, in ruling such a plea, ex- 
amined in this court on a writ of error, when 
the matter in controversy exceeds the sum or 
value of two thousand dollars. If the decision 
be against the plaintiff, and his suit dismissed 
for want of jurisdiction, the judgment is tech- 
nically final, and he may at once sue out his 
writ of error. (MoUan vs. Torrance, 9 Wheat. 
537.) If the decision be against the defend- 
ant, though he must answer over, and wait for 
a final judgment in the cause, he may then 
have his writ of error, and upon it obtain the 
judgment of this court on any question of law 
apparent on the record, touching the jurisdic- 
tion. The fact that he pleaded over to the 
merits, under compulsion, can have no effect 
on his right to object to the jurisdiction. If 
this were not so, the condition of the two 
parties would be grossly unequal. For if a 
plea to the jurisdiction were ruled against the 
plaintiff, he could at once take his writ of error, 
and have the ruling reviewed here ; while, if 
the same plea were ruled against the defend- 
ant, he must not only wait for a final judgment, 
but could in no event have the ruling of the 
Circuit Court upon the plea reviewed by this 
court. I know of no ground for saying that 
the laws of the United States have thus dis- 
criminated between the parties to a suit in its 
courts. 

" It is further objected, that as the judgment 
of the Circuit Court was in favor of the de- 
fendant, and the writ of error in this cause was 
sued out by the plaintiff', the defendant is not 
in a condition to assign any error in the record, 
and therefore this court is precluded from 



668 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



considering the question whether the Circuit 
Court had jurisdiction. 

" The practice of this court does not require 
a technical assignment of errors. (See the 
rule.) Upon a writ of error, the whole record 
is open for inspection ; and if any error be 
found in it, the judgment is reversed. (Bank 
of United States vs. Smith, ]1 Wheat. 171.) 

" It is true, as a general rule, that the court 
will not allow a party to rely on any thing as 
cause for reversing a judgment, which was for 
his advantage. In this we follow an ancient 
rule of the common law. But so careful was 
that law of the preservation of the course of 
its courts, that it made an exception out of 
that general rule, and allowed a party to assign 
for error that which was for his advantage, if it 
were a departure by the court itself from its 
settled course of procedure. The cases on this 
subject are collected in Bac. Ab., Error H. 4. 
And this court followed this practice in Capron 
vs. Van Noorden (2 Cranch, 126,) where the 
plaintiff below procured the reversal of a judg- 
ment for the defendant, on the ground that the 
plaintiff's allegations of citizenship had not 
shown jurisdiction. 

" But it is not necessary to determine whether 
the defendant can be allowed to assign want 
of jurisdiction as an error in a judgment in his 
own favor. The true question is, not what 
either of the parties may be allowed to do, 
but whether this court will affirm or reverse a 
judgment of the Circuit Court on the merits, 
when it appears on the record, by a plea to 
the jurisdiction, that it is a case to which the 
judicial power of the United States does not 
extend. The course of the court is, where no 
motion is made by either party, on its own 
motion to reverse such a judgment for want 
of jurisdiction, not only in cases where it is 
shown, negatively, by a plea to the jurisdiction, 
that jurisdiction does not exist, but even where 
it does not appear, affirmatively, that it does 
exist. (Pequignot vs. The Pennsylvania E. R. 



Co., 16 How. 104.) It acts upon the principle 
that the judicial power of the United States 
must not be exerted in a case to which it does 
not extend, even if both parties desire to have 
it exerted. (Cutler vs. Eae, 7 How. 729.) I 
consider, therefore, that when there was a plea 
to the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court in a 
case brought here by a writ of error, the first 
duty of this court is, sua sponte, if not moved 
to it by either party, to examine the sufficiency 
of that plea ; and thus to take care that 
neither the Circuit Court nor this court shall 
use the judicial power of the United States in 
a case to which the constitution and laws of the 
United States have not extended that power. 

" I proceed, therefore, to examine the plea to 
the jurisdiction. * * * 

" The plea was as follows : ' And the said 
John F. A. Sandford, in his own proper person, 
comes and says that this court ought not to 
have or take further cognizance of the action 
aforesaid, because he says that said cause of 
action, and each and every of them, (if any such 
have accrued to the said Dred Scott.) accrued 
to the said Dred Scott out of the jurisdiction 
of this court, and exclusively within the juris- 
diction of the courts of the state of Missouri ; 
for that, to wit, the said plaintiff, Dred Scott, is 
not a citizen of the state of Missouri, as al- 
leged in his declaration, because he is a negro 
of African descent ; his ancestors were of pure 
African blood, and were brought into this 
country and sold as negro slaves, and this the 
said Sandford is ready to verify. Wherefore 
he prays judgment whether this court can or 
will take further cognizance of the action afore- 
said.' 

" The plaintiff demurred, and the judgment 
of the Circuit Court was, that the plea was in- 
sufficient. 

" I cannot treat this plea as a general traverse 
of the citizenship alleged by the plaintiff In- 
deed, if it were so treated, the plea was clearly 
bad, for it concludes with a verification, and 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



669 



not to the country, as a general traverse should. 
And though this defect m a plea in bar must 
be pointed out by a special demurrer, it is 
never necessary to demur specially to a plea in 
abatement; all matters, though of form only, 
may be taken advantage of upon a general de- 
murrer to such a plea. (Chitty on PL 465.) 

" The truth is, that though not drawn with 
the utmost technical accuracy, it is a special 
traverse of the plaintiff's allegation of citizen- 
ship, and was a suitable and proper mode of 
traverse under the circumstances. By refer- 
ence to Mr. Stephen's description of the uses 
of such a traverse, contained in his excellent 
analysis of pleadings, (Steph. on PI. 176,) it will 
be seen how precisely this plea meets one of 
his descriptions. No doubt the defendant 
might have traversed, by a conmion or general 
traverse, the plaintiff's allegation that he was a 
citizen of the state of Missouri, concluding to 
the country. The issue thus presented being 
joined, would have involved matter of laAv, on 
which the jury must have passed, under the 
direction of the court. But by traversing the 
plaintiiT's citizenship specially, — that is, aver- 
ring those facts on which the defendant relied 
to show that in point of law the plaintiff was 
not a citizen, and basing the traverse on those 
facts as a deduction therefrom, — opportunity 
was given to do, what Avas done : that is, to 
present directly to the court, by a demurrer, 
the sufficiency of those facts to negative, in 
point of law, the plaintiff's allegation of citizen- 
ship. This, then, being a special, and not a 
general or couimon traverse, the rule is settled, 
that the facts thus set out in the plea, as the 
reason or ground of the traverse, must of them- 
selves constitute, in point of law, a negative of 
the allegation thus traversed. (Stephen on PI. 
183 ; Ch. on PI. 620.) And upon a demurrer 
to this plea, the question which arises is, 
whether the facts, that the plaintiff is a negro, 
of African descent, whose ancestors were of 
pure African blood, and were brought into this 



country and sold as negro slaves, matj all le true, 
and yet the plaintiff be a citizen of the state of 
Missouri, within the meaning of the constitu- 
tion and laws of the United States, which con- 
fer on citizens of one state the right to sue citi- 
zens of another state in the Circuit Courts. 
Undoubtedly, if these facts, taken together, 
amount to an allegation that, at the time of ac- 
tion brought, the plaintiff was himself a slave, 
the plea is sufficient. It has been suggested 
that the plea, in legal effect, does so aver, be- 
cause, if his ancestors were sold as slaves, the 
presumption is, they continued slaves ; and if 
so, the presumption is, the plaintiff was born a 
slave ; and if so, the presumption is, he con- 
tinued to be a slave to the time of action 
brought. ■ 

" I cannot think such presumptions can be 
resorted to, to help out defective averments in 
pleading ; especially, in pleading in abatement, 
where the utmost certainty and precision are 
required. (Chitty on PI. 457.) That the plain- 
tiff himself was a slave at the time of action 
brought, is a substantive fact, having no neces- 
sary connection with the fact that his parents 
were sold as slaves. For they might have been 
sold after he was born ; or the plaintiff himself, 
if once a slave, might have become a free man 
before action brought. To aver that his ances- 
tors were sold as slaves, is not equivalent, in 
point of law, to an averment that he was a 
slave. If it were, he could not even confess 
and avoid the averment of the slavery of his 
ancestors, which would be monstrous ; and if 
it be not equivalent in point of law, it cannot 
be treated as amounting thereto when demurred 
to ; for a demurrer confesses only those sub- 
stantive facts which are well pleaded, and not 
other distinct substantive facts which might be 
inferred therefrom by a jury. To treat an 
averment that the plaintiff's ancestors were 
Africans, brought to this country and sold as 
slaves, as amounting to an averment on the 
record that he was a slave, because it may lay 



670 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



some foundation for presuming so, is to hold 
that the facts actually alleged maj be treated 
as intended as evidence of another distinct fact 
not alleged. But it is a cardinal rule of plead- 
ing, laid down in Cowman's case (9 Rep. 9 b,) 
and in even earlier authorities therein referred 
to, ' that evidence shall never be pleaded, for it 
only tends to prove matter of fact ; and there- 
fore the matter of fact shall be pleaded.' Or, 
as the rule is sometimes stated, pleadings must 
not be argumentative. (Stephen on Pleading, 
384, and authorities cited by him.) In Com. 
Dig., Pleader E. 3, and Bac. Abridgment, Pleas 
I, 5, and Stephen on PL, many decisions under 
this rule are collected. In trover, for an in- 
denture whereby A granted a manor, it is no 
plea that A did not grant the manor, for it 
does not answer the declaration except by ar- 
gument. (Yelv. 223.) =■= * * 

"In Gassies vs. Ballon, (6 Pet. 761,) the de- 
fendant was described on the record as a natu- 
I'alized citizen of the United State.*!, residing in 
Louisiana. The court held this equivalent to 
an averment that the defendant was a citizen 
of Louisiana ; becai;se a citizen of the United 
States, residing in any state of the Union, is, 
for purposes of jurisdiction, a citizen of that 
state. Now, the plea to the jurisdiction in this 
case does not controvert the fact that the 
plaintiff resided in Missouri at the date of the 
writ. If he did then reside there, and was 
also a citizen of the United States, no provis- 
ions contained in the constitution or laws of 
Missouri can deprive the plaintiff of his right 
to sue citizens of states other than Missouri in 
the courts of the United States. 

"So that, imder the allegations contained in 
this plea, and admitted by the demurrer, the 
question is, whether any person of African de- 
scent, whose ancestors were sold as slaves in 
the United States, can be a citizen of the 
United States. If any such person can be a 
citizen, this plaintiff has the right to the judg- 
ment of the court that he is so ; for no cause 



is shown by the plea why he is not so, ex- 
cept his descent and the slavery of his an- 
cestors. 

" The first section of the second article of the 
constitution uses the language, ' a citizen of the 
United States at the time of the adoption of 
the constitution.' One mode of approaching 
this question is, to inquire who were citizens 
of the United States at the time of the adop- 
tion of the constitution. 

" Citizens of the United States at the time 
of the adoption of the constitution can have 
been no other than citizens of the United 
States under the confederation. By the Arti- 
cles of Confederation, a government was organ- 
ized, the style whereof was, ' The United States 
of America.' This government was in exist- 
ence when the constitution was framed and 
proposed for adoption, and was to be superseded 
by the new government of the United States 
of America, organized under the constitution. 
When, therefore, the constitution speaks of 
citizenship of the United States, existing at the 
time of the adoption of the constitution, it must 
necessarily refer to citizenship under th£ gov- 
ernment which existed prior to and at the time 
of such adoption. 

" Without going into any question concern- 
ing the powers of the confederation to govern 
the territory of the United States out of the 
limits of the states, and consequently to sustain 
the relation of government and citizen in re- 
spect to the inhabitants of such territory, it 
may safely be said that the citizens of the sev- 
eral states were citizens of the United States 
under the confederation. 

" That government was simply a confederacy 
of the several states, possessing a few defined 
powers over subjects of general concern, each 
state retaining every power, jurisdiction, and 
right, not expressly delegated to the United 
States in Congress assembled. And no power 
was thus delegated to the government of 
the confederation to act on any question of 



^N 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



671 



citizenship, or to make any rules in respect 
thei'eto. The whole matter was left to stand 
upon the action of the several states, and to 
the natural consequence of such action, that 
the citizens of each state should be citizens of 
that confederacy into which that state had 
entered, the style whereof was, ' The United 
States of America.' 

" To determine whether any free persons, de- 
scended from Africans held in slavery, were 
citizens of the United States under the con- 
federation, and consequently at the time of the 
adoption of the constitution of the United 
States, it is only necessary to know whether 
any such persons were citizens of either of the 
states under the confederation, at the time of 
the adoption of the constitution. 

" Of this there can be no doubt. At the time 
of the ratification of the Articles of Confedera- 
tion, all free native-born inhabitants of the 
states of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New 
York, New Jersey, and North Carolina, though 
descended from African slaves, were not only 
citizens of those states, but such of them as 
had the other necessary qualifications possessed 
the franchise of electors, on equal terms with 
other citizens. 

" The Supreme Court of North Carolina, in 
the case of The State vs. Manuel, (4 Dev. and 
Bat. 20,) has declared the law of that state on 
this subject, in terms which I believe to be as 
sound law in the other states I have enumer- 
ated, as it was in North Carolina. 

" ' According to the laws of this state,' says 
Judge Gaston in delivering the opinion of the 
court, ' all human beings within it, who are not 
slaves, fall within one of two classes. What- 
ever distinctions may have existed in the Eo- 
man laws between citizens and free inhabitants, 
they are unknown to our institutions. Before 
our revolution, all free persons born within the 
dominions of the King of Great Britain, what- 
ever their color or complexion, were native- 
born British subjects — those born out of his 
85 



allegiance were aliens. Slavery did not exist 
in England, but it did in the British colonies. 
Slaves were not in legal parlance persons, but 
property. The moment the incapacity, the dis- 
qualification of slavery, was removed, they be- 
came persons, and were then either British sub- 
jects, or not British subjects, according as they 
were or were not born within the allegiance of 
the British king. Upon the revolution, no 
other change took place in the laws of North 
Carolina, than was consequent on the transi- 
tion from a colony dependent on a European 
king to a free and sovereign state. Slaves re- 
mained slaves. British subjects in North Caro- 
lina became North Carolina freemen. For- 
eigners, until made members of the state, re- 
mained aliens. Slaves, manumitted here, be- 
came freemen, and therefore, if born within 
North Carolina, are citizens of North Carolina, 
and all free persons born within the state are 
born citizens of the state. The constitution 
extended the elective franchise to every free- 
man who had arrived at the aga of twenty-one, 
and paid a public tax ; and it is a matter of 
universal notoriety, that, under it, free persons, 
without regard to color, claimed and exercised 
the franchise, until it was taken from free men 
of color a few years since by our amended 
constitution.' 

"In The State vs. Newcomb, (5 Iredell's K. 
253,) decided in 1844, the same court referred 
to this case of The State vs. Manuel, and said, 
' That case underwent a very laborious investi- 
gation, both by the bar and the bench. The 
case was brought here by appeal, and was felt 
to be one of great importance in principle. 
It was considered with an anxiety and care 
worthy of the principle involved, and which 
gave it a controlling influence and authority 
on all questions of a similar character.' 

'•'An argument from speculative premises, 
however well chosen, that the then state of 
opinion in the commonwealth of Massachusetts 
was not consistent with the natural rights of 



672 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



people of color who were born on that soil, 
and that they were not, by the constitution of 
1780 of that state, admitted to the condition 
of citizens, would be received with surprise by 
the people of that state, who know their own 
political history. It is true, beyond all contro- 
Tersy, that persons of color, descended from 
African slaves, were by that constitution made 
citizens of the state ; and such of them as have 
had the necessary qualifications, have held and 
exercised the elective franchise, as citizens, from 
that time to the present. (See Com. vs. Aves, 
18 Pick. R 210.) 

"The constitution of New Hampshire con- 
ferred the elective franchise upon ' every in- 
habitant of the state having the necessary 
qualifications,' of which color or descent was 
not one. 

" The constitution of New York gave the 
right to vote to ' every male inhabitant who 
shall have resided,' &c. ; making no discrimina- 
tion between free colored persons and others. 
(See Con. of N. Y., Art. 2, Rev. Stats, of N. Y., 
vol. i. p. 126.) 

" That of New Jersey, to ' all inhabitants of 
this colony, of full age, who are worth £50 
proclamation money, clear estate.' 

"New York, by its constitution of 1820, re- 
quired colored persons to have some qualifica- 
tions, as prerequisites for voting, which white 
persons need not possess. And New Jersey, 
by its present constitution, restricts the right 
to vote to white male citizens. But these 
changes can have no other effect upon the 
present inquiry, except to show, that before 
they were made, no such restrictions existed ; 
and colored, in common with white persons, 
were not only citizens of those states, but en- 
titled to the elective franchise on the same 
qualifications as white persons, as they now are 
in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. I shall 
not enter into an examination of the existing 
opinions of that period respecting the African 
race, nor into any discussion concerning the 



meaning of those who asserted, in the Declara- 
tion of Independence, that all men are created 
equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator 
with certain inalienable rights; that among 
these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
ness. My own opinion is, that a calm compari- 
son of these assertions of universal abstract 
truths, and of their own individual opinions 
and acts, would not leave these men under any 
reproach of inconsistency ; that the great 
truths they asserted on that solemn occasion 
they were ready and anxious to make effectual, 
wherever a necessary regard to circumstances, 
which no statesman can disregard without pro- 
ducing more evil than good, would allow ; and 
that it would not be just to them, nor true in 
itself, to allege that they intended to say that 
the Creator of all men had endowed the white 
race, exclusively, with the great natural rights 
which the Declaration of Independence asserts. 
But this is not the place to vindicate their 
memory. As I conceive, we should deal here, 
not with such disputes, if there can be a dispute 
concerning this subject, but with those substan- 
tial facts evinced by the written constitutions 
of states, and by the notorious practice under 
them. And they show, in a manner which no 
argument can obscure, that in some of the 
original thirteen states, free colored persons, be- 
fore and at the time of the formation of the 
constitution, were citizens of those states. 

" The fourth of the fundamental Articles of 
the Confederation was as follows : ' The free 
inhabitants of each of these states, paupers, 
vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted, 
shall be entitled to all the privileges and im- 
munities of free citizens in the several states.' 

"The fact that free persons of color were 
citizens of some of the several states, and the 
consequence, that this foiu-th Article of the 
Confederation would have the effect to confer 
on such persons the privileges and immunities 
of general citizenship, were not only known to 
those who fi-amed and adopted those Articles, 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



673 



but the evidence is decisive, that the fourth 
article was intended to have that eflect, and 
that more restricted language, which would 
have excluded such persons, was deliberately 
and purposely rejected. 

" On the 25th of June, 1778, the Articles of 
Confederation being under consideration by 
the Congress, the delegates from South Caro- 
lina moved to amend this fourth article, by in- 
serting after the word ' free,' and before the 
word ' inhabitants,' the word ' white,' so that the 
privileges and immunities of general citizen- 
ship would be secured only to white persons. 
Two states voted for the amendment, eight 
states against it, and the vote of one state was 
divided. The language of the article stood 
unchanged, and both by its terms of inclusion, 
'free inhabitants,' and the strong implication 
from its terms of exclusion, 'paupers, vaga- 
bonds, and fugitives from justice,' who alone 
were excepted, it is clear, that under the con- 
federation, and at the time of the adoption of 
the constitution, free colored persons of African 
descent might be, and, by reason of their citi- 
zenship in certain states, were, entitled to the 
privileges and immunities of general citizenship 
of the United States. 

"Did the constitution of the United States 
deprive them or their descendants of citizen- 
ship ? 

" That constitution was ordained and estab- 
lished by the people of the United States, 
through the action, in each state, of those per- 
sons who were qualified by its laws to act 
thereon, in behalf of themselves and all other 
citizens of that state. In some of the states, 
as we have seen, colored persons were among 
those qualified by law to act on this subject. 
These colored persons were not only included 
in the body of ' the people of the United 
States,' by whom the constitution was ordained 
and established, but in at least five of the states 
they had the power to act, and doubtless did 
act, by their suffrages, upon the question of its 



adoption. It would be strange if we were to 
find in that instrument any thing which de- 
prived of their citizenship any part of the peo- 
ple of the United States who were among those 
by whom it was establiished. 

" 1 can find nothing in the constitution which, 
propria vigore, deprives of their citizenship any 
class of persons who were citizens of the 
United States at the time of its adoption, or 
who should be native-born citizens of any state 
after its adojjtion ; nor any power enabling 
Congress to disfranchise persons born on the 
soil of any state, and entitled to citizenship of 
such state by its constitution and laws. And 
my opinion is, that, under the constitution of 
the United States, every free person born on 
the soil of a state, who is a citizen of that state 
by force of its constitution or laws, is also a 
citizen of the United States. 

" I will proceed to state the grounds of that 
opinion. 

" The first section of the second article of the 
constitution uses the language, ' a natural-born 
citizen.' It thus assumes that citizenship may 
be acquired by birth. Undoubtedly, this lan- 
guage of the constitution was used in reference 
to that principle of public law, well understood 
in this country at the time of the adoption of 
the constitution, which referred citizenship to 
the place of birth. At the declaration of inde- ■ 
pendence, and ever since, the received general 
doctrine has been, in conformity with the com- 
mon law, that free jiersons born within either 
of the colonies were subjects of the king ; that 
by the declai'ation of independence, and the 
consequent acquisition of sovereignty by the 
several states, all such persons ceased to be 
subjects, and became citizens of the several 
states, except so far as some of them were dis- 
franchised by the legislative power of the 
states, or availed themselves, seasonably, of the 
right to adhere to the British crown in the 
civil contest, and thus to continue British sub- 
jects. (McUvain vs. Coxe's Lessee, 4 Cranch, 



674 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



209 ; IngHs vs. Sailors' Snug Harbor, 3 Peters, 
99 ; Shanks vs. Dupont, Ibid. 242.) 

" The constitution having recognized the rule 
that persons born within the several states are 
citizens of the United States, one of four things 
must be true : — 

"First. That the constitution itself has de- 
scribed what native-born persons shall or shall 
not be citizens of the United States ; or, 

'^Second. That it has empowered Congress to 
do so ; or, 

"Third. That all free persons, born within 
the several states, are citizens of the United 
States; or, 

"Fourth. That it is left to each state to deter- 
mine what free persons, born within its limits, 
shall be citizens of such state, and thereby be 
citizens of the United States. 

" If there be such a thing as citizenship of 
the United States acquired by birth within the 
states, which the constitution expressly recog- 
nizes, and no one denies, then these four alterna- 
tives embrace the entire subject, and it only 
remains to select that one which is true. 

"That the constitution itself has defined 
citizenship of the United States by declaring 
what persons, born within the several states, 
shall or shall not be citizens of the United 
States, will not be pretended. It contains no 
such declaration. We may dismiss the first 
alternative, as without doubt unfounded. 

" Has it empowered Congress to enact what 
free persons, born within the several states, 
shall or shall not be citizens of the United 
States ? 

" Before examining the various pro-\asions of 
the constitution which may relate to this ques- 
tion, it is important to consider for a moment 
the substantial nature of this inquiry. It is, in 
effect, whether the constitution has empowered 
Congress to create privileged classes within the 
states, who alone can be entitled to the fran- 
chises and powers of citizenship of the United 
States. If it be admitted that the constitution 



has enabled Congress to declare what free per- 
sons, born within the several states, shall be 
citizens of the United States, it must at the 
same time be admitted that it is an unlimited 
power. If this subject is within the control of 
Congress, it must depend wholly on its discre- 
tion. For, certainly, no limits of that discretion 
can be found in the constitution, which is wholly 
silent concerning it ; and the necessary conse- 
quence i.s, that the federal government may 
select classes of persons within the several 
states who alone can be entitled to the political 
jDrivileges of citizenship of the United States. 
If this power exists, what persons born within 
the states may be president or vice-president 
of the United States, or members of either 
House of Congress, or hold any office or enjoy 
any privilege whereof citizenship of the United 
States is a necessary qualification, must depend 
solely on the will of Congress. By virtue of 
it, though Congress can grant no title of no- 
bility, they may create an oligarchy, in whose 
hands would be concentrated the entire power 
of the federal government. 

" It is a substantive power, distinct in its 
nature from all others ; capable of affecting not 
only the relations of the states to the general 
government, but of controlling the political 
condition of the people of the United States. 
Certainly we ought to find this power granted 
by the constitution, at least by some necessary 
inference, before we can say it does not remain 
to the states or the people. I proceed, there- 
fore, to examine all the provisions of the con- 
stitution which may have some bearing on this 
subject. 

" Among the powers expressly granted to 
Congress is ' the power to establish a uniform 
rule of naturalization.' It is not doubted that 
this is a power to prescribe a rule for the re- 
moval of the disabilities consequent on foreign 
birth. To hold that it extends farther than 
this, would do violence to the meaning of the 
term ' naturalization,' fixed in the common law, 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



673 



(Co. Lit. 8 a, 129 a; 2 Ves. Sen. 286; 2 Bl. 
Com. 29-3,) and in the minds of those who con- 
curred in framing and adopting the constitu- 
tion. It was in this sense of conferring on an 
alien and his issue the rights and powers of a 
native-born citizen, that it was employed in the 
Declaration of Independence. It was in this 
sense it was expounded in the Federalist, (No. 
42,) has been understood by Congress, by the 
judiciary, (2 Wheat. 259, 269; 3 Wash. R 313, 
322 ; 12 Wheat. 277,) and by commentators on 
the constitution. (3 Story's Com. on Con. 1-3 ; 
1 Eawle on Con. 84-88 ; 1 Tucker's Bl. Com. 
App. 255-259.) 

" It appears, then, that the only power ex- 
pressly granted to Congress to legislate con- 
cerning citizenship, is confined to the removal 
of the disabilities of foreign birth. 

" Whether there be any thing in the constitu- 
tion from which a broader power may be im- 
plied, will best be seen when we come to ex- 
amine the two other alternatives, which are, 
whether all free persons, born on the soil of the 
several states, or only such of them as may be 
citizens of each state, respectively, are thereby 
citizens of the United States. The last of 
these alternatives, in my judgment, contains the 
truth. * * * 

" The first-named power, that of establishing 
a uniform rule of naturalization, was granted ; 
and here the grant, according to its terms, 
stopped. Construing a constitution containing 
only limited and defined powers of govern- 
ment, the argument derived from this definite 
and restricted power to establish a rule of 
naturalization, must be admitted to be exceed- 
ingly strong. I do not say it is necessarily de- 
cisive. It might be controlled by other parts 
of the constitution. But when this particular 
subject of citizenship was under consideration, 
and, in the clause specially intended to define 
the extent of power concerning it, we find a 
particular part of this entire power separated 
from the residue, and conferred on the general 



government, there arises a strong presumption 
that this is all which is granted, and that the 
residue is left to the states and to the people. 
And this presumption is, in my opinion, con- 
verted into a certainty, by an examination of 
all such other clauses of the constitution as 
touch this subject. 

" I will examine each which can have any 
possible bearing on this question. 

'• The first clause of the second section of the 
third article of the constitution is, ' The judicial 
power shall extend to controversies between a 
state and citizens of another state; between 
citizens of different states ; between citizens of 
the same state claiming lands under grants 
of different states ; and between states, or 
the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citi- 
zens, or subjects.' I do not think this clause 
has any considerable bearing upon the particu- 
lar inquiry now under consideration. Its pur- 
pose was, to extend the judicial power to those 
controversies into which local feelings or inter- 
ests might so enter as to disturb the course of 
justice, or give rise to suspicions that they had 
done so, and thus possibly give occasion to 
jealousy or ill will between different states, or 
a particular state and a foreign nation. At the 
same time, I would remark, in passing, that it 
has never been held — I do not know that it has 
ever been supposed — that any citizen of a state 
could bring himself under this clause and the 
eleventh and twelfth sections of the judiciary 
act of 1789, passed in pursuance of it, who was 
not a citizen of the United States. But I have 
referred to the clause only because it is one of 
the places where citizenship is mentioned by the 
constitution. Whether it is entitled to any 
weight in this inquiry or not, it refers only to 
citizenship of the several states ; it recognizes 
that ; but it does not recognize citizenship of 
the United States as something distinct there- 
from. 

"As has been said, the purpose of this clause 
did not necessarily connect it with citizenship 



676 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



of the United States, even if that were some- 
thing distinct from citizenship of the several 
states, in the contemplation of the constitu- 
tion. This cannot be said of other clauses of 
the constitution, which I now proceed to re- 
fer to. 

" ' The citizens of each state shall be entitled 
to all the privileges and immunities of citizens 
of the several states.' Nowhere else in the 
constitution is there any thing concerning a 
general citizenship ; but here, privileges and 
immunities to be enjoyed throughout the United 
States, under and by force of the national com- 
pact, are granted and secured. In selecting 
those who are to enjoy these national rights of 
citizenshij^, how are they described ? As citi- 
zens of each state. It is to them these national 
rights are secured. The qualification for them 
is not to be looked for in any provision of the 
constitution or laws of the United States. 
They are to be citizens of the several states, 
and, as such, the privileges and immunities of 
general citizenship, derived from and guaran- 
tied by the constitution, are to be enjoyed by 
them. It would seem that if it had been in- 
tended to constitute a class of native-born per- 
sons within the states, who should derive their 
citizenship of the United States from the action 
of the federal government, this was an occa- 
sion for referring to them. It cannot be sup- 
posed that it was the purpose of this article to 
confer the privileges and immunities of citizens 
in all the states upon persons not citizens of 
the United States. 

"And if it was intended to secure these 
rights only to citizens of the United States, 
how has the constitution here described such 
persons ? Simply as citizens of each state. 

" But, further : though, as I shall presently 
more fully state, I do not think the enjoyment 
of the elective franchise essential to citizenship, 
there can be no doubt it is one of the chiefest 
attributes of citizenship under the American 
constitutions; and the just and constitutional 



possession of this right is decisive evidence of 
citizenship. The provisions made by a consti- 
tution on this subject must therefore be looked 
to as bearing directly on the question what 
persons are citizens under that constitution ; 
and as being decisive, to this extent, that all 
such persons as are allowed by the constitution 
to exercise the elective franchise, and thus to 
participate in the government of the United 
States, must be deemed citizens of the United 
States. 

" Here, again, the consideration presses itself 
upon us, that if there was designed to be a 
particular class of native-born persons within 
the states, deriving their citizenship from the 
constitution and laws of the United States, 
they should at least have been referred to as 
those by whom the president and house of 
representatives were to be elected, and to 
whom they should be responsible. 

" Instead of that, we again find this subject 
referred to the laws of the several states. The 
electors of president are to be appointed in 
such manner as the legislature of each state 
may direct, and the qualifications of electors 
of members of the house of representatives 
shall be the same as for electors of the most 
numerous branch of the state legislature. 

" Laying aside, then, the case of aliens, con- 
cerning which the constitution of the United 
States has provided, and confining our view to 
free persons born within the several states, we 
find that the constitution has recognized the 
general principle of public law, that allegiance 
and citizenship depend on the place of birth ; 
that it has not attempted practically to apply 
this principle by designating the particular 
classes of persons who should or should not 
come under it ; that when we turn to the con- 
stitution for an answer to the question, what 
free persons, born within the several states, are 
citizens of the United States, the only answer 
we can receive from any of its express provis- 
ions is, the citizens of the several states are to 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



677 



enjoy the privileges and immunities of citizens 
in every state, and their franchise as electors 
under the constitution depends on their citi- 
zenship in the several states. Add to this, that 
the constitution was ordained by the citizens 
of the several states ; that they Avere ' the peo- 
ple of the United States,' for -whom and whose 
posterity the government was declared in the 
preamble of the constitution to be made ; 
that each of them was ' a citizen of the United 
States at the time of the adoption of the con- 
stitution,' within the meaning of those words 
in that instrument ; that by them the govern- 
ment was to be and was in fact organized ; and 
that no power is confe'rred on the government 
of the Union to discriminate between them, or 
to disfranchise any of them — the necessary 
conclusion is, that those persons boi'n within 
the several states, who, by force of their respec- 
tive constitutions and laws, are citizens of the 
state, are thereby citizens of the United States. 

" It may be proper here to notice some sup- 
posed objections to this view of the subject. 

" It has been often asserted that the constitu- 
tion was made exclusively by and for the white 
race. It has already been shown that in five 
of the thirteen original states, colored persons 
then possessed the elective franchise, and were 
among those by whom the constitution was or- 
dained and established. If so, it is not true, in 
point of fact, that the constitution was made 
exclusively by the white race. And that it 
was made exclusively for the white race is, in 
my opinion, not only an assumption not war- 
ranted by any thing in the constitution, but 
contradicted by its opening declaration, that it 
was ordained and established by the people of 
the United States, for themselves and their pos- 
terity. And as free colored persons were then 
citizens of at least five states, and so in every 
sense part of the people of the United States, 
they were among those for whom and whose 
posterity the constitution was ordained and es- 
tablished. 



" Again, it has been objected that if the con- 
stitution has left to the several states the 
rightful power to determine who of their in- 
habitants shall be citizens of the United States, 
the states may make aliens citizens. 

"The answer is obvious. The constitution 
has left to the states the determination what 
persons, born within their respective limits, 
shall acquire by birth citizenship of the United 
States ; it has not left to them any power to 
prescribe any rule for the removal of the dis- 
abilities of alienage. This power is exclusively 
in Congress. 

"It has been further objected, that if free 
colored persons, born within a particular state, 
and made citizens of that state by its constitu- 
tion and laws, are thereby made citizens of the 
United States, then, under the second section 
of the fourth article of the constitution, such 
persons would be entitled to all the privileges 
and immunities of citizens in the several states ; 
and if so, then colored persons could vote, and 
be eligible to not only federal offices, but offices 
even in those states whose constitutions and 
laws disqualify colored persons from voting or 
being elected to office. 

" But this position rests upon an assumption 
which I deem untenable. Its basis is, that no 
one can be deemed a citizen of the United 
States who is not entitled to enjoy all the privi- 
leges and franchises which are conferred on any 
citizen. (See 1 Lit. Kentucky R 326.) That 
this is not true, under the constitution of the 
United States, seems to me clear. 

" A naturalized citizen cannot be president 
of the United States, nor a senator till after 
the lapse of nine years, nor a representative 
till after the lapse of seven years, from his 
naturalization. Yet, as soon as naturalized, he 
is certainly a citizen of the United States. Nor 
is any inhabitant of the District of Columbia, 
or of either of the territories, eligible to the 
office of senator or representative in Congress, 
though they may be citizens of the United 



678 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



States. So, in all the states, numerous persons, 
though citizens, cannot vote, or cannot hold 
oflBce, either on account of their age, or sex, or 
the want of the necessary legal qualifications. 
The truth is, that citizenship, under the con- 
stitution of the United States, is not dependent 
on the possession of any particular political or 
even of all civil rights ; and any attempt so to 
define it must lead to error. To what citizens 
the elective franchise shall be confided, is a 
question to be determined by each state, in ac- 
cordance with its own views of the necessities 
or expediencies of its condition. What civil 
rights shall be enjoyed by its citizens, and 
whether all shall enjoy the aPcie, or how they 
may be gained or lost, are to be determined in 
the same way. * '=' * 

" There is one view of this article entitled to 
consideration in this connection. It is mani- 
festly copied from the fourth of the Articles 
of Confederation, with only slight changes of 
phraseology, which render its meaning more 
precise, and dropping the clause which excluded 
paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice, 
probably because these cases could be dealt 
with under the police powers of the states, and 
a special provision therefore was not necessary. 
It has been suggested, that in adopting it into 
the constitution, the words ' free inhabitants ' 
were changed for the word ' citizens.' An ex- 
amination of the forms of expression common- 
ly used in the state papers of that day, and an 
attention to the substance of this article of the 
confederation, will show that the words ' free 
inhabitants,' as then used, were synonymous 
with citizens. When the x\rticles of Confedera- 
tion were adopted, we were in the midst of the 
war of the revolution, and there were very few 
persons then embraced in the words ' free in- 
habitants ' Avho were not born on our soil. It 
was not a time when many, save the children 
of the soil, were willing to embark their for- 
tunes in our cause ; and though there might be 
an inaccuracv in the uses of words to call free 



inhabitants citizens, it was then a technical 
rather than a substantial difl'erence. If we look 
into the constitutions and state papers of that 
period, we find the inhabitants or people of 
these colonies, or the inhabitants of this state, 
or commonwealth, employed to designate 
those whom we should now denominate citi- 
zens. The substance and purpose of the arti- 
cle prove it was in this sense it used these 
words: it secures to the free inhabitants of 
each state the privileges and immunities of 
free citizens in every state. It is not conceiva- 
ble that the states should have agreed to ex- 
tend the privileges of citizenship to persons 
not entitled to enjoy tlie privileges of citizens 
in the states where they dwelt ; that under 
this article there was a class of persons in some 
of the states, not citizens, to whom were se- 
cured all the privileges and immunities of citi- 
zens when they went into other states ; and the 
just conclusion is, that though the constitution 
cured an inaccuracy of language, it left the 
substance of this article in the national consti- 
tution the same as it was in the Articles of 
Confederation. 

" The history of this fourth article, respecting 
the attempt to exclude free persons of color 
from its operation, has been already stated. 
It is reasonable to conclude that this history 
was known to those who framed and adopted 
the constitution. That under this fourth article 
of the confederation, free persons of color 
might be entitled to the pi'ivileges of general 
citizenship, if otherwise entitled thereto, is 
clear. When this article was, in substance, 
placed in and made part of the constitution of 
the United States, with no change in its lan- 
guage calculated to exclude free colored per- 
sons from the benefit of its provisions, the pre- 
sumption is, to say the least, strong, that the 
practical effect which it was designed to have, 
and did have, under the former government, it 
was designed to have, and should have, under 
the new government. * * * 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



679 



'* It has sometimes been urged that colored 
persons are shown not to be citizens of the 
United States by the fact that the naturahza- 
tion laws apply only to white persons. But 
whether a person born in the United States be 
or be not a citizen, cannot depend on laws 
which refer only to aliens, and do not affect 
the status of persons born in the United States. 
The utmost effect which can be attributed to 
them is, to show that Congress has not deemed 
it expedient generally to apply the rule to 
colored aliens. That they might do so, if 
thought fit, is clear. The constitution has not 
excluded them. And since that has conferred 
the power on Congress to naturalize colored 
aliens, it certainly shows color is not a necessary 
qualification for citizenship under the constitu- 
tion of the United States. It may be added, 
that the power to make colored persons citizens 
of the United States, under the constitution, 
has been actually exercised in repeated and im- 
portant instances. (See the Treaties with the 
Choctaws, of September 27, 1830, art. 14 ; with 
the Cherokees, of May 23, 183^, art. 12 ; Treaty 
of Guadalupe Hidalgo, February 2, 1848, art. 8.) 

" I do not deem it necessary to review at 
length the legislation of Congress having more 
or less bearing on the citizenship of colored 
persons. It does not seem to me to have any 
considerable tendency to prove that it has been 
considered by the legislative department of the 
government, that no such persons are citizens 
of the United States. Undoubtedly they have 
been debarred from the exercise of particular 
rights or privileges extended to white persons, 
but, I believe, always in terms which, by impli- 
cation, admit they may be citizens. Thus the 
act of May 17, 1792, for the organization of the 
militia, directs the enrolment of ' every free, 
able-bodied, white male citizen.' An assump- 
tion that none but white persons are citizens, 
would be as inconsistent with the just import 
of this language, as that all citizens are able- 
bodied, or males. 

86 



"So the act of February 28, 1803, (2 Stat, at 
Large, 205,) to prevent the importation of 
certain persons into states, when by the laws 
thei'eof their admission is prohibited, in its first 
section forbids all masters of vessels to import 
or bring ' any negro, mulatto, or other person 
of color, not being a native, a citizen, or regis- 
tered seaman of the United States,' &c. 

" The acts of March 3, 1813, section 1, (2 Stat, 
at Large, 809,) and March 1, 1817, section 3, 
(3 Stat, at Large, 351,) concerning seamen, cer- 
tainly imply there may be persons of color, 
natives of the United States, who are not citi- 
zens of' the United States. This implication is 
undoubtedly in^^cordance with iiie fact. For 
not only slaves, but free persons of color, born 
in some of the states, are not citizens. But 
there is nothing in these laws inconsistent with 
the citizenship of persons of color in others of 
the states, nor with their being citizens of the 
United States. 

"Whether much or little weight should be 
attached to the particular phraseology of these 
and other laws, which were not pas^iod with 
any direct reference to this subject, I consider 
their tendency to be, as already indicated, to 
show that, in the apprehension of their framers, 
color was not a necessary qualification of citi- 
zenship. It would be strange if laws were 
found on our statute book to that effect, when, 
by solemn treaties, large bodies of Mexican 
and North American Indians, as well as free 
colored inhabitants of Louisiana, have been ad- 
mitted to citizenship of the United States. 

" In the legislative debates which preceded 
the admission of the state of Missouri into the 
Union, this question was agitated. Its result 
is found in the resolution of Congress of 
March 5, 1821, for the admission of that state 
into the Union. The constitution of Missouri, 
under which that state applied for admission 
into the Union, provided, that it should be the 
duty of the legislature ' to pass laws to prevent 
free negroes and mulattoes from coming to and 



680 



HrSTOilY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



settling in the state, under any pretext what- 
ever.' One ground of objection to the admis- 
sion of the state under this constitution was, 
that it would require the legislature to exclude 
free persons of color, who would be entitled, 
under the second section of the fourth article 
of the constitution, not only to come within 
the state, but to enjoy there the privileges and 
immunities of citizens. The resolution of Con- 
gress admitting the state was upon the funda- 
mental condition, ' that the constitution of Mis- 
souri shall never be construed to authorize the 
passage of any law, and that no law shall be 
passed in conformity thereto, by which any 
citizen of either of the states of this Union 
shall be excluded from the enjoyment of any 
of the privileges and immunities to which such 
citizen is entitled under the constitution of the 
United States.' It is true that neither this 
legislative declaration, nor any thing in the 
constitution or laws of Missouri, could confer 
or take a'way any privilege or immunity granted 
by the constitution. But it is also true that it 
expresses the then conviction of the legislative 
power of the United States, that free negroes, 
as citizens of some of the states, might be en- 
titled to the privileges and immunities of citi- 
zens in all the states. 

" The conclusions at which I have arrived on 
this part of the case are, — 

" First. That the free native-born citizens of 
eiach state are citizens of the United States. 

'•' Second. That as free colored persons born 
within some of the states are citizens of those 
states, such persons are also citizens of the 
United States. 

" Third. That every such citizen, residing in 
any state, has the right to sue and is liable to 
be sued in the federal courts, as a citizen of 
that state in which he resides. 

" Fourth. That as the plea to the jurisdiction 
in this case shows no facts, except that the 
plaintiff was of African descent, and his ances- 
tors were sold as slaves, and as these facts are 



not inconsistent with his citizenship of the 
United States, and his residence in the state of 
Missouri, the plea io the jurisdiction was. bad, 
and the judgment of the Circuit Court overrul- 
ing it was correct. 

"I dissent, therefore, from that part of the 
opinion of the majority of the court, in which 
it is held that a person of African descent can- 
not be a citizen of the United States ; and I 
regret I must go farther, and dissent both from 
what I deem their assumption of authority to 
examine the constitutionality of the act of 
Congress commonly called the Missouri com- 
promise act, and the grounds and conclusions 
announced in their opinion. 

" Having first decided that they were bound 
to consider the sufficiency of the plea to the 
jurisdiction of the Circuit Court, and having 
decided that this plea showed that the Circuit 
Court had not jurisdiction, and consequently 
that this is a case to which the judicial power 
of the United States does not extend, they 
have gone on to examine the merits of the case 
as they appeared on the trial before, the court 
and jury, on the issues joined on the pleas in 
bar, and so have reached the question of the 
power of Congress to pass the act of 1820. 
On so grave a subject as this, I feel obliged to 
say that, in my opinion, such an exertion of 
judicial power transcends the limits of the 
authority of the court, as described by its re- 
peated decisions, and, as I understand, ac- 
knowledged in this opinion of the majority of 
the court. * * * 

" But as, in my opinion, the Circuit Court 
had jurisdiction, I am obliged to consider the 
question whether its judgment on the merits 
of the case should stand or be reversed. 

" The residence of the plaintiff in the state of 
Illinois, and the residence of himself and his 
wife in the territory acquired from France ly- 
ing north of latitude thirty-six degrees thirty 
minutes, and north of the state of Missouri, 
are each relied on by the plaintiff in error. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



m 



As the residence in the territory affects the 
plaintiff's wife and children as well as himself, 
I must inquire what was its effect. 

" The general question may be stated to be, 
whether the plaintiff's status, as a slave, was so 
changed by his residence within that territory, 
that he was not a slave in the state of Missouri 
at the time this action was brought. 

"In such cases, two inquiries arise, which 
may be confounded, but should be kept dis- 
tinct. 

" The first is, what was the law of the terri- 
tory, into which the master and slave went, re- 
specting the relation between them ? 

" The second is, whether the state of Missouri 
recognizes and allows the effect of that law of 
the territory on the status of the slave, on his 
return within its jurisdiction. 

"As to the first of these questions, the will 
of states and nations, by wiose municipal law 
slavery is not recognized, has been manifested 
in three different ways. 

" One is, absolutely to dissolve the relation, 
and terminate the rights of the master existing 
under the law of the country whence the parties 
came. This is said by Lord Stowell, in the case 
of the slave Grace, (2 Hag. Ad. E. 94,) and by 
the Supreme Court of Louisiana in the case of 
Maria Louise vs. Marot, (9 Louis. R 473,) to be 
the law of France ; and it has been the law of 
several states of this Union, in respect to slaves 
introduced under certain conditions. (Wilson 
vs. Isabel, 5 Call's R. 430 ; Hunter vs. Hulcher, 
1 Leigh, 172; Stewart vs. Oaks, 5 Har. and 
John. 107.) 

" The second is, where, the municipal law of 
a country not recognizing slavery, it is the 
will of the state to refuse the master all aid to 
exercise any control over his slave ; and if he 
attempt to do so, in a manner justifiable only 
by that relation, to prevent the exercise of that 
control. But no law exists designed to operate 
directly on the relation of master and slave, 
and put an end to that relation. This is said 



by Lord Stowell, in the case above mentioned, 
to be the law of England, and by Mr. Chief 
Justice Shaw, in the case of the Commonwealth 
vs. Aves, (18 Pick. 193,) to be the law of Massa- 
chusetts. 

" The third is, to make a distinction between 
the case of a master and his slave only tem- 
porarily in the country, animo non manendi, and 
those who are there to reside for permanent or 
indefinite purposes. This is said by Mr. Whea- 
ton to be the law of Prussia, and was formerly 
the statute law of several states of our Union. 
It is necessary in this case to keep in view this 
distinction between those countries whose laws 
are designed to act directly on the status of a 
slave, and make him a free man, and those 
where his master can obtain no aid from the 
laws to enforce his rights. 

" It is to the last case only that the authori- 
ties, out of Missouri, relied on by defendant, 
apply, when the residence in the non-slave- 
holding territory was permanent. In the Com- 
monwealth vs. Aves, (18 Pick. 218,) Mr. Chief 
Justice Shaw said, ' From the principle above 
stated, on which a slave brought here becomes 
free, — to wit, that he becomes entitled to the 
protection of our laws, — it would seem to follow, 
as a necessary conclusion, that if the slave 
waives the protection of those laws, and returns 
to the state where he is held as a slave, his 
condition is not changed.' It was upon this 
ground, as is apparent from his whole reason- 
ing, that Sir William Scott rests his opinion in 
the case of the slave Grace. To use one of his 
expressions, the effect of the law of England 
was to put the liberty of the slave into a 
parenthesis. If there had been an act of Paif- 
liament declaring that a slave coming to Eng- 
land with his master should thereby be deemed 
no longer to be a slave, it is easy to see that 
the learned judge could not have arrived at 
the same conclusion. This distinction is very 
clearly stated and shown by President Tucker, 
in his opinion in the case of Betty vs. Horton, 



682 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



(5 Leigh's Virginia R 615.) (See also Hunter 
vs. Fletcher, 1 Leigh's Va. R 172 ; Maria Louise 
vs. Marot, 9 Louisiana R; Smith vs. Smith, 13 
lb. 441; Thomas vs. Genevieve, 16 lb. 483; 
Eankin vs. Lydia, 2 A. K. Marshall, 467 ; Davies 
vs. Tingle, 8 B. Munroe, 539 : GriflFeth 2's. Fanny, 
Gilm. V. K. 143 ; Lumford vs. Coquillon, 14 
Martin's La. R 405 ; Josephine vs. Poultney, 1 
Louis. Ann. R 329.) 

" But if the acts of Congress on this subject 
are valid, the law of the territory of Wiscon- 
sin, within whose limits the residence of the 
plaintiff and his wife, and their marriage and 
the birth of one or both of their children, took 
place, falls under the first category, and is a law 
operating directly on the stains of the slave. 
By the eighth section of the act of March 6, 
1820, (3 Stat, at Large, 548,) it was enacted 
that, within this territory, ' slavery and invol- 
untary servitude, otherwise than in the punish- 
ment of crimes, whereof the parties shall have 
been duly convicted, shall be, and is hereby, for- 
ever prohibited : Provided, always, that any per- 
son escaping into the same, from whom labor 
or service is lawfully claimed in any state or 
territory in the United States, such fugitive 
may be lawfully reclaimed, and conveyed to 
the person claiming his or her labor or service, 
as aforesaid.' 

"By the act of April 20, 1836, (4 Stat, at 
Large, 10,) passed in the same month and year 
of the removal of the plaintiff to Fort Snel- 
ling, this part of the territory ceded by France, 
where Fort Snelling is, together with so 
much of the territory of the United States 
east of the Mississippi as now constitutes 
the state of Wisconsin, was brought under a 
territorial government, under the name of the 
Territory of Wisconsin. By the eighteenth 
section of this act, it was enacted, ' That the in- 
habitants of this territory shall be entitled to 
and enjoy all and singular the rights, privileges, 
and advantages, granted and secured to the 
people of the territory of the United States 



north-west of the Eiver Ohio, by the articles 
of compact contained in the ordinance for the 
government of said territory, passed on the 
13th day of July, 1787 ; and shall be subject to 
all the restrictions and prohibitions in said arti- 
cles of compact imposed upon the people of the 
said territory.' The sixth article of that com- 
pact is, ' There shall be neither slavery nor in- 
voluntary sei'vitude in the said territory, other- 
wise than in the punishment of crimes, where- 
of the party shall have been duly convicted. 
Provided, always, that any person escaping into 
the same, from whom labor or service is law- 
fully claimed in any one of the original states, 
such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed, and 
conveyed to the person claiming his or her 
labor or service, as aforesaid.' By other pro- 
visions of this act establishing the territory of 
Wisconsin, the laws of the United States, and 
the then existing la"ws of the state of Michigan, 
are extended over the territory; the latter be- 
ing subject to alteration and repeal by the 
legislative power of the territory created by 
the act. 

" Fort Snelling was within the territory of 
Wisconsin, and these laws were extended over 
it. The Indian title to that site for a military 
post had been acquired from the Sioux nation 
as early as September 23, 1805, (Am. State 
Papers, Indian Affairs, vol. i. p. 744,) and until 
the erection of the territorial government, the 
persons at that post were governed by the rules 
and articles of war, and such laws of the United 
States, including the eighth section of the act 
of March 6, 1820, prohibiting slavery, as were 
applicable to their condition; but after the 
erection of the territory, and the extension of 
the laws of the United States and the laws of 
Michigan over the whole of the territory, in- 
cluding this military post, the persons residing 
there were under the dominion of those laws 
in all particulars to which the rules and articles 
of war did not apply. 

" It thus appears that, by these acts of Con- 



HISTORY OP THE UNITED STATES. 



683 



gress, not only was a general system of munici- 
pal law borrowed from the state of Michigan, 
which did not tolerate slavery, but it was posi- 
tively enacted that slavery and involuntary 
servitude, with only one exception, specifically 
described, should not exist there. It is not 
simply that slavery is not recognized and can- 
not be aided by the municipal law. It is 
recognized for the purpose of being absolutely 
prohibited, and declared incapable of existing 
Avithin the territory, save in the instance of a 
fugitive slave. 

"It would not be easy for the legislature to 
employ more explicit language to signify its 
will that the status of slaver}^ should not exist 
within the territory, than the words found in 
the act of 1820, and in the ordinance of 1787; 
and if any doubt could exist concerning their 
application to cases of masters coming into 
the territory with their slaves to reside, that 
doubt must yield to the inference required by 
the words of exception. That exception is, of 
cases of fugitive slaves. An exception from 
a prohibition marks the extent of the prohibi- 
tion ; for it would be absurd, as well as useless, 
to except from a prohibition a case not con- 
tained within it. (9 Wheat. 200.) I must 
conclude, therefore, that it was the will of 
Congress that the state of involuntary servi- 
tude of a slave, coming into the territory with 
his master, should cease to exist. The Supreme 
Court of Missouri so held in Rachel vs. Walker, 
(4 Misso. R. 350,) which was the case of a mili- 
tary officer going into the territory with two 
slaves. 

" But it is a distinct question whether the 
law of Missouri recognized and allowed effect 
to the change wrought in the stalus of the 
plaintiff^ by force of the laws of the territory 
of Wisconsin. * * * 

" I have not heard it suggested that there was 
any statute of the state of Missouri bearing on 
this question. The customary law of Missouri 
is the common law, introduced by statute in 



1816. (1 Ter. Laws, 436.) And the common 
law, as Blackstone says, (4 Com. 67,) adopts, in 
its full extent, the law of nations, and holds it 
to be a part of the law of the land. * * 

" It appears that this case came on for trial 
before the Circuit Court and a jury, upon an 
issue, in substance, whether the plaintiff", to- 
gether with his wife and children, were the 
slaves of the defendant. 

" The court instructed the jury that, ' upon 
the facts in this case, the law is with the de- 
fendant.' This withdrew from the jury the 
consideration and decision of every matter of 
fact. The evidence in the case consisted of 
written . admissions, signed by the counsel of 
the parties. If the case had been submitted to 
the judgment of the court, upon an agreed 
statement of facts, entered of record, in place 
of a special verdict, it would have been neces- 
sai-y for the court below, and for this court, to 
pronounce its judgment solely on those facts, 
thus agreed, without inferring any other facts 
therefrom. By the rules of the common law 
applicable to such a case, and by force of the 
seventh article of the amendments of the con- 
stitution, this court is precluded from finding 
any fact not agreed to by the parties on the 
record. No submission to the court on a state- 
ment of facts was made. It was a trial by 
jury, in which certain admissions, made by the- 
parties, were the evidence. The jury were not 
only competent, but were bound to draw from 
that evidence every inference which, in their 
judgment, exercised according to the rules of 
law, it would warrant. The Circuit Court took 
from the jury the power to draw any inferences 
from the admissions made by the parties, and 
decided the case for the defendant. This 
course can be justified here, if at all, only by 
its appearing that upon the facts agreed, and 
all such inferences of fact favorable to the plain 
tiff"'s case as the jury might have been war- 
ranted in drawing from those admissions, the 
law was with the defendant. Otherwise, the 



684- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



plamtifi' would be deprived of the benefit of 
hjfi trial bj jury, by whom, for aught we can 
know, those inferences favorable to his case 
would have been drawn. 

" The material facts agreed, bearing on this 
part of the case, are, that Dr. Emerson, the 
plaintiff's master, resided about two years at 
the military post of Fort Snelling, being a sur- 
geon in the army of the United States, his 
dou^iicile of origin being unknown ; and what, 
if any thing, he had done, to preserve or 
change his domicile prior to his residence at 
Rock Island, being also unknown. 

"Now, it is true, that under some circum- 
stances the residence of a mihtary officer at a 
particular place in the discharge of his official 
duties, does not amount to the acquisition of a 
technical domicile. But it cannot be affirmed, 
with correctness, that it never does. There 
being actual residence, and this being pre- 
sumptive evidence of domicile, all the circum- 
stances of the case must be considered before 
& legal conclusion can be reached that his place 
of residence is not his domicile. If a military 
officer stationed at a particular post should en- 
tertain an expectation that his residence there 
would be indefinitely protracted, and in conse- 
quence should remove his family to the place 
where his duties were to be discharged, form a 
• permanent domestic establishment there, exer- 
cise there the civil rights and discharge the 
civil duties of an inhabitant, while he did no 
act and manifested no intent to have a domicile 
elsewhere, I think no one would say that the 
mere fact that he was himself liable to be 
called away by the orders of the government 
■would prevent his acquisition of a technical 
domicile at the place of the residence of himself 
and his family. In other words, I do not think 
a military officer incapable of acquiring a domi- 
cile. (Bruce vs. Bruce, 2 Bos. and Pul. 230 ; 
Munroe vs. Douglass, 5 Mad. Ch. R. 232.) This 
being so, this case stands thus : there was evi- 
dence before the jury that Emerson resided 



about two years at Fort Snelling^ in the terri- 
tory of Wisconsin. This may or may not 
have been with such intent as to make it his 
technical domicile. The presumption is, that it 
was. It is so laid down by this court, in Ennis vs. 
Smith, (14 How.,) and the authorities in support 
of the position are there referred to. His in- 
tent was a question of fact for the jury. (Fitch- 
burg vs. Winchendon, 4 Cush. 190.) 

" The case was taken from the jury. If they 
had power to find that the presumption of the 
necessary intent had not been rebutted, we can- 
not say, on this record, that Emerson bad not 
his technical domicile at Fort Snelling. But, for 
reasons which I shall now proceed to give, I do 
not deem it necessary in this case to determine 
the question of the technical domicile of Dr. 
Emerson. 

"It must be admitted that the inquiry, whether 
the law of a particular country has rightfully 
fixed the status of a person, so that, in accord- 
ance with the principles of international law, 
that statics should be recognized in other juris- 
dictions, ordinarily depends on the question 
whether the person was domiciled in the coun- 
try whose laws are asserted to have fixed his 
status. But, in the United States, questions of 
this kind may arise, where an attempt to decide 
solely with reference to technical domicile, 
tested by the rules which are applicable to 
changes of places of abode from one country 
to another, would not be consistent with sound 
principles. And, in my judgment, this i^ one 
of those cases. 

" The residence of the plaintiff, who was taken 
by his master. Dr. Emerson, as a slave, from 
Missouri to the state of Illinois, and thence to 
the territory of Wisconsin, must be deemed to 
have been for the time being, and until he 
asserted his own separate intention, the same 
as the residence of his master; and the inquiry, 
whether the personal statutes of the territory 
were rightfully extended over the plaintiff, 
and oughtj in accordance with the rules of 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



international law, to be allowed to fix his status, 
must depend upon the circumstances imder 
which Dr. Emerson went into that territory, 
and remained there ; and upon the further 
question, whether any thing was there right- 
fully done by the plaintiff to cause those per- 
sonal statutes to operate on him. 

'■ Dr. Emerson was an oflficer in the army of 
the United States. He went into the territory 
to discharge his duty to the United States. 
The place was out of the jurisdiction of any 
particular state, and within the exclusive juris- 
diction of the United States. It does not ap- 
pear where the domicile of origin of Dr. Emer- 
son was, nor whether or not he had lost it, and 
gained another domicile, nor of what particular 
state, if any, he was a citizen. 

" On what ground can it 'be denied that all 
valid laws of the United States, constitution- 
ally enacted by Ccmgress for the government 
of the territory, rightfully extended over an 
ofl&cer of the United States and his servant 
■who went into the territory to remain there 
for an indefinite length of time, to take part in 
its civil or military affairs? They were not 
foreigners, coming from abroad. Dr. Emerson 
was a citizen of the country which had ex- 
clusive jui'isdiction over the territory ; and not 
only a citizen, but he went there in a public 
capacity, in the service of the same sovereignty 
which made the laws. Whatever those laws 
might be, whether of the kind denominated 
personal statutes or not, so far as they were 
intended by the legislative will, constitutionally 
expressed, to operate on him and his servant, 
and on the relations between them, they had a 
rightful operation, and no other state or coun- 
try can refuse to allow that those laws might 
rightfully operate on the plaintiff and his ser- 
vant, because such a refusal would be a denial 
that the United States could, by laws constitu- 
tionally enacted, govern their own servants, re- 
siding on their own territory, over which the 
United States 'had the exclusive control, and in 



respect to which they are an independent 
sovereign power. Whether the laws now in 
question were constitutionally enacted, I repeat 
once more, is a separate question. But, assum- 
ing that they were, and that they operated 
directly on the stcdvs of the plaintiff", I consider 
that no other state or covmtry could question 
the rightful power of the United States so to 
legislate, or, consistently with the settled rules 
of international law, could refuse to recognize 
the effects of such legislation upon the stattis 
of their officers and servants, as valid 6verj 
where. 

" This alone would, in my apprehension, be 
sufficient to decide this question. 

" Bat there are other facts stated on the rec- 
ord which should not be passed over. It is 
agreed that, in the year 1836, the plaintiff", 
while residing in the territory, was married, 
with the consent of Dr. Emerson, to Harriet, 
named in the declaration as his wife, and that 
Eliza and Lizzie were the children of that mar- 
riage, the first named having been born on the 
Mississippi River, north of the line of Missouri, 
and the other having been born after their re- 
turn to Missouri. And the inquiry is, whether, 
after the marriage of the plaintiff" in the tei^ 
ritory, with the consent of Dr. Emerson, any 
other state or country can, consistently with 
the settled rules of international law, refuse to 
recognize and treat him as a free man, when 
suing for the liberty of himself, his wife, and 
the children of that marriage. It is in refer- 
ence to his status, as viewed in other states and 
countries, that the contract of marriage and 
the birth of children become strictly material. 
At the same time, it is proper to observe that 
the female to whom he was married having 
been taken to the same military post of Fort 
Snelling as a slave, and Dr. Emerson claiming 
also to be her master at the time of her mar- 
riage, her stattis,Sindi that of the children of the 
marriage, are also aff"ected by the same con- 
siderations. 



686 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



"If the laws of Congress governing the ter- 
ritory of Wisconsin were constitutional and 
valid laws, there can be no doubt these parties 
were capable of contracting a lawful marriage, 
attended with all the usual civil rights and ob- 
ligations of that condition. In tliat territory 
they were absolutely free persons, having full 
capacity to enter into the civil contract of mar- 
riage. 

" It is a principle of international law, settled 
beyond controversy in England and America, 
that a marriage valid by the law of the place 
where it was contracted, and not in fraud of 
the law of any other place, is valid every 
where ; and that no technical domicile at the 
place of the contract is necessary to make it 
so. (See Bishop on Mar. and Div. 125-129, 
Avhere the cases are collected.) 

" If, in Missouri, the plaintiff were held to be 
a slave, the validity and operation of his con- 
tract of marriage must be denied. He can 
have no legal rights ; of course, not those of 
a husband and father. And the same is true 
of his wife and children. The denial of his 
rights is the denial of theirs. So that, though 
lawfully married in the territory, when they 
came out of it, into the state of Missouri, they 
were no longer husband and wife ; and a child 
of that lawful marriage, though born under the 
same dominion where its parents contracted a 
lawful marriage, is not the fruit of that marriage, 
nor the child of its father, but subject to the 
maxim, Partus sequUur ventrem. 

" It must be borne in mind that in this case 
there is no ground for the inquiry, whether it 
be the will of the state of Missouri not to rec- 
ognize the validity of the marriage of a fugi- 
tive slave, who escapes into a state or country 
■where slavery is not allowed, and there con- 
tracts a marriage ; or the validity of such a 
marriage, where the master, being a citizen of 
the state of Missouri, voluntarily goes with his 
slave, in ilinere, into a state or country which does 
not permit slavery to exist, and the slave there 



conti'acts marriage Avithout the consent of his 
master ; for in this case, it is agreed. Dr. Emerson 
did consent ; and no further question can arise 
concerning his rights, so far as their assertion 
is inconsistent with the validity of the marriage. 
Nor do I know of any ground for the assertion 
that this marriage was in fraud of any law of 
Missouri. It has been held by this court, that 
a bequest of property by a master to his slave, 
by necessary implication entitles the slave to 
his freedom ; because only as a free man could 
he take and hold the bequest. (Legrand vs. 
Darnall, 2 Pet. E. 664.) It has also been held, 
that when a master goes with his slave to re- 
side for an indefinite period in a state where 
slavery is not tolerated, this operates as an act 
of manumission ; because it is sufficiently ex- 
pressive of the consent of the master that the 
slave should be free. (2 Marshall's Ken. R. 470 ; 
14 Martin's Louis. R. 401.). 

" What, then, shall we say of the consent of 
the master, that the slave may contract a law- 
ful marriage, attended with all the civil rights 
and duties which belong to that relation ; that 
he may enter into a relation which none but a 
free man can assume — a relation which in- 
volves not only the rights and duties of the 
slave, but those of the other party to the con- 
tract, and of their descendants to the remotest 
generation ? In my judgment, there can be no 
more effectual abandonment of the legal rights 
of a master over his slave, than by the consent 
of the master that the slave should enter into 
a contract of marriage, in a free state, attended 
by all the civil rights and obligations which be- 
long to that condition. 

" And any claim by Dr. Emerson, or any one 
claiming under him, the effect of which is to 
deny the validity of this marriage, and the 
lawful paternity of the children born from it, 
wherever asserted, is, in my judgment, a claim 
inconsistent with good faith and sound reason, 
as well as with the rules of international law. 
And I go further : in my opinion, a law of the 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



687 



state of Missouri, which should thus annul a 
marriage lawfully contracted by these parties 
while resident in Wisconsin, not in fraud of 
any law of Missouri, or of any right of Dr. 
Emerson, who consented thereto, would be a 
law impairing the obligation of a contract, and 
within the prohibition of the constitution of 
the United States. (See 4 Wheat. 629, 695, 
696.) 

" To avoid misapprehension on this important 
and difficult subject, I will state, distinctly, the 
conclusions at which I have arrived. They 
are, — 

"First. The rules of international law re- 
specting the emancipation of slaves, by the 
rightful operation of the laws of another state 
or country upon the status of the slave, while 
resident in such foreign state or country, are 
part of the common law of Missouri, and have 
not been abrogated by any statute law of that 
state. 

"Second. The laws of the United States, con- 
stitutionally enacted, which operated directly 
on and changed the status of a slave coming 
into the territory of Wisconsin with his master 
who went thither to reside for an indefinite 
length of time, in the performance of his duties 
as an officer of the United States, had a right- 
ful operation on the status of the slave ; and it 
is in conformity with the rules of international 
law that this change of status should be recog- 
nized every where. 

"Third. The laws of the United States, in 
operation in the territory of Wisconsin at the 
time of the plaintiff's residence there, did act 
directly on the status of the plaintiff, and 
change his status to that of a free man. 

"Fourth. The plaintiff and his wife were 
capable of contracting, and, with the consent 
of Dr. Emerson, did contract, a marriage in that 
territory, valid under its laws ; and the validity 
of this marriage cannot be questioned in Mis- 
souri, save by showing that it was in fraud of 
the laws of that state, or of some right derived 
87 



from them; which cannot be shown in this 
case, because the master consented to it. 

"Fifth. That the consent of the master that 
his slave, residing in a country which does not 
tolerate slavery, may enter into a lawful con- 
tract of marriage, attended with the civil rights 
and duties which belong to that condition, is 
an effectual act of emancipation. And the 
law does not enable Dr. Emerson, or any one 
claiming under him, to assert a title to the 
married persons as slaves, and thus destroy 
the obligation of the contract of marriage, and 
bastardize their issue, and reduce them to 
slavery. * * * 

"I have thus far assumed, merely for the 
purpose of the argument, that the laws of the 
United States, respecting slavery in this terri- 
tory, were constitutionally enacted by Congress. 
It remains to inquire whether they are consti- 
tutional and binding laws. 

" In the argument of this part of the case at 
bar, it was justly considered by all the counsel 
to be necessary to ascertain the source of the 
power of Congress over the territory belonging 
ib the United States. Until this is ascertained, 
it is not possible to determine the extent of 
that power. On the one side it was maintained 
that the constitution contains no express grant 
of power to organize and govern what is now 
known to the laws of the United States as a 
territory; that whatever power of this kind 
exists, is derived by implication from the 
capacity of the United States to hold and ac- 
quire territory out of the limits of any state, 
and the necessity for its having some govern- 
ment. 

" On the other side, it was insisted that the 
constitution has not failed to make an express 
provision for this end, and that it is found in 
the third section of the fourth article of the 
constitution. 

" To determine which of these is the correct 
view, it is needful to advert to some facts re- 
specting this subject, which existed when the 



688 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



1 



constitution was framed and adopted. It will 
be found that these facts not only shed much 
light on the question, whether the framers of 
the constitution omitted to make a provision 
concerning the power of Congress to organize 
and govern territories, but they will also aid 
in the construction of any provision which may 
have been made respecting this subject. 

" Under the confederation, the unsettled ter- 
ritory within the limits of the United States 
had been a subject of deep interest. Some of 
the states insisted that these lands were within 
their chartered boundaries, and that they had 
succeeded to the title of the crown to the soil. 
On the other hand, it was argued that the 
vacant lands had been acquired by the United 
States, by the war carried on by them under 
a coaimon government and for the common 
interest. 

" This dispute was further complicated by un- 
settled questions of boundary among several 
states. It not only delayed the accession of 
Maryland to the confederation, but at one time 
seriously threatened its existence. (5 Jour, of 
Cong. 208, 442.) Under the jiressure of these 
circumstances. Congress earnestly recommended 
to the several states a cession of their claims 
and rights to the United States. (5 Jour, of 
Cong. 442.) And before the constitution was 
framed, it had been begun. That by New 
York had been made on the 1st day of March, 
1781; that of Virginia on the 1st day of 
March, 1784 ; that of Massachusetts on the 19th 
day of April, 1785 ; that of Connecticut on the 
14th day of September, 1786 ; that of South 
Carolina on the 8th day of August, 1787, while 
the convention for framing the constitution was 
in session. 

" It is very material to observe, in this con- 
nection, that each of these acts cedes, in terms, 
to the United States, as well the jurisdiction 
as the soil. 

" It is also equally important to note that, 
when the constitution was framed and adopted, 



this plan of vesting in the United States, for 
the common good, the great tracts of ungrauted 
lands claimed by the several states, in which so 
deep an interest was felt, was yet incomplete. 
It remained for North Carolina and Georgia 
to cede their extensive and valuable claims. 
These were made, by North Carolina on the 
25th day of February, 1790, and by Georgia 
on the 24th day of April, 1802. The terms 
of these last-mentioned cessions will hereafter 
be noticed in another connection; but I ob- 
serve here that- each of them distinctly shows, 
upon its face, that they were not only in exe- 
cution of the general plan proposed by the 
Congress of the confederation, but of a formed 
purpose of each of these states, existing when 
the assent of their respective people Avas given 
to the constitution of the United States. 

" It appears, then, that when the federal con- 
stitiition was framed, and presented to the peo- 
ple of the several states for their consideration, 
the unsettled territory was viewed as justly ap- 
plicable to the common benefit, so far as it 
then had or might attain thereafter a pecuniary 
value ; and so far as it might become the seat 
of new states, to be admitted into the Union 
upon an equal footing with the original states ; 
and also that the relations of the United 
States to that unsettled territory were of differ- 
ent kinds. The titles of the states of New 
York, Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and 
South Carolina, as well of soil as of jurisdic- 
tion, had been transferred to the United States. 
North Carolina and Georgia had not actually 
made transfers, but a confident expectation, 
founded on their appreciation of the justice of 
the general claim, and fully justified by the 
results, was entertained, that these cessions 
would be made. The ordinance of 1787 had 
made provision for the temporary government 
of so much of the territory actually ceded as 
lay north-west of the Eiver Ohio. 

" But it must have been apparent, both to the 
framers of the constitution and the people of 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



689 



the several states who were to act upou it, that 
the government thus provided for could not 
continue, unless the constitution should confer 
on the United States the necessary powers to 
continue it. That temporary government, un- 
der the ordinance, was to consist of certain 
officers, to be appointed by and responsible to 
the Congress of the confederation ; their pow- 
ers had been conferred and defined by the 
ordinance. So fiir as it provided for the tem- 
porary government of the territory, it was an 
ordinary act of legislation, deriving its force 
from the legislative power of Congress, and 
depending for its vitality upon the continuance 
of that legislative power. But the officers to 
be appointed for the north-western territory, 
after the adoption of the constitution, must 
necessarily be officers of the United States, and 
not of the Congress of the confederation; ap- 
pointed and commissioned by the president, and 
exercising powers derived from the United 
States under the constitution. 

" Such was the relation between the United 
States and the north-western territory, which 
all reflecting men must have foreseen would 
exist, when the government created by the 
constitution should supersede that of the con- 
federation ; that if the new government should 
be without power to govern this territory, it 
could not appoint and commission officers, and 
send them into the territory, to exercise there 
legislative, judicial, and executive power; and 
that this territory, which was even then fore- 
seen to be so important, both politically and 
financially, to all the existing states, must be 
left not only without the control of the general 
government, in respect to its future political 
relations to the rest of the states, but ab- 
solutely without any government, save what 
its inhabitants, acting in their primary capaci- 
ty, might from time to time create for them- 
selves. 

" But this north-western territory was not 
the only territory, the soil and jurisdiction 



whereof were then understood to have been 
ceded to the United States. The cession by 
South Carolina, made in August, 1787, was of 
'all the territory included within the River 
Mississippi, and a line beginning at that part 
of the said river which is intersected by the 
southern boundary of North Carolina, and con- 
tinuing along the said boundary line until it 
intersects the ridge or chain of mountains 
which divides the eastern from the western 
waters ; then to be continued along the top of 
said ridge of mountains, until it intersects a 
line to be drawn due west from the head of 
the southern branch of the Tugaloo River to 
the said mountains; and thence to run a due 
west course to the River Mississippi.' * * * 

" There is another consideration applicable to 
this part of the subject, and entitled, in my 
judgment, to great weight. 

" The Congi-ess of the confederation had as- 
sumed the power not only to dispose of the 
lands ceded, but to institute governments and 
make laws for their inhabitants. In other 
words, they had proceeded to act under the 
cession, which, as we have seen, was as well of 
the jurisdiction as of the soil. This ordinance 
was passed on the 13th of July, 1787. The 
convention for framing the constitution was 
then in session at Philadelphia. The proof is 
direct and decisive, that it was known to the 
convention. It is equally clear that it was 
admitted and understood not to be within the 
legitimate powers of the confederation to pass 
this ordinance. (Jefferson's Works, vol. ix pp. 
251, 276 ; Federalist, Nos. 38, 43.) 

" The importance of conferring on the new 
government regular powers commensurate with 
the objects to be attained, and thus avoiding 
the alternative of a failure to execute the 
trust assumed by the acceptance of the cessions 
made and expected, or its execution by usurpa- 
tion, could scarcely fail to be perceived. That 
it was in fact perceived, is clearly shown by the 
Federalist, (No. 38,) where this very argument 



690 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



is made use of in commendation of the con- 
stitution. 

" Keeping these facts in view, it may confi- 
dently be asserted that there is very strong 
reason to believe, before we examine the con- 
stitution itself, that the necessity for a compe- 
tent grant of power to hold, dispose of, and 
govern territory, ceded and expected to be 
ceded, could not have escaped the attention of 
those who framed or adopted the constitution ; 
and that if it did not escape their attention, it 
could not fail to be adequately provided for. 

" Any other conclusion would involve the as- 
sumption that a subject of the gravest national 
concern, respecting which the small states felt 
so much jealousy that it had been almost an 
insurmountable obstacle to the formation of 
the confederation, and as to which all the states 
had deep pecuniary and political interests, and 
which had been so recently and constantly agi- 
tated, was nevertheless overlooked ; or that 
such a subject was not overlooked, but design- 
edly left unprovided for, though it was mani- 
festly a subject of common concern, which be- 
longed to the care of the general government, 
and adequate provision for which could not fail 
to be deemed necessary and proper. 

" The admission of new states, to be framed 
out of the ceded territory, early attracted the 
attention of the convention. Among the reso- 
lutions introduced by Mr. Randolph, on the 
29th of May, was one on this subject, (Res. No. 
10, 5 Elliot, 128,) which, having been affirmed 
in committee of the whole, on the 5th of June, 
(5 Elliot, 156,) and reported to the convention 
on the 13th of June, (5 Elliot, 190,) was re- 
ferred to the committee of detail, to prepare 
the constitution, on the 26th of July, (5 Elliot, 
376.) This committee reported an article for 
the admission of new states 'lawfully consti- 
tuted or established.' Nothing was said con- 
cerning the power of Congress to prepare or 
form such states. This omission struck Mr. 
Madison, who, on the 18th of August, (5 Elliot, 



439,) moved for the insertion of power to dis- 
pose of the unappropriated lands of the United 
States, and to institute temporary governments 
for new states arising therein. 

" On the 29th of August, (5 EUiot, 492,) the 
report of the committee was taken up, and 
after debate, which exhibited great diversity of 
views concerning the proper mode of providing 
for the subject, arising out of the supposed 
diversity of interests of the large and small 
states, and between those which had and those 
which had not unsettled territory, but no differ- 
ence of opinion respecting the propriety and 
necessity of some adequate provision for the 
subject, Gouverneur Morris moved the clause as 
it stands in the constitution. This met with 
general approbation, and was at once adopted. 
The whole section is as follows : — 

"'New states may be admitted by the Con- 
gress into this Union ; but no new state shall 
be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of 
any other state, nor any state be formed by 
the junction of two or more states, or parts 
of states, without the consent of the legisla- 
tures of the states concerned, as well as of 
Congress. 

" ' The Congress shall have power to dispose 
of and make all needful rules and regulations 
respecting the territory or other property be- 
longing to the United States; and nothing in 
this constitution shall be so construed as to 
prejudice any claims of the United States or 
any particular state.' :!: * * 

" It is said this provision has no application 
to any territory save that then belonging to the 
United States. I have already shown that, 
when the constitution was framed, a confident 
expectation was entertained, which was speedily 
realized, that North Carolina and Georgia would 
cede their claims to that great territory which 
lay west of those states. No doubt has been 
suggested that the first clause of this same arti- 
cle, which enabled Congress to admit new 
states, refers to and includes new states to be 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



691 



formed out of this territory, expected to be | 
thereafter ceded by North Carolina and Geor- 
gia, as well as new states to be formed out of 
territory north-west of the Ohio, which then 
had been ceded by Virginia. It must have 
been seen, therefore, that the same necessity 
would exist for an authority to dispose of and 
make all needful regulations respecting this 
territory, when ceded, as existed for a like 
authority respecting territory which had been 
ceded. 

" No reason has been suggested why any re- 
luctance should have been felt, by the framers 
of the constitution, to apply this provision to 
all the territory which might belong to the 
United States, or why any distinction should 
have been made, founded on the accidental 
circumstance of the dates of the cessions — a 
circumstance in no way material as respects 
the necessity for rules and regulations, or the 
propriety of conferring on the Congress power 
to make them. And if we look at the course 
of the debates in the convention on this arti- 
cle, we shall find that the then unceded lands, 
so far from having been left out of view in 
adopting this article, constituted, in the minds 
of members, a subject of even paramount im- 
portance. 

"Again, in what an extraordinary position 
would the limitation of this clause to territory 
then belonging to the United States place the 
territory which lay within the chartered limits 
of North Carolina and Georgia ! The title to 
that territory was then claimed by those states, 
and by the United States ; their respective 
claims are purposely left unsettled by the ex- 
press words of this clause ; and when cessions 
were made by those states, they were merely 
of their claims to this territory, the United 
States neither admitting nor denying the valid- 
ity of those claims ; so that it was impossible 
then, and has ever since remained impossible, 
to know whether this territory did or did not 
then belong to the United States ; and, conse- 



quently, to know whether it was within or 
without the authority conferred by this clause, 
to dispose of and make rules and regulations 
respecting the territory of the United States. 
This attributes to the eminent men who acted 
on this subject a want of ability and forecast, 
or a want of attention to the known facts upon 
which they were acting, in which I cannot 
concur. 

" There is not, in my judgment, any thing in 
the language, the history, or the subject-matter 
of this article, which restricts its operation to 
territory owned by the United States when the 
constitution was adopted. 

" But it is also insisted that provisions of the 
constitution respecting |,erritory belonging to 
the United States do not apply to territory ac- 
quired by treaty from a foreign nation. This 
objection must rest upon the position that the 
constitution did not authorize the federal gov- 
ernment to acquire foreign territory, and con- 
sequently has made no provision for its govern- 
ment when acquired ; or, that though the ac- 
quisition .of foreign territory was contemplated 
by the constitution, its provisions concerning 
the admission of new states, and the making 
of all needful rules and regulations respecting 
territory belonging to the United States, were 
not designed to be applicable to territory ac- 
quired from foreign nations. 

" It is undoubtedly true, that at the date of 
the treaty of 1803, between the United States 
and France, for the cession of Louisiana, it was 
made a question, whether the constitution had 
conferred on the executive department of the 
government of the United States power to ac- 
quire foreign territory by a treaty. 

" There is evidence that very grave doubts 
were then entertained concerning the existence 
of this power. But that there was then a set- 
tled opinion in the executive and legislative 
branches of the government, that this power 
did not exist, cannot be admitted, without at 
the same time imputing to those who negotiated 



692 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



and ratified the treaty, and passed the laws 
necessai'j to carry it into execution, a dehber- 
ate and known violation of their oaths to sup- 
port the constitution ; and whatever doubts 
may then have existed, the question must now 
be taken to have been settled. Four distinct 
acquisitions of foreign territory have been made 
by as many different treaties, under as many 
different administrations. Six states, formed on 
such territory, are now in the Union. Every 
branch of this government, during a period of 
more than fifty years, has participated in these 
transactions. To question their validity now, 
is vain. As was said by Mr. Chief Justice Mar- 
shall, in the American Insurance Company vs. 
Canter, (1 Peters, 542J ' The constitution con- 
fers absolutely on the government of the Union 
the powers of making war and of making 
treaties; consequently, that government pos- 
sesses the power of acquiring territory, either 
by conquest or treaty.' (See Cerre ?»s. Pitot, 
6 Cr. 336.) And I add, it also possesses the 
power of governing it, when acquired, not by 
resorting to supposititious powers,, nowhere 
found described in the constitution, but express- 
ly granted in the authority to make all needful 
rules and regulations respecting the territory 
of the United States. 

" There was to be established by the consti- 
tution a frame of government, under which the 
people of the United States and their posterity 
were to continue indefinitely. To take one of 
its provisions, the language of which is broad 
enough to extend throughout the existence of 
the government, and embrace all territory be- 
longing to the United States throughout all 
time, and the purposes and objects of which 
apply to all territory of the United States, and 
narrow it down to territory belonging to the 
United States when the constitution was 
framed, while at the same time it is admitted 
that the constitution contemplated and author- 
ized the acquisition, from time to time, of other 
and foreign territory, seems to me to be an 



interpretation as inconsistent with the nature 
and purposes of the instrument, as it is with its 
language, and I can have no hesitation in re- 
jecting it. 

" I construe this clause, therefore, as if it had 
read. Congress shall have power to make all 
needful rules and regulations respecting those 
tracts of country, out of the limits of the sev- 
eral states, which the United States have ac- 
quired, or may hereafter acquire, by cession.s, 
as well of the jurisdiction as of the soil, so 
far as the soil may be the property of the 
party making the cession, at the time of mak- 
ing it. M: * * 

" But it is insisted, that whatever other powers 
Congress may have respecting the territory of 
the United States, the subject of negro slavery 
forms an exception. 
■ " The constitution declares that Congress 
shall have power to make ' all needful rules and 
regulations ' respecting the territory belonging 
to the United States. 

" The assertion is, though the constitution 
says all, it does not mean all — though it says 
all, without qualification, it means all except 
such as allow or prohibit slavery. It cannot 
be doubted that it is incumbent on those who 
would thus introduce an exception not found 
in the language of the instrument, to exhibit 
some solid and satisfactory reason, drawn from 
the subject-matter or the purposes and objects 
of the clause, the context, or from other pro- 
visions of the constitution, showing that the 
words employed in this clause are not to be 
understood according to their clear, plain, and 
natural signification. 

" The subject-matter is the territory of the 
United States out of the limits of every state, 
and consequently under the exclusive power 
of the people of the United States. ' Their will 
respecting it, manifested in the constitution, 
can be subject to no restriction. The purposes 
and objects of the clause were the enactment 
of laws concerning the disposal of the public 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



ma 



lands, and the temporary government of the 
settlers thereon until new states should be 
formed. It will not be questioned that, when 
the constitution of the United States was 
framed and adopted, the allowance and the 
prohibition of negro slavery were recognized 
subjects of municipal legislation ; every state 
had in some measure acted thereon ; and the 
only legislative act concerning the territory — 
the ordinance of 1787, which had then so re- 
cently been passed — contained a prohibition 
of slavery. The purpose and object of the 
clause being to enable Congress to provide a 
body of municipal law for the government of 
the settlers, the allowance or the prohibition 
of slavery comes within the known and recog- 
nized scope of that purpose and object. 

" There is nothing in the context which quali- 
fies the grant of power. The regulations must 
be ' respecting the territory.' An enactment 
that slavery may or may not exist there, is a 
regulation respecting the territory. Regula- 
tions must be needful ; but it is necessarily left 
to the legislative discretion to determine wheth- 
er a law be needful. No other clause of the 
constitution has been referred to at the bar, or 
has been seen by me, which imposes any re- 
striction or makes any exception concerning 
the power of Congress to allow or prohibit 
slavery in the territory belonging to the United 
States. 

" A practical construction, nearly contempo- 
raneous with the adoption of the constitution, 
and continued by repeated instances through a 
long series of years, may always influence, and 
in doubtful cases should determine, the judicial 
mind, on a question of the interpretation of 
the constitution. (Stuart vs. Laird, 1 Cranch, 
269; Martin vs. Hunter, 1 Wheat. 304; Co- 
hens vs. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264 ; Prigg vs. Penn- 
sylvania, 16 Pet. 621 ; Cooley vs. Port Wardens, 
12 How. 315.) 

" In this view, I proceed briefly to examine 
the practical construction placed on the clause 



now in question, so far as it respects the in- 
clusion therein of power to permit or prohibit 
slavery in the territories. 

"It has already been stated, that after the 
government of the United States was organized 
under the constitution, the temporary govern- 
ment of the territory north-west of the River 
Ohio could no longer exist, save under the 
powers conferred on Congress by the constitu- 
tion. Whatever legislative, judicial, or execu- 
tive authority should be exercised therein could 
be derived only from the people of the United 
States under the constitution. And, accord- 
ingly, an act was passed on the 7th day of 
August, 1789, (1 Stat, at Large, 50,) which re- 
cites, ' Whereas, in order that the ordinance of 
the United States in Congress assembled, for 
the government of the territory north-west of 
the River Ohio, may conthiKe to Imve full effect, 
it is required that certain provisions should be 
made, so as to adapt the same to the present 
constitution of the United States.' It then 
provides for the appointment by the president 
of all officers, who, by force of the ordinance, 
were to have been appointed by the Congress 
of the confederation, and their commission in 
the manner required by the constitution ; and 
empowers the secretary of the territory to ex- 
ercise the powers of the governor in case of the 
death or necessary absence of the latter. 

" Here is an explicit declaration of the will 
of the first Congress, of which fourteen mem- 
bers, inclufling Mr. Madison, had been mem- 
bers of the convention which framed the con 
stitution, that the ordinance, one article of 
which prohibited slavery, ' should continue to 
have full effect.' General Washington, who 
signed this bill, as president, was the president 
of that convention. 

« It does not appear to me to be important, 
in this connection, that that clause in the ordi- 
nance which prohibited slavery was one of a 
series of articles of what is therein termed a 
compact. The Congress of the confederation 



694 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



had no pojver to make such a compact, nor to 
act at all on the subject ; and after what had 
been so recently said by Mr. Madison on this 
subject, in the thirty-eighth number of the 
Federalist, I cannot suppose that he, or any 
others who voted for this bill, attributed any 
intrinsic eflfect to what was denominated in the 
ordinance a compact between ' the original 
states and the people and states in the new 
territory ; ' there being no new states then in 
existence in the territory, with whom a compact 
could be made, and the few scattered inhabit- 
ants, unorganized into a political body, not be- 
ing capable of becoming a party to a treaty, 
even if the Congress of the confederation had 
had power to make one touching the govern- 
ment of that territory. 

" I consider the passage of this law to have 
been an assertion by the first Congress of the 
power of the United States to prohibit slavery 
within this part of the territory of the United 
States; for it clearly shows that slavery was 
thereafter to be prohibited there, and it could 
be prohibited only by an exertion of the power 
of the United States, under the constitution; 
no other power being capable of operating 
within that territory after the constitution took 
effect. 

" On the 2d of April, 1790, (1 Stat, at Large, 
106,) the first Congress passed an act accept- 
ing a deed of cession by North Carolina of 
that territory afterwards erected into the state 
of Tennessee. The fourth express condition 
contained in this deed of cession, after provid- 
ing that the inhabitants of the territory shall 
be temporarily governed in the same manner 
as those beyond the Ohio, is followed by these 
words : ' Provided, always, that no regulations 
made or to be made by Congress shall tend to 
emancipate slaves.' 

" This provision shows that it was then un- 
derstood Congress might make a regulation 
prohibiting slavery, and that Congress might 



also/ allew it to continue to exist in the terri- 




tory ; and accordingly, when, a few days later, 
Congress passed the act of May 20th, 1790, (1 
Stat, at Large, 123,) for the government of the 
territory south of the River Ohio, it provided, 
' and the government of the territory south of 
the Ohio shall be similar to that now exercised 
in the territory north-west of the Ohio, except 
so far as is otherwise provided in the conditions 
expressed in an act of Congress of the present 
session, entitled " An act to accept a cession of 
the claims of the state of North Carolina to a 
certain district of western territory." ' Under 
the government thus established, slavery ex- 
isted until the territory became the state of 
Tennessee. 

" On the 7th of April, 1798,(1 Stat, at Large, 
649,) an act was passed to establish a govern- 
ment in the Mississippi territory in all respects 
like that exercised in the territory north-west 
of the Ohio, ' excepting and excluding the last 
article of the ordinance made for the govei'n- 
ment thereof by the late Congress, on the 1.3th 
day of July, 1787.' When the limits of this 
territory had been amicably settled with Geor- 
gia, and the latter ceded all its claim thereto, 
it was one stipulation in the compact of ces- 
sion, that the ordinance of July loth, 1787, 
' shall in all its parts extend to the territory 
contained in the present act of cession, that 
article only excepted which forbids slavery.' 
The government of this territory was subse- 
quently established and organized under the 
act of May 10th, 1800 ; but so much of the 
ordinance as prohibited slavery was not put in 
operation there. 

" Without going minutely into the details of 
each case, I will now give reference to two 
classes of acts, in one of which Congress has 
extended the ordinance of 1787, including the 
article prohibiting slavery, over different ter- 
ritories, and thus exerted its power to prohibit 
it ; in the other. Congress has erected govern- 
ments over territories acquired from France 
and Spain, in which slavery already existed, 



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HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



695 



but refused to apply to them that part of the 
government under the ordinance which ex- 
cluded slavery. 

■' Of the first class are the act of May 7th, 
1800, (2 Stat, at Large, 58,) for the government 
of the Indiana territory ; the act of January 
11th, 1805, (2 Stat, at Large, 309,) for the gov- 
ernment of Michigan territory ; the act of 
May 3d, 1809, (2 Stat, at Large, 514,) for the 
government of the Illinois territory ; the act 
of April 20th, 1836, (5 Stat, at Large, 10,) for 
the government of the territory of Wisconsin ; 
the act of June 12th, ]838, for the government 
of the territory of Iowa; the act of Augxist 
14th, 1848, for the government of the territory 
of Oregon. To these instances .should be 
added the act of March 6th, 1820, (3 Stat, at 
Large, 548,) prohibiting slavery in the territory 
acquired from France, being north-west of Mis- 
souri, and north of thirty-six degrees thirty 
minutes north latitude. 

" Of the second class, in which Congress re- 
fused to interfere with slavery already existing 
under the municipal law of France or Spain, 
and established governments by which .slavery 
was recognized and allowed, are the act of 
March 26th, 1804, (2 Stat, at Large, 283,) for 
the government of Louisiana; the act of 
March 2d, 1805, (2 Stat, at Large, 322,) for the 
government of the territory of Orleans ; the 
act of June 4th, 1812, (2 Stat, at Large, 743,) 
for the government of the Missouri territory ; 
the act of March 30th, 1822, (3 Stat, at Large, 
654,) for the government of the territory of 
Florida. Here are eight distinct instances, be- 
ginning with the first Congress, and coming 
down to the year 1848, in which Congress has 
excluded slavery from the territory of the 
United States ; and six distinct instances in 
which Congress organized governments of terri- 
tories by which slavery was recognized and 
continued, beginning also with the first Con- 
gress, and coming down to the year 1822. 
These acts were severally signed by seven 
88 



presidents of the United States, beginning with 
General Washington, and coming regularly 
down as far as Mr. John Quincy Adams, thus 
including all who were in public life when the 
constitution was adopted. 

"If the practical construction of the consti- 
tution contemporaneously with its going into 
^effect, by men intimately acquainted with its 
history from their personal participation in 
framing and adopting it, and continued by 
them through a long series of acts of the 
gravest importance, be entitled to weight in the 
judicial mind on a question of construction, it 
would seem to be difficult to resist the force of 
the acts above adverted to. * * * 

" Is it conceivable that the constitution has 
conferred the right on every citizen to become 
a resident on the territory of the United States 
with his slaves, and there to hold them as 
such, but has neither made nor provided for 
any municipal regulations which are essential 
to the existence of slavery ? 

" Is it not more rational to conclude that they 
who framed and adopted the constitution were 
aware that persons held to service under the 
laws of a state are property only to the extent 
and under the conditions fixed by those laws ; 
that they must cease to be available as prop- 
erty, when their owners voluntarily place them 
permanently within another jurisdiction, where 
no municipal laws on the subject of slavery 
exist; and that, being aware of these princi- 
ples, and having said nothing to interfere with 
or displace them, or to compel Congress to 
legislate in any particular manner on the sub- 
ject, and having empowered Congress to make 
all needful rules and regulations respecting the 
territory of the United States, it was their in- 
tention to leave to the discretion of Congress 
what regulations, if any, should be made con- 
cerning slavery therein? Moreover, if the 
right exists, what are its limits, and what are 
its conditions ? If citizens of the United States 
have the right to take their slaves to a territory, 



696 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



and hold them there as slaves, without regard 
to the laws of the territory, I suppose this right 
is not to be restricted to the citizens of slave- 
holding states. A citizen of a state which does 
not tolerate slavery can hardly be denied the 
power of doing the same thing. And what law 
of slavery does either take with him to- the 
territory ? If it be said to Tae those laws 
respecting slavery which existed in the par- 
ticular state from which each slave last came, 
what an anomaly is this ! Where else can we 
find, under the law of any civilized country, 
the power to introduce and permanently con- 
tinue diverse systems of foreign municipal law, 
for holding persons in slavery ? I say, not 
merely to introduce, but permanently to con- 
tinue, these anomalies. For the offspring of 
the female must be governed by the foreign 
municipal laws to which the mother was sub- 
ject ; and when any slave is sold, or passes by 
succession on the death of the owner, there 
must pass with him, by a species of subroga- 
tion, and as a kind of unknown jus in re, the 
foreign municipal laws which constituted, regu- 
lated, and preserved, the status of the slave 
before his exportation. Whatever theoretical 
importance may be now supposed to belong to 
the maintenance of such a right, I feel a per- 
fect conviction that it would, if ever tried, 
prove to be as impracticable in fact, as it is, in 
my judgment, monstrous in theory. 

" I consider the assumption which lies at the 
basis of this theory to be unsound ; not in its 
just sense, and when properly understood, but 
in the sense which has been attached to it. 
That assumption is, that the territory ceded by 
France was acquired for the equal benefit of 
all the citizens of the United States. I agree 
to the position. But it was acquired for their 
benefit in their collective, not their individual, 
capacities. It was acquired for their benefit as 
an organized political society, subsisting as 
' the people of the United States,' under the 
constitution of the United States; to be ad- 



ministered justly and impartially, and as nearly 
as possible for the equal benefit of every indi- 
vidual citizen, according to the best judgment 
and discretion of the Congress ; to whose 
power, as the legislature of the nation which 
acquired it, the people of the United States 
have committed its administration. Whatever 
individual claims may be founded on local cir- 
cumstances, or sectional differences of condition, 
cannot, in my opinion, be recognized in this 
court, without arrogating to the judicial branch 
of the government powers not committed to 
it ; and which, wnth all the unaffected respect I 
feel for it, when acting in its proper sphere, I 
do not think it fitted to wield. 

" Nor, in my judgment, will the position, that 
a prohibition to bring slaves into a territory 
deprives any one of his property without due 
process of law, bear examination. 

" It must be remembered that this restriction 
on the legislative power is not peculiar to the 
constitution of the United States ; it was bor- 
rowed from Magna Chaiia ; was brought to 
America by our ancestors, as part of their in- 
herited liberties, and has existed in all the 
states, usually in the very words of the Great 
Charter. It existed in every political commu- 
nity in America in 1787, when the ordinance 
prohibiting slavery north and west of the Ohio 
was passed. 

" And if a prohibition of slavery in a terri- 
tory in 1820 violated this principle of Magna 
ChaHa, the ordinance of 1787 also violated it; 
and what power had, I do not say the Congress 
of the confederation alone, but the legislature 
of Virginia, or the legislature of any or all the 
states of the confederacy, to consent to such a 
violation ? The people of the states had con- 
ferred no such power. I think I may at least 
say, if the Congress did then violate Magna 
ChaHa by the ordinance, no one discovered 
that violation. Besides, if the prohibition upon 
all persons, citizens as well as others, to bring 
slaves into a territory, and a declaration that 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



697 



if brought they shall be free, deprive citizens 
of their property without due process of law, 
■what shall we say of the legislation of many 
of the slaveholding states which have enacted 
the same prohibition ? As early as October, 
1778, a law was passed in Virginia, that there- 
after no slave should be imported into that 
commonwealth by sea or by land, and that 
every slave who should be imported should be- 
come free. A citizen of Virginia purchased in 
Maryland a slave who belonged to another 
citizen of Virginia, and removed with the slave 
to Virginia. The slave sued for her freedom 
and recovered it ; as may be seen in Wilson vs. 
Isabel, (5 Call's E. 425.) See also Hunter vs. 
Hulsher, (1 Leigh, 172;) and a similar law has 
been recognized as valid in Maryland, in Stew- 
art vs. Oaks, (5 Har. and John. 107.) I am not 
aware that such laws, though they exist in 
many states, were ever supposed to be in con- 
flict with the principle of Manila Charia incor- 
porated into the state constitutions. It was 
certainly understood by the convention which 
framed the constitution, and has been so under- 
stood ever since, that, under the power to 
regulate commerce. Congress could prohibit 
the importation of slaves ; and the exercise of 
the power was restrained till 1808. A citizen 
of the United States owns slaves in Cuba, and 
brings them to the United States, where they 
are set free by the legislation of Congress. 
Does this legislation deprive him of his property 
without due process of law ? If so, what be- 
comes of the laws prohibiting the slave trade ? 
If not, how can a similar regulation respecting 
a territory violate the fifth amendment of the 
constitution. * * * 

" But it is further insisted that the treaty of 
1803, between the United States and France, 
by which' this territory was acquired, has so 
restrained the constitutional powers of Con- 
gress, that it cannot, by law, prohibit the in- 
troduction of slavery into that part of this 
territory north and west of Missouri, and north 



of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes north lati- 
tude. 

" By a treaty with a foreign nation, the 
United States may rightfully stipulate that the 
Congress will or will not exercise its legisla- 
tive power in some particular manner, on some 
particular subject. Such promises, when made, 
should be voluntarily kept, with the most 
scrupulous good faith. But that a treaty with 
a foreign nation can deprive the Congress of 
any part of the legislative power conferred by 
the people, so that it no loriger can legislate 
as it was empowered by the constitution to do, 
I more than doubt. 

" The powers of the government do and must 
remain unimpaired. The responsibility of the 
government to a foreign nation, for the exer- 
cise of those powers, is quite another matter. 
That responsibility is to be met, and justified to 
the foreign nation, according to the require- 
ments of the rules of public law ; but never 
upon the assumption that the United States 
had parted with or restricted any power of 
acting according to its own free will, governed 
solely by its own appreciation of its duty. 

" The second section of the fourth article is, 
' This constitution, and the laws of the United 
States which shall be made in pursuance 
thereof, and all treaties made or which shall 
be made under the authority of the United 
States, shall be the supreme law of the land.' 
This has made treaties part of our municipal 
law ; but it has not assigned to them any par- 
ticular degree of authority, nor declared that 
laws so enacted shall be irrepealable. No 
supremacy is assigned to treaties over acts of 
Congress. That they are not perpetual, and 
must be in some way repealable, all will 
agree. 

'• If the president and the senate alone pos- 
sess the power to repeal or modify a law found 
in a treaty, inasmuch as they can change or 
abrogate one treaty onl}' by making another 
inconsistent with the first, the government of 



698 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



the United States could not act at all, to that 
effect, without the consent of some foreign gov- 
ernment. I do not consider, I am not aware 
it has ever been considered, that the constitu- 
tion has placed our country in this helpless 
condition. The action of Congress in repeal- 
ing the treaties with France by the act of July 
7th, 1798, (1 Stat, at Large, 578,) was in con- 
formity with these views. In the case of 
Taylor et al. vs. Morton, (2 Curtis's Cir. Ct. R. 
454,) I had occasion to consider this subject, 
and I adhere to the views there expressed. 

" If, therefore, it were admitted that the 
treaty between the United States and France 
did contain an express stipulation that the 
United States would not exclude slavery from 
so much of the ceded territory as is now in 
question, this court could not declare that an 
act of Congress excluding it was void by force 
of the treaty. Whether or no a case existed 
sufficient to justify a refusal to execute such 
a stipulation, would not be a judicial, but a 
political and legislative question, wholly be- 
yond the authority of this court to try and 
determine. It would belong to diplomacy and 
legislation, and not to the administration of 
existing laws. Such a stipulation in a treaty, 
to legislate or not to legislate in a particular 
way, has been repeatedly held in this court to 
address itself to the political or the legislative 
power, by whose action thereon this court is 
bound. (Foster vs. Nicholson, 2 Peters, 314 ; 
Garcia vs. Lee, 12 Peters, 519.) 

" But, in my judgment, this treaty contains 
no stipulation in any manner aflecting the ac- 
tion of the United States respecting the ter- 
ritory in question. Before examining the 
language of the treaty, it is material to bear 
in mind that the part of the ceded territory 
lying north of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes, 
and west and north of the present state of 
Missouri, was then a wilderness, uninhabited 
save by savages, whose possessory title had 
not then been extinguished. ' 



" It is impossible for me to conceive on what 
ground France could have advanced a claim, 
or could have desired to advance a claim, to 
restrain the United States from making any 
rules and regulations respecting this territoi'y 
which the United States might think fit to 
make ; and still less can I conceive of any 
reason which would have induced the United 
States to yield to such a claim. It was to be 
expected that France would desire to make 
the change of sovereignty and jurisdiction as 
little burdensome as possible to the then in- 
habitants of Louisiana, and might well exhibit 
even an anxious solicitude to protect their 
property and persons, and to secure to them 
and their posterity their religious and political 
rights ; and the United States, as a just govern- 
ment, might readily accede to all proper stipu- 
lations respecting those who were about to 
have their allegiance transferred. But what 
interest France could have in uninhabited terri- 
tory, which, in the language of the treaty, was 
to be transferred 'forever, and in full sov- 
ereignty,' to the United States, or how the 
United States could consent to allow a foreign 
nation to interfere in its purely internal affairs, 
in which that foreign nation had no concern 
whatever, is difficult for me to conjecture. In 
my judgment, this treaty contains nothing of 
the kind. 

" The third article is supposed to have a bear- 
ing on the question. It is as follows : ' The 
inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be in- 
corpoi'ated in the Union of the United States, 
and admitted as soon as possible, according to 
the principles of the federal constitution, to the 
enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, and 
immunities of citizens of the United States; 
and in the mean time they shall be maintained 
and protected in the enjoyment of their liberty, 
property, and the religion they profess.' 

" There are two views of this article, each of 
which, I think, decisively shows that it was 
not intended to restrain the Congress from 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



699 



excluding slavery from that part of the ceded 
territory then uninhabited. The first is, that, 
manifest!}^, its sole object was to protect indi- 
vidual rights of the then inhabitants of the 
territory. They are to be 'maintained and 
protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, 
property, and the religion they profess.' But 
this article does not secure to them the right 
to go upon the public domain ceded by the 
treaty, either with or without their slaves. 
The right or power of doing this did not exist 
before or at the time the treaty was made. 
The French and Spanish governments while 
they held the country, as well as the United 
States when they acquired it, always exercised 
the undoubted right of excluding inhabitants 
from the Indian country, and of determining 
when and on what conditions it should be 
opened to settlens. And a stipulation, that the 
then inhabitants of Louisiana should be pro- 
tected in their property, can have no reference 
to their use of that property, where they had 
no right, under the treaty, to go with it, save 
at the Avill of the United States. * * * 

" For these reasons, I am of opinion that so 
much of the several acts of Congress as pro- 
hibited slavery and involuntary servitude with- 
in that part of the territory of Wisconsin lying 
north of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes north 
latitude, and west of the Eiver Mississippi, were 
constitutional and valid laws. 

" I have expressed my opinion, and the reasons 
therefor, at far greater length than I could have 
wished, upon the different questions on which 
I have found it necessary to pass, to arrive at 
a judgment on the case at bar. These ques- 
tions are numerous, and the grave importance 
of some of them required me to exhibit fully 
the grounds of my opinion. I have touched 
no question which, in the view I have taken, 
it was not absolutely necessary for me to pass 
upon, to ascertain whether the judgment of the 
Circuit Court should stand or be reversed. I 
have avoided no question on which the validity 



of that judgment depends. To have done either 
more or less, would have been inconsistent with 
my views of my duty. 

" In my opinion, the judgment of the Circuit 
Court should be reversed, and the cause re- 
manded for a new trial." 

Among many reviews and strictures upon 
the Dred Scott decision, the " Examination of 
the Dred Scott Case," by the veteran states- 
man Thomas H. Benton, of Missouri, is worthy 
of note, because of Mr. Benton being a citizen 
of a slaveholding state, and long one of the 
leading members of the Democratic party, 
which, in all the recent contests, had adhered 
to the policy of the south, — but especially 
because he stood almost the sole connecting 
link between the last generation of great states- 
men and the present. In that review, all the 
questions then at issue in relation to slavery 
were discussed with the ability and earnestness 
which distinguished Colonel Benton. Of the 
opinion of the court against the constitution- 
ality of the Missouri Compromise Act, Colonel 
Benton writes thus : — 

"The Missouri compromise was a 'political 
enactment,' made by the political power, for 
reasons founded in national policy, enlarged 
and liberal, of which it was the proper judge ; 
and which was not to be reversed afterwards 
by judicial interpretation of words and phrases. 

"Doubtless the court was actuated by the 
most laudable motives in undertaking, while 
settling an individual controver.sy, to pass from 
the private rights of an individual to the pub- 
lic rights of the whole body of the people, 
and in endeavoring to settle, by a judicial de- 
cision, a political question which engrosses and 
distracts the country ; but the undertaking 
was beyond its competency, both legally and 
potentially. It had no right to decide ; no 
means to enforce the decision ; no machinery 
to carry it into effect; no penalties of fines or 
jails to enforce it; and the event has corre- 



700 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



sponded with these inabilities. Far from set- 
thng the question, the opinion itself has be- 
come a new question, more virulent than the 
former; has become the very watchword of 
parties ; has gone into party creeds and plat> 
forms, bringing the court itself into the polite 
ical field, and condemning all future appoint- 
ments of federal judges, and the elections of 
those who make the appointments, and of those 
who can multiply judges by creating new dis- 
tricts and circuits, to the test of these de- 
cisions. * * * 

" Those who suppose that there was no ob- 
ject in view in this abrogation of the Missouri 
compromise, but merely to make Kansas a 
slave state, are far behind the state of the facts, 
and can have had but little opportunity of 
knowing the intentions of the prime movers 
of that measure — those who ruled the council 
that commanded it. Certainly that was one 
of the objects ; but there were others far be- 
yond it, far transcending it in importance, and 
of which the establishment of Kansas as a 
slave state was only an introduction and a 
means of attainment. To form the slave states 
into a unit, for federal elections and legislation, 
by the revival of the slavery question, was one 
object, counting upon the federal patronage to 
gain as much help from the free states as 
would give the slave states the majority. Vast 
acquisitions of free territory to the southward, 
to be made slave, (besides Cuba,) was another 
object ; and for this purpose, the principles of 
the Kansas-Nebraska bill were doubly con- 
trived ; first, to carry slavej'y into these free 
territories by the constitution ; next, to estab- 
lish it by the inhabitants of the states, enough 
southern people going in to dominate over the 
feeble and ignorant natives. Separation of the 
slave states, or domination over the free states, 
driving out of the Union the north Atlantic 
states, was to be the consequence of this con- 
solidation of the slave states, and vast acqui- 
sition of slave territory. * * * 



" The citizens of all the states, free and slave, 
are precisely equal in their cajjacity to carry 
their property with them into territories. Each 
may carry whatever is property by the laws of 
nature ; neither can carry that which is only 
property by statute law ; and the reason is, be- 
cause he cannot carry with him the law which 
makes it property. Either may carry the 
thing which is the subject of this local pi-op- 
erty, but neither can carry the law which 
makes it so. The Virginian may carry his 
man slave ; but he cannot carry the Virginian 
law which makes him a slave. The citizen of 
Massachusetts may carry the pile of money 
which, under a state law, constitutes a bank ; 
but he cannot carry the law or charter which 
makes it a bank ; and his treasure is only a 
pile of money ; and besides being impossible, 
it would be absui'd, and confusion confounded, 
to be otherwise. For, if the citizen of one 
state might carry his slave state law with him 
into a territory, the citizens of every other 
slave state might do the same ; and then what 
Babylonish confusion, not merely of tongues, 
but of laws, would be found there ! Fifteen 
different codes, as the slave sta tcs now number, 
and more to come. For every slave state has 
a servile code of its own, differing from others 
in some respects — - and in some radically ; as 
much so as land, in the eye of the law, differs 
from cattle. * * * 

"Mr. Calhoun (1848) declared, 'I deny that 
the laws of Mexico can have the effect attrib- 
uted to them, ("that of keeping slavery out of 
New Mexico and California.) As soon as the 
treaty between the two countries is ratified, 
the sovereignty and authority of Mexico in 
the territory acquired by it becomes extinct, 
and that of the United States is substituted in 
its place, conveying the constitution, with its 
overriding control over all the laws and insti- 
tutions of Mexico inconsistent with it.' This is 
the declared effect of the transmigration of 
the constitution to free territory by the author 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



701 



of the doctrine ; and great is the extent of 
country, either acquired or to be acquired, in 
which the doctrine is to have application. All 
New Mexico and California, at the time it was 
broached, — all the territories now held, wher- 
ever situated, and as much as can be added to 
them, — these additions have ali-eady been con- 
«iderable, and vast and varied accessions are 
still expected. Arizona has been acquired ; 
fifty millions were offered to Mexico for her 
northern half, to include Monterey and Saltillo ; 
a vast sum is now offered for Sonora and Sina- 
loa, down to Guyamas ; Tehuantepec, Nicara- 
gua, Panama, Darien, the Spanish part of San 
Domingo, Cuba, with islands on both sides of 
the tropical continent. Nor do we stop at the 
two Americas, their coasts and islands, ex- 
tensive as they are ; but circumvolving the 
terraqueous globe, we look wistfully at the 
Sandwich Islands, and on some gem in the 
Polynesian group, and, plunging to the an- 
tipodes, pounce down upon Formosa, in the 
Chinese Sea. Such were the schemes of the 
last administration, and must continue, if its 
policy should continue. Over all these prov- 
inces, isthmuses, islands, and ports, now free, 
our constitution must spread, (if we acquire 
them, and the decision of the Supreme Court 
stands,) overriding and overruling anti-slavery 
law in their respective limits, and planting 
African slavery in its place, beyond the power 
of Congress or the people there to prevent it." 
From Mr. Benton's able and interesting dis- 
cussion of the various questions raised in this 
opinion of the Supreme Court further extracts 
might be made, to show the reasons and the 
purposes which were underlying that opinion. 
From his long experience, keen observation, 
and knowledge of human nature, and from his 
position in the political world, as well as his 
geographical position, a representative of a 
border slave state, none better than Mr. Benton 
could know the schemes and objects for the 
accomplishment of which the opinion of the 



court was but one means. More recent events 
show that he was not wrong in his judgment, 
though he perhaps failed to see to what that 
malign power would resort, when its political 
schemes should fail, and the government should 
pass beyond its absolute control. In an appen- 
dix to the " Examination," Mr. Benton reviews 
that portion of President Pierce's last annual 
message, which is given in previous pages. In 
concluding he thus sums up the progress and 
purposes of the political slave power as de- 
veloped at that time : — 

" Up to Mr. Pierce's administration the plan 
had been defensive — that is to say, to make 
the secession of the south a measure of self- 
defence against the abolition encroachments, 
aggressions, and crusades of the north : in the 
time of Mr. Pierce, the plan became offensive 
— that is to say, to commence the expansion 
of slavery, and the acquisition of territory to 
spread it over, so as to overpower the north 
with new slave states, and drive them out of 
the Union. In this change of tactics originated 
the abrogation of the Missouri compromise ; the 
attempt to purchase one half of Mexico, and 
the actual purchase of a large part; the design 
to take Cuba; the encouragement to Kinney 
and to Walker in Central America ; the quar- 
rels with Great Britain, for outlandish coasts 
and islands; the designs upon the Tehuante- 
pec, the Nicaragua, the Panama, and the Da- 
rien routes ; and the scheme to get a foothold 
in the Island of San Domingo. The rising in 
the free states in consequence of the abroga- 
tion of the Missouri compromise checked these 
schemes, and limited the success of the dis- 
unionists to the revival of the agitation which 
enables them to wield the south against the 
north in all the federal elections and federal 
legislation. Accidents and events have given 
this party a strange preeminence. Under 
Jackson's administration, proclaimed for trea- 
son ; since, at the head of the government, and 
of the Democratic party. The death of Har- 



702 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



rison, and the accession of Tyler, was their first 
great lift ; the election of Mr. Pierce was their 
culminating point. It not only gave them the 
government, but power to pass themselves for 
the Union party and for Democrats, and to 
stigmatize all who refuse to go with them as 
disunionists and abolitionists. And to keep up 
this classification is the object of the eleven 
pages of the message which calls for this re- 
view — unhappily, assisted in that object by 
the conduct of a few real abolitionists, (not five 
per centum of the population of the free 
states,) but made to stand in the eyes of the 
south for the whole." 

The rapid development of the disunion 
schemes under the next administration, when 
it was found that neither by force nor fraud 
could Kansas be secured as a slave state, and 
the power of the government was likely to 



pass into the hands of the more populous and 
numerous free states, Mr. Benton did not live 
to see.* But the results show that he did not 
err much in his judgment of the political lead- 
ers of the south. 



* Mr. Benton died at Washington, April 10, 1858, aged 
seventy-six years. He was born at Hillsborough, North Car-' 
olina, and at an early age emigrated to Tennessee, where he 
studied law, and was elected to the state legislature. In 1814 
he removed to Missouri, where he soon acquired some distinction, 
and when that territory was admitted to the Union as a state, in 
1820, he was elected United States senator. He remained in the 
senate until 1851 — a period of thirty years. He afterwards 
served one term in the house of representatives, and then retired 
from public life. He was a man of the greatest industry aud 
perseverance, and long held a high rank among the members of 
the Democratic party, but in the latter part of his hfe he did not 
wholly agree with the policy of the party. He has left a valuable 
legacy to his countrymen in his works, " Thirty Years in the 
Senate," and the " Abridgment of the Debates in Congress." 
He had just completed the latter work when he died. 



OkviiLt^ \ \>- 



BIOGRAPHIES OF THE SIGNERS 



OF THE 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 



PREFACE 



The memory of the illustrious men, to whose patriotism and firmness the American 
people owe their national independence, should ever be cherished with respect and admira- 
tion. A knowledge of their personal histories may serve to keep alive the gratitude which 
is due to them, and to preserve a just appreciation of their action in founding a new 
Republic. The following Biographical Sketches are compiled from authentic sources, and aim 
only at a simple narrative of the public services of these patriots and statesmen. They 
show of what manner of men the Continental Congress was composed, and how many of 
them were prominent citizens of their respective colonies, whose services in the cause of 
their country were not confined to the memorable act of signing the Declaration. As 
imassuming sketches of eventful lives, they are submitted to the kind consideration of the 

reader. 

Editor. 



SIGNERS 



OF 



THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, 



WEyW HAMPSHIKE. 

JOSIAH BARTLETT, 
WILLIAM WHIPPLE, 
MATTHEW THORNTON. 

MASSACHUSETTS. 

JOHN HANCOCK, 
JOHN ADAMS, 
SAMUEL ADAMS, 
ROBERT TREAT PAINE, 
ELBRIDGE GERRY. 

KHODE ISLAND. 

STEPHEN HOPKINS, 
WILLIAM ELLERY. 

OOHlTECTICirT. 

ROGER SHERMAN, 
SAMUEL HUNTINGTON, 
WILLIAM WILLIAMS, 
OLIVER WOLCOTT. 

liTE-W TOHK. 

WILLIAM FLOYD, 
PHILIP LIVINGSTON, 
FRANCIS LEWIS, 
LEWIS MORRIS. 



ITE'W JERSEY. 

RICHARD STOCKTON, 
JOHN WITHERSPOON, 
FRANCIS HOPKINSON, 
JOHN HART, 
ABRAHAM CLARK. 

PENIJ-SYLVAIirtA. 

ROBERT MORRIS, 
BENJAMIN RUSH, 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, 
JOHN MORTON, 
GEORGE CLYMER, 
JAMES SMITH, 
GEORGE TAYLOR, 
JAMES WILSON, 
GEORGE ROSS. 

DELA-WAKE. 

C^SAR RODNEY, 
GEORGE READ. 
THOMAS MCKEAN. 

MAEYLAKTD. 

SAMUEL CHASE, 
THOMAS STONE, 
WILLIAM PACA, 
CHARLES CARROLL, 

of Carrollton. 



VrRGLNXa.. 

GEORGE WYTHE, 
RICHARD HENRY LEE, 
THOMAS JEFFERSON, 
BENJAMIN HARRISON, 
THOMAS NELSON, JR., 
FRANCIS LIGHTFOOT LEE, 
CARTER BRAXTON. 

NORTH CAROLINA. 

WILLIAM HOOPER, 
JOSEPH HEWES, 

JOHN PENN. 

SOtTTH CAROLINA. 

EDWARD RUTLEDGE, 
THOMAS HAYWARD, JR., 
THOMAS LYNCH, JR., 
ARTHUR MIDDLETON. 

GEORGIA. 

BUTTON GWINNETT, 
LYMAN HALL, 
GEORGE WALTON. 



BIOGRAPHIES OF THE SIGNERS 



OF THE 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 



JOSIAH BARTLETT. 

NEW HAMPSHIRE. 

JosiAH Bartlett was born in Amesbury, Mas- 
sachusetts, in November, 1729. He was unable 
to enjoy the advantages to be derived from a 
collegiate education, but improved every oppor- 
tunity, and was able to obtain some knowledge 
of Greek and Latin. He chose the medical 
profession as a means of subsistence, and began 
the study of medicine at the age of sixteen. 
He possessed an active, energetic mind, which 
made up in part for the want of books, from 
which he had few opportunities of acquiring 
knowledge, and he was able to pass an exami- 
nation with honor. 

He commenced practising as a physician at 
Kingston, in 1750, where he soon established a 
reputation by his treatment with Peruvian bark 
in 1754, and amassed a competency. Bai'tlett 
received several appointments from the royal 
governor, John Wentworth, by whom he was 
highly esteemed ; among them was the appoint- 
ment to the command of a regiment of militia. 
In 1765 he was elected a member of the Pro- 
vincial Legislature of New Hampshire. When 
the Stamp Act was before the British Parlia- 
ment, he became a leader of the opposing 
party ; but his patriotism was inflexible, though 
he was offered extravagant bribes by Went- 
worth. In 1776 he was appointed a member 



of the Committee of Safety for his state, which 
was dissolved by the governor, and reassembled 
under the lead of Bartlett. He was soon after 
chosen a member of the Continental Congress, 
and in 1775 was deprived of his appoint- 
ments by the governor ; but on assumption of 
government by the Provincial Congi-ess, in the 
absence of Wentworth, he was reappointed. 
He was reelected a delegate to the Continental 
Congress both in 1775 and 1776, and was one 
of the committee to form a plan for the con- 
federation of the states. He w^as a warm sup- 
porter of the Declaration of Independence, 
and was the first of the members of Congress 
to append his signature. He accompanied 
Stark to Bennington in 1777. In 1779 he was 
appointed chief justice of the Court of Common 
Pleas, in 1784 justice of the Supreme Court, 
and chief justice in 1788. 

Dr. Bartlett took an active part in the Conven- 
tion called to adopt the Constitution in 1788, 
and was elected a member of the first Senate 
convened under it in the city of New York ; but 
he declined the honor, and did not take his 
seat. He was chosen president of the state in 
I 1790, which office he continued to hold till 
i 1793, when he was elected the first governor 
' of the state under the Constitution. Through 
his exertions a medical society was formed of 
which he was chosen president. In all his 
various offices of trust and honor he faithfully 



SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 



performed his duties. He held the ofl&ce of 
governor for one year, when he retired to pri- 
vate life, which he was not permitted to enjoy 
long, as he died on the 19th of May, 1795, in 
the sixty-sixth year of his age. 



WILLIAM WHIPPLE. 

NEW HAMPSHIRE. 

William Whipple was born in 1730, at Kit- 
tery. This town at the time of his birth was 
in New Hampshire, but has since formed a 
Tpart of Maine. 

His early advantages were only such as 
the common school of the town could afford, 
which he quitted, when yet a mere lad, to fol- 
low the sea. After having engaged in this 
pursuit for several years, by which he accumu- 
lated a considerable sum of money, he com- 
menced business with one of his brothers at 
Portsmouth. 

In January, 1775, he was elected as repre- 
sentative to the Provincial Consjjress of New 
Hampshire, appointed for the purpose of choos- 
ing delegates to the Continental Congress, of 
which latter Convention he was made a mem- 
ber the next year. 

He continued in Congress until September, 
1777, when, having been commissioned a brig- 
adier-general, he joined Gates's army to repel 
Burgoyne. He took part in the battle of Sara- 
toga, and was among those who arranged the 
terms of capitulation, and conducted the pris- 
oners to Cambridge and Charlestown. In 1778 
he joined Sullivan in his expedition against the 
British in Rhode Island, which failed through 
the neglect of Count d'Estaing to sustain Sulli- 
van in his attack on Newport. 

In 1782 he was appointed the superintendent 
of finance for his state — an office requiring 
great faithfulness and integrity in its incum- 

(«) 



bent. During the same year he was also 
appointed to settle the dispute between Penn- 
sylvania and Connecticut concerning the own- 
ership of the Wyoming valley. 

In 1783 Jie was constitutetl a judge of the 
Superior Court, which office he retained until 
November, 1785, when a violent attack of pal- 
pitation of the heart, from which he never 
recovered, caused him to relinquish it. He 
died on the 28th of that month, aged fifty-five. 



MATTHEW THORNTON. 

new HAMPSHIRE. 

Matthew Thornton was born in Ireland, in 
1714, and was brought to this country, when 
quite 3^oung, by his father, who first settled at 
Wiscasset, in Maine, but subsequently moved 
to Worcester, Massachusetts, where he educated 
his son for one of the learned professions. 
Matthew chose that of medicine, and upon the 
completion of his studies settled in London- 
derry, New Hampshire, where he soon became 
eminent as a physician. 

He was aj)pointed surgeon, in 1745, to the 
troops of his state, and accompanied them in 
the expedition against Louisburg, and on his 
return was appointed a colonel of militia, and 
also justice of peace. 

He was chosen speaker of the House when 
the Provisional Congress was organized, and in 
September of the same year, 1776, was ap- 
pointed delegate to the Continental Congress. 
Not being present when the vote on the adop- 
tion of the Declaration of Independence was 
taken, the indulgence was granted him, as 
well as several others who approved the meas- 
ure, of subsequently signing their names to it. 

Previous to his election to the Congress, 
he received the appointment of judge of the 
Superior Court, which position he resigned in 



JOHN HANCOCK. 



1782. He died in Newburyport, on the twenty- 
fourth of June, 1803, while on a visit to his 
daughters. 



JOHN HANCOCK. 



MASSACHUSETTS. 



The illustrious patriot John Hancock, who 
enjoyed in his time one of the highest places in 
the consideration of the American communitj^, 
was born in Quincy, January 12, 1737. Both 
father and grandfather of Hancock were clergy- 
men, and men of very considerable reputation. 
His father dying during his infancy, he was 
left to the care of a paternal uncle, who, being 
wealth}', and kindly disposed towards him, sent 
him to Harvard University, and spared neither 
expense nor exertion to secure his comfort and 
promotion. He graduated at Harvard in the 
year 1754, at the early age of seventeen, and 
during the six years subsequent was engaged 
most of his time as a clerk in the counting 
house of hi? uncle, who was then at the height 
of commercial prosperity. 

In 1760 Hancock visited the mother country, 
and during that period was present at the 
funeral of George 11., and the coronation of 
his successor, the principles and policy of 
whose administration caused the conflict which 
subsequently occurred. After his return to 
his own country in 1764, by the decease of his 
uncle, he was placed, at the age of twenty- 
seven, in possession of a munificent fortune, 
reputed to have been the largest property held 
by any individual in the province, and proba- 
bly but little inferior to any other American 
estate. 

Shortly after Mr. Hancock's return from Eng- 
land, he was elected one of the selectmen of 
Boston; an office he continued to hold for sev- 
eral years. In 1766 he was chosen, with James 
Otis, Samuel Adams, and Thomas Gushing, a 



representative to the General Court of the prov- 
ince. In this assembly, although only thirty 
years of age, he was placed immediately among 
the foremost of the leading and workino- men, 
being nominated to most of the important com- 
mittees of that body, and upon more than one 
occasion of great and general interest, appoint- 
ed to the chairmanship over associates of high 
reputation. He is said to have been some- 
what indebted for his early advancement to 
the kindly offices of Samuel Adams, a gentle- 
man with whom he afterwards differed in politi- 
cal sentiment on several occasions, but it is 
believed not to the disparagement of the mutual 
respect of the parties. 

In the impositions attempted by the British 
government, in regard to the importation of 
foreign merchandise into this country, Mr. 
Hancock took an early and strong interest, and 
was one of the most active in establishina; those 
memorable associations of the citizens for the 
prevention of the introduction and circulation 
of English goods, which so materially aided, not 
only in warding off" some of the encroachments 
of tj-ranny, but in awakening the attention of 
the American people to a discussion and decis- 
ion on the whole subject of monarchical and 
ministerial abuse. In the course of this con- 
troversy, his name was brought particularly 
before the public, on account of the seizure of 
one of his vessels by the custom-house officers, 
under the pretext of its being taken in contra- 
vention of the revenue laws. It was removed 
by the officers under the protection of the guns 
of a British vessel then in the harbor. The 
citizen.s, however, became exasperated at this 
proceeding, and assembling in great numbers, 
pursued them, beat them with clubs, and drove 
them aboard their vessels. The collector's boat 
was then burned bj'^ the mob, amidst loud re- 
joicing, and the houses of some of the most 
odious of the supporters of " divine right "j, 
razed, in the first transport of popular fury, to 

m 



SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 



the ground. This affair, apparently trifling, 
has been considered one of the principal of 
those immediate original causes which has- 
tened the great dispute between the mother 
country and the provinces to a crisis. 

Another incident, of still greater interest, 
tending to the same effect, was the celebrated 
massacre of the Boston citizens, by the British 
troops, on the 5th of March, 1770. Mr. Han- 
cock, with several others, was, the day after 
this affair, appointed by an assembly of the 
citizens to wait on the royal governor, and pro- 
cure the removal of the troops from the town, 
which they succeeded in doing. In 1774 Han- 
cock was called on to deliver an oration on 
the anniversary of the massacre, over the re- 
mains of the murdered victims of tyranny. 
This production, which increased the author's 
already established reputation, is still preserved, 
and is justly considered, though not remarka- 
ble for any thing like a learned or classic taste, ! 
a fine specimen of indignant patriotism, ex- 
pressed in the strong language of a fearless 
freeman. 

About this time, having declined accepting 
the appointment of councillor by the governor, 
he was removed by General Gage from the 
captaincy of the Cadets, or Governor's Guard. 
The company disbanded, however, and the 
whole affair added to his popularity with every 
class of the people. Several years before, he 
had shown a similar spirit when offered a mili- 
tary commission by Governor Bernard, at that 
time tearing up the paper in presence of his 
fellow-citizens. 

In October, 1774, Hancock, but thirty- 
seven years of age, was elected president of 
the Massachusetts Provincial Convention by a 
unanimous vote. The following year, the first 
of the revolution, found him at the height of 
his political distinction, in the honorable posi- 
tion of president of the Continental Congress. 
When the Declaration of Independence was 



adopted, as president of the Congress he was 
the first to affix his signature in that bold hand 
which will alwaj's attract the attention of those 
who behold that immortal instrument. He 
held the presidency till October, 1777, a period 
of two years and a half, during which the con- 
stant application he gave to business had ren- 
dered his health somewhat delicate. On this 
account he resigned his office, and retired to 
his native province, accompanied by the most 
gratifying testimonials of the universal respect 
of his countrymen. 

He was not permitted, however, to remain 
long in the quiet of private life ; for a conven- 
tion being appointed to frame a Constitution 
for the State of Massachusetts, he was chosen 
one of its members, and took an active part 
in the deliberations of that important occasion. 
In 1780 he was chosen governor, being the first 
under the new Constitution. He was reelected 
to this office annually until 1785, when he re- 
tired in ill health. In 1787 he was again called 
to the gubernatoi'ial dignity, and continued to 
fill that station very acceptably, till his death, 
which occurred October 8, 1793, in the fifty- 
sixth year of his age. 

The reputation gained by John Hancock 
among his own countrymen at the time the 
revolution broke out, cannot better be shown 
than by the importance attached to his patriot 
ism by the enemy, who perhaps had a par- 
ticular ill will against him, on account of his 
signature, as president of the Continental Con- 
gress, to the Declaration of Independence. The 
preceding year, however, he was honored by 
being pointed out, in connection with Samuel 
Adams, as an exception to the pardon offered 
by the royal governor of Massachusetts, in the 
proclamation he issued after the battle of 
Bunker Hill, declaring the province in a state 
of rebellion. 

No individual probably contributed as much 
towards the adoption of the Federal Constitu- 



(8) 



JOHN HANCOCK. — SAMUEL ADAMS. 



tion by the State of Massachusetts, in 1788, as 
John Hancock. It was generally thought, when 
he submitted that instrument to the considera- 
tion of the legislature, that, should this state 
refuse to ratify it, its passage would certainly 
be lost in the other twelve. A convention 
assembled in Boston to consider the question 
of acceptance, comprising all the distinguished 
talent of the state, and Hancock was chosen 
president. It is said that, through his influ- 
ence, exerted with his utmost discretion and 
energy at this juncture, particularly in pressing 
sundry amendments which obviated the objec- 
tionable features of the proposed Constitution, 
the scale was turned in favor of its adoption. 
This event was celebrated in Boston with great 
rejoicing, and hailed with satisfaction through- 
out the country. 

The funeral ceremonies over the remains of 
Governor Hancock were observed in a manner 
which plainly indicated the hold he continued 
to have on the popular good will till the last. 
His body lay in state for several days at his 
residence, and its interment was conducted with 
great ceremony. The disease from which the 
governor had suffered most in his latter years 
was the gout ; but his death was occasioned not 
more by this than by the fatigue caused by his 
arduous and responsible public duties, which 
seemed to occupy his whole time and thought. 
~Nj Governor Hancock left no lineal descendant. 
He had married, about twenty years before his 
death, Miss Quincy, of Boston, a lady be- 
longing to one of the most distinguished fami- 
lies of New England, and by this connection 
had one son ; but this child died at an early 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 

MASSACHUSETTS. 

Samuel Adams, one of the leading actors in 
the revolution, was born in Boston, September 

2 



27, 1722, of a family long settled there. His 
grandfather was a grandson of Henry Adams, 
the same emigrant from England to Massachu- 
setts from whom John Adams, second President 
of the United States, traced his descent. He 
was prepared for college, and entered Cambridge 
in 1736 ; but owing to the misfortunes of his 
father, who was engaged in trade, and who was 
nearly ruined by connection with a bank- 
ing speculation known as the "manufactory 
scheme," he was obliged to leave before com- 
pleting his course, though his diligence had 
been so great that the faculty rewarded him 
with a bachelor's degree. These family mis- 
fortunes were followed by *he death of his 
father, and Adams was compelled to relinquish 
his intention of entering the clerical profes- 
sion, and attempt instead to continue his father's 
mercantile business. He was unsuited to the 
occupation, however, and had but indifferent 
success. 

In efforts in behalf of the unfortunate spec- 
ulators in the " manufactory scheme," Samuel 
Adams found an early introduction to politics, 
which finally became the chief interest and 
principal employment of his life. The act of 
Parliament which prohibited the formation of 
unincorporated joint-stock companies with more 
than six partners, compelled the two banking 
companies, which were formed on account of 
the scarcity of money, to wind up their affairs, 
and the partners were held individually liable 
for the notes Lssued in lieu of silver. The 
partners of the banking company called the 
" manufactory scheme " were particularly im- 
fortunate, and the few who had any thing to 
lose, among whom was Adams's father, were 
ruined. This act of Parliament was denounced 
by the friends of banks as a violation of the 
chartered rights of Massachusetts. Thus Sam- 
uel Adams entered upon politics as the oppo- 
nent of parliamentary authority, and as a 
champion for the body of the citizens ; a 
position which his father seems, to a certain 

(9) 



SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 



extent at least, to have occupied before him. 
That his mind was strongly turned in this di- 
rection, appears from the subject he chose for 
his thesis upon taking his degree of A. M. 
He proposed as a question, "Whether it be 
lawful to resist the supreme magistrate, if the 
commonwealth cannot otherwise be preserved;" 
on which he maintained the affirmative. 

Not succeeding in business, Adams obtained 
the office of tax collector for the town of 
Boston, which caused him to be brought in 
contact and acquainted with all the inhabitants, 
and obtained for him from his political oppo- 
nents, the cognomen of Samuel the 'puhlican. 
Owing to some deficiency in his tax collections, 
— for he was a man of no business tact, — he 
was thrown for a time in the shade ; but troubles 
impending, he again came forward conspic- 
uously. 

He remained steadily in the opposition dur- 
ing the administration of Governor Shirley, 
and against Bernard he took a still more de- 
cided stand, his influence increasing with his 
age. He took an active part in all town meet- 
ings, where his energy and courage made him 
a leader. The instructions given to their newly- 
chosen representative in May, 1764, by the town 
/'of Boston, — the first decided protests from 
/any part of America against Grenville's scheme 
f of parliamentary taxation, — were drawn up by 
him. The following year he was one of the 
i three representatives in the General Court 
chosen from the town of Boston ; an office which 
he held the nine years following. 

Upon his entry into the House he accepted 
the office of clei'k, a position which, besides 
making an addition to his limited income, ena- 
bled him to exert an influence over the course 
of proceedings. The Massachusetts House of 1 
Kepresentatives was the largest assembly in^ 
the colonies, numbering at this time about one^^ 
hundred members. Besides taking an active 
part in the debates, which had already begun 

(10) 



to attract attention, he also was the one who 
drew up the greater part of the papers put 
forth by the House in its contentions with Ber- 
nard and Hutchinson. He was well fitted. for 
this office by the mixture in his character of 
caution, with fire, courage, and decision, as well 
as by his eloquence and fluent pen. An account 
of Samuel Adams found in the Diary of John 
Adams, dated December 23, 1765, says, " Adams 
is zealous, ardent, and keen in the cause ; is 
always for softness, delicacy, and prudence, 
when they will do, but is stanch, and stiff, 
and strict, and rigid, and inflexible in the 
cause." 

Governor Hutchinson, who looked upon 
Adams from an oj^posite point of view, gives 
about the .same account in his History of Mas- 
sachusetts, and sets him down as the most 
artful and insinuating politician he had ever 
known, and most successful " in robbing men of^^ 
their character, and calumniating the servants) 
of the crown." 

It was proposed to silence him by the gift of 
some office under the government ; but Adams, 
though poor, was incorruptible, and Hutchinson, 
in a letter to England, .said that, owing to his 
" obstinacy and inflexible disposition, no gift nor 
office could conciliate him." 

In 1767 the passage of acts of Parliament, 
for the purpose of raising a parliamentary rev- 
enue in America by taxes on trade, aroused the 
colonists, who considered that taxes on trade 
for a revenue were as much a violation of their 
rights as any other tax. Adams took a lead- 
ing part in urging these views, and sujjported 
the petition to the king, which the General 
Court of Massachusetts adopted on this occa- 
sion. The letter of instruction to the colonial 
agent in England, and a circular letter ad- 
dressed to the different colonial asi^emblies, 
for consultation and mutual cooperation for 
the defence of their rights, were all written 
bv him. 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 



In 1770, upon the occurrence of the Boston 
massacre, in March, Samuel Adams was ap- 
pointed chairman of a committee to wait upon 
the governor and council, with the vote of a 
town meeting, to the effect that nothing but 
the removal of the two regiments then quar- 
tered in the town would restore order and pre- 
vent carnage. Hutchinson at first disclaimed 
all authority over the soldiers ; but after a con- 
sultation with Colonel Dalrjmple, he replied, 
that the colonel was willing to remove one 
regiment. The energy of Adams prevailed, how- 
ever, and both regiments were sent to the for- 
tified island in the harbor, where they had pre- 
viously been quartered. The destruction of 
the tea which it was attempted to force upon 
the colonists, the passage of the Boston port 
bill, and the bill modifying the Massachusetts 
charter, together with the appointment of 
General Gage as governor at the head of an 
army, brought things to a crisis. 

At the meeting of the General Court in June, 
it was proposed to assemble a Continental Con- 
gress at Philadelpljia, at which Adams was one 
of the five delegates appointed by the represen- 
tatives; and Gage having thereupon suddenly 
dissolved the court, a separate government be- 
gan immediately to be organized by the patriots. 
Transferred thus to Philadelphia, and from the 
Massachusetts General Court to a Continental 
Congress, Adams now had a broader field in 
which to act. His first act was conciliatory. 
There had been a good deal of feeling pro- 
duced by the recent attempts to extend Epis- 
copacy in America. A motion made by one 
of the Massachusetts delegates to open the 
proceedings of Congress with prayer was op- 
posed by one of the delegates from New York, 
on the ground that as there were so many dif- 
ferent beliefs among the members, they would 
hardly be able to join in the same act of wor- 
ship. Thereupon Samuel Adams arose and 
said, " he was no bigot, and could hear a prayer 



from a gentleman of piety and virtue who was^ 
at the same time a friend to his country," and 
proposed that Mr. Duche, an Episcopal clergy- 
man, might be desired to read prayers before 
Congress, although he was himself a strict 
Congregationalist. The motion passed, and 
Duche, then the most popular preacher in Phil- 
adelphia, appeared the next morning as chap- 
lain, which office he held during several sessions, 
though when the British occupied Philadelphia 
he abandoned the cause of his country. This 
motion of Adams was well timed, as it not only 
pleased the Ejiiscopalians, a powerful body in 
New York, and predominant at the south, but 
also secured for the time Duche, whose example 
was not without effect. 

Adams continued a member of Congress for 
eight years, taking an active and influential 
part. No man, probably, did as much as he 
towards putting the revolution in motion and 
effecting a separation from the mother country ; 
a distinction which General Gage confirmed by 
excluding him, together with Hancock, from the 
pardon offered the people in case of submission. 

He was not as prominent for his adminis- 
trative talents, however, the policy he adopted 
being rather to suit the feelings, sentiments, 
and occasionally the prejudices of the people, 
than to meet the real emergencies. In the 
formation of the state Constitution of Massa- 
chusetts, adopted in 1780, he took an active 
part. In the Massachusetts Convention, called 
in 1788, to consider the Federal Constitution, 
Adams was an influential member, and was 
finally induced to give it his support, in con- 
sequence of several proposed amendments, 
some of which were afterwards adopted, al- 
though many of its features did not meet with 
his approval. The following year, Adams was 
elected lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts — 
a position he held till 1794, when he was chosen 
governor in place of Hancock. In national pol- 
itics, Adams inclined decidedly towards the re- 

(11) 



SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 

publican or Jeffersonian party, a circumstance '; eldest son, John who oradn^tP,! .f TT a 

which influenced him not less than his increas-: College in 17^' ^'^ 



ing age and infirmities to decline serving longer 
as governor in 1797, when he retired" to i°ri- 
vate life. 

Possessing neither property nor profession, 
Adams was compelled, almost to the close of 
his life, to depend upon the small salaries and 
emoluments of office, augmented by the in- 
dustry and economy of his wife, whom he 
married young, and who is said to have been 
the chief supporter of the femily while Adams 
devoted himself to politics. The death of his 
only son, in 1788, gave Adams a competency, 
however, through the avails of his claims for 
services as surgeon in the army through the 
revolutionary war. This competency Adams 
enjoyed until October 2, 1803, when he died, 
^ ^ being eighty-one years of age. Besides the 
state papers, of which Adams was almost wholly 
the author, and the many contributions of po- 
litical articles made to newspapers, he wrote 
a number of letters which appeared in print, 
and also an oration on American Independence,' 
which was delivered in Philadelphia, in 1776 — 
' an excellent specimen of his style. 



JOHN ADAMS. 

MASSACHUSETTS. 

This distinguished patriot and statesman was 
born in that part of Braintree, Massachusetts, 
which has since been set off under the name of 
Quincy, October 19, 1735. He was a great- 
grandson of Henry Adams, who emigrated from 
England in 1640, and settled in Braintree, 
havmg had a grant of forty acres there. The 
father of Adams was a deacon of the church 
and selectman, though a farmer of limited 
means and a shoemaker. He was enabled, 
however, to give a classical education to his 

(12) 



The first employment of Adams, on leavino- 
college, was the care of a grammar .school 
m Worcester, Massachusetts, which, however, 
proved an affliction, and induced him to seek 
relief in the study of law. He had previously, 
however, thought seriously of becoming a cler- 
gyman, but was deterred from so doing by the 
theological controversies he had witnessed. 
The army also had attractions for him, and 
had he patronage to secure preferment noth- 
uig would have deterred him from becomino- a 
soldier. About this time he wrote a remarka- 
ble letter to a young friend, containing some 
singular prophecies with regard to England 
and her colonies in America, and from this°time 
his interest in public affairs commenced. After 
studying at Worcester two years, where he had 
placed himself under the tuition of the only 
lawyer in that town, he returned to Braintree, 
and in 1758 commenced life in Suffolk county! 
Gradually his practice increased, and in 1764 
he married Abigail Smith, a daughter of the 
mimster of Weymouth, whose connections oc- 
cupied a superior social position to the family 
of Mr. Adams. She was well fitted to make 
him hapjjy, however, and was a lady of great 
ability and good sense. 

Soon after his marriage his attention was 
called from the law, and directed to politics by 
reason of the attempt at parliamentary tax- 
ation. He encouraged the calhng of a town 
meeting to instruct the representatives on the 
subject of the stamp act, and the resolutions 
he offered on that occasion were not only ap- 
proved and adopted by his own town, but by 
more than forty others, word for word, and 
attracted great attention throughout the prov- 
ince. The violence which followed somewhat 
alarmed him, and the refusal of the judges to 
go on without stamps caused a vexatious°inter- 
ruption in his own business. An unexpected 



JOHN ADAMS. 



appointment on the part of the town of Bos- 
ton to act as counsel, together with Jeremiah 
Gridley, the king's attorney and head of the 
bar, and James Otis, the celebrated orator, 
somewhat consoled him, though they were un- 
successful in their mission to obtain permission 
from the governor and council to proceed with ; 
business notwithstanding the want of stamps. 
The stamp act was repealed soon after, and 
business proceeded as before. 

Adams at this time first became known as 
a writer. Among other papers, a series of 
four articles, which appeared in the Boston 
Gazette, attracted a great deal of attention, 
being republished in a London paper, and after- 
wards printed in a volume with other papers 
relating to the disputes on taxation, under the 
title of an " Essay on the Canon and Feudal 
Law." They had reference to these subjects, 
but it has been suggested that they might more 
properly have been called an " Essay on the 
Government and Rights of New England." 

Li 1770 he was chosen a representative 
from Boston to the General Court, although he 
had previously accepted a retainer to defend 
Captain Preston and his soldiers for their share 
in the Boston massacre, which defence he 
conducted with success. Adams's acceptance 
of the office of representative interrupted in 
a great measure his practice at law, which he 
depended on for support, and which had already 
grown to be greater than that of any other 
lawyer in the province. Fi'om this time for- 
ward Adams became tlie principal legal adviser 
of the patriot party, and for the first time an 
active and conspicuous member of it. Return- 
ing afterwards to Braintree, he continued to be 
consulted, and to give advice regarding im- 
portant matters, during the two or three follow- 
ing years. Soon after he was elected by the 
General Court to the Provincial Congress, but 
was negatived by Governor Hutchinson. 

Adams was one of the five delegates from Mas- 



sachusetts to the Continental Congress in 1774. 
In the discussions in the committee on the 
declaration of colonial rights, he took an active 
part in favor of resting those rights upon the 
law of nature, as well as the laws of England ; 
and subsequently he was appointed to put the 
resolutions in shape, after the matter had been 
decided upon. 

After the adjournment of the Provincial 
Congress, to which he had been elected a 
member by the town of Braintree on his re- 
turn from Philadelphia, Adams applied himself 
to answering a series of able papers in a Bos- 
ton journal, written by a supporter of the 
mother country's claims. These essays were 
continued during the winter of 1774, but were 
suddenly interrupted by the battle of Lexing- 
ton. Under the title of "A History of the 
Dispute with America," an abridgment of them 
was published in 1775, and afterwards they 
were issued in pamphlet form, and have been 
twice reprinted entire. They are valuable on 
account of the contemporaneous view they 
present of the primary cause of the contest 
between England and the colonies, and of the 
policy adopted by Governors Bernard and 
Hutchinson, which helped so much to bring on 
that struggle. These letters are distinguished, 
like all his other productions, by a bold tone 
of investigation, as well as by a concise, clear, 
and pointed style, but, being written piecemeal 
and at vai'ious times, lack order and polish. 

Adams was chosen a member of the Con- 
tinental Congress of 1775, where, active and 
untiring, he found ample opportunity for the 
employment of his business talents. He was 
here placed upon a committee to fit out cruis- 
ers and see to naval affairs generally, and laid 
the foundation of an American navy, the rules 
and regulations of which were drawn up by 
him, and form the basis of our present naval 
code. In 1776, Adams, being frequently con- 
sulted by southern members, wrote several 

(13) 



SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 



letters concerning the best form of government 
the states could adopt, one of which was pub- 
lished under the title of " Thoughts on Gov- 
ernment, applicable to the Present State of the 
American Colonies." This was largely circula- 
ted in Virginia, and intended to controvert the 
aristocratic views quite common in that state. 

After the resolution was carried that the 
United States " are and ought to be free and 
independent," Adams was chosen upon two of 
the committees appointed, a committee on a 
Declaration of Independence, and one on for- 
eign relations. Upon Adams the duty fell 
of battling the Declaration of Independence 
through Congress, which he succeeded in doing 
after three days' debate. 

On the 12th of June, a board of war and 
ordnance being establi.shed by Congress, Adams 
was made president, a position he continued 
to hold for several months, and one of great 
labor and responsibility. At this time he was 
also chairman of the committee upon which 
devolved the decisions of appeals in admiralty 
cases from the state courts. 

Having gained the rejDutation of having 
" the clearest head and firmest heart of any 
man in Congress," John Adams was appointed 
commissioner to France in 1777, to supersede 
Deane. On arriving, however, he found that 
the recall of Deane had not reconciled the 
other two commissioners, and advised the mis- 
sion should be intrusted to a single j^erson. 
Adopting his suggestion, Franklin was ap- 
pointed ambassador, and Adams returned home, 
to take a leading part in the Convention called 
to form a state Constitution for Massachusetts. 
Before this Convention had finished the work, 
Adams was again sent abroad as minister to 
treat with Great Britain for peace and com- 
merce, and sailed for France in 1779. Much 
against his inclination, Mr. Adams was deterred 
from making any communication of his powers 
to Great Britain, by Vergennes, the French 

(14) 



minister of foreign affairs, between whom and 
himself a feeling of distrust had arisen, which 
was entirely unfounded. 

Finding his position in Paris uncomfortable, 
he left for Holland in July, 1780, to form an 
opinion as to the possibility of borrowing money 
there. In order that the Dutch might better 
understand American affairs, he published a 
number of papers, some of which were after- 
wards many times reprinted, and appeared 
under the title of " Twenty-six Letters upon In- 
teresting Subjects respecting tne Revolution in 
America." He had already entered upon ne- 
gotiations for a loan, when interrupted by the 
breach caused by the capture of Laurens, and 
the declaration of war between Great Britain 
and Holland. He was soon afterwards appointed 
minister in place of Laurens, and commissioned 
to sign the articles of armed neutrality, but 
before he had procured recognition, was obliged 
to return to Paris in July, 1781, by receiving a 
notice to act there as minister to treat of peace. 

Returning to Holland, Adams succeeded in 
his efforts to be received as ambassador, on 
the 19th of April, 1782, and during the year 
negotiated a Dutch loan of two millions of 
dollars, the first of a series which afterwards 
proved the principal resource of the Continen- 
tal Congress, besides negotiating a treaty of 
amity and commerce. In the same year Adams 
was appointed, together with Franklin and Jay, 
to negotiate a commercial treaty with Great 
Britain. After remaining in England some 
time, and- negotiating other loans in Holland, 
he returned to Paris in 1784, remaining there 
with his family, receiving a commission to form 
treaties with foreign powers. In 1785 Adams 
was appointed minister for the United States 
at the court of Great Britain. Here, being 
vmable to accomplish any of the objects of his 
mission, and sensible of the ill feeling still ex- 
isting between the two countries, his position 
was rather disagreeable, and he was recalled, 



ROBERT TREAT PAINE. 



at his own solicitation, in February, 1788, when 
he returned to America with the thanks of 
Congress for " the patriotism, perseverance, 
integrity, and diligence" he had shown during! 
the ten years of his residence abroad. 

Upon the adoption of the new Federal Con- 
stitution, after his arrival home, his name was 
placed upon the ticket with Washington, and 
he was elected Vice-President, being reelected 
to the same office in 1792. In 1796 Adams 
was elected the successor of Washington, but 
at the expiration of his term of service, re- 
tired from public life, having sufficient prop- 
erty to support him in comfort during the 
remainder of his life. Adams felt keenly the 
neglect he then experienced, and the dislike of 
both political partie.s, caused by some of his acts 
during the latter part of his administration. 
The old charge of his having personal motives 
in setting on foot the mission to France in 1779, 
being brought up, he took up the subject in a 
series of letters to the Boston Patriot. These 
are a valualjle continuation of the history of 
that period, and are generally regarded as a com- 
plete vindication of his conduct at that time. 

In 1820, when the District of Maine became 
a separate state, Adams, although eighty-six 
years old, was chosen a delegate to the Con- 
vention of Massachusetts, to revise the Con- 
stitution, in the framing of which instrument 
he had taken an active part. A series of reso- 
lutions were passed by the members of this 
body, containing an enumeration and warm 
acknowledgment of some of his principal public 
services, and calling upon him to preside ; but 
acknowledging the compliment, he declined the 
honor on account of his as-e. In 1825 Adams 
had the pleasure of seeing his son raised to the 
president's chair, and received the congratu- 
lations of Jefferson, between whom and himself 
there had been ill feeling for thirteen years 
after the withdrawal of the latter from public 
life. In 1826 Adams became feeble, and his 



health rapidly declining, he expired on the 4th 
of July, in the ninety-second year of his age. 
Upon the same day, and nearly the same hour, 
Jefferson also died. It was the fiftieth anni- 
versary of the Declaration of Independence, 
and the singular coincidence made a deep im- 
pression on the minds of the people. 



ROBERT TREAT PAINE. 

MASS.\CHUSETTS. 

Robert Treat Paine was born in Boston, 
Massachusetts, March 11, 1731. His ancestors 
were of good family, his maternal grand- 
father being Governor Treat, of Connecticut. 
His early education was conducted by the same 
tutor that instructed John Adams and John 
Hancock, and at the age of fourteen he was 
admitted to Harvard College, where he grad- 
uated with honor. He then studied theology, 
after he had made a voyage to Europe, and on 
his return acted as chaplain, in 1755, to the 
troops on the northern frontier. But he re- 
linquished this profession, and studied law with 
Chief Justice Pratt, of New York, teaching 
school meanwhile to sujjport himself, and was 
admitted to the bar, and commenced practice. 
He subsequently moved to Boston, and be- 
came a powerful rival of the celebi-ated Tim- 
othy Ruggles. 

He early took sides with the patriots, but so 
conducted himself that he won the confidence 
of the governor. In 1768 he was elected dele- 
gate to the Provincial Congress, called after 
Governor Bernard had dissolved the General 
Assembly, for refusing to rescind a circular 
letter sent to the other colonies. 

In 1770 he added much to his reputation 
by the able manner in which he conducted, in 
the absence of the attorney-general, the pros- 
ecution against Captain Preston and his men 

a6) 



SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 



for firing on tlie inhabitants of Boston. In 
1774 he was chosen a member of the Provin- 
cial Assembly, and was one of the commission- 
ers appointed to conduct the proceedings in 
the impeachment of Chief Justice Oliver. 

During this same year he advocated the 
calling of a Continental Congress, in opposition 
to Governor Gage, and was appointed a dele- 
gate to it. He was deputized by Congress, with 
two others, to visit General Schuyler's army at 
the north for the purpose of observation. This 
delicate commission was performed to the sat- 
isfoction of all. He was reelected to the Con- 
tinental Congress in 1776, and gave his support 
and vote to the Declaration of Independence, 
lie occupied many important stations in the 
government of Massachusetts, being in 1777 
speaker of the Massachusetts House of Repre- 
sentatives, and attorney-general, which latter 
office he held until 1790, when he was ap- 
pointed judge of the Supreme Court. 

In 1804 he was obliged, on account of deaf 
ness, to resign the office of judge, and retire 
to private life. He died May 4, 1814, at 
Boston, aged eighty-four. 



ELBRIDGE GERRY. 

MASSACHUSETTS. 

Elbridge Gerry was born in Marblehead, 
Massachusetts, July 17, 1744. He received a 
good education, and graduated at Harvard 
College in 1762. Entering into commercial 
pursuits soon after, he was quite successful, 
amassing a handsome fortune, and winning 
the esteem of his fellow-citizens by his hon- 
orable character. Having expressed his opin- 
ions openly and fearlessly in regard to the 
oppressions of the mother country, he was 
elected to the General Court of the province 
Jn^l772, from Marblehead. He immediately 

■■-. \ (16) 



became the associate of Samuel Adams, Han- 
cock, and Warren, and continued in public life 
from this time tili his death, almost without 
intermission. He was placed on two most im- 
portant committees, those of safety and sup- 
plies, and afterwards appointed judge of the 
Court of Admiralty, but declined the office, 
as he preferred a more active life. 

In January, 1776, he was chosen a delegate 
to the Continental Congress, where he was 
placed on the most important committees, and 
was most of the time chairman of the com- 
mittee of the treasury, until the organization 
' of the treasury board in 1780, of which he was 
made presiding officer. In 1780 he retired 
from Congress, but was reelected in 1783, where 
! he remained until 1785, and is said to have 
been longer a member of that assembly than 
any other man. 

He was appointed a member of the Convention 
which met at Philadelphia, in 1787, to revise the 
Articles of Confederation. He was so opposed 
to many of the leading features of the Consti- 
tution proposed, however, that he refused to sign 
it; but when it was sanctioned by the people 
he did all in his power to carry out its provis- 
ions. He was a member of Congress four 
successive years, and served faithfully, and 
in 1795 retired to private life. In 1797, how- 
ever, President Adams, knowing his ability, 
appointed him one of the three envoys to 
France. This joint mission not being received, 
however, by that government, and the accept- 
ance by Gerry of their invitation to remain, 
although his associates were ordered to leave,' 
made him very unpopular with many of the 
people of the United States. On his return he 
was nominated for governor in 1798, but was 
defeated, and again in 1801, but was elected in 
1810, and again in 1811. In 1812 he was elected 
Vice-President of the United States, but was 
suddenly seized with illness while performing 
his duties at Washington, and died on the 



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HOPKINS. — ELLERY. 



twenty-third of November, 1814, when seventy 
years old. He was entombed in the Congres- 
sional cemetery, and Congress erected a hand- 
some monument to his memory. 



STEPHEN HOPKINS. 

RHODE ISL/VND. 

Stephen Hopkins was born in Scituate, Ehode 
Island,March 7, 1707. He took up his residence 
in early life at Providence, and was elected a 
member of the General Assembly in 1733, and in 
1739 chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas. 
He was chosen governor of the state in 1755, 
which office he continued to hold until 1768, 
with the exception of four years. His sym- 
pathies were early with the colonies, siding with 
them against the mother country. In 1754 he 
was appointed one of the members of the board 
of commissioners which assembled to form a 
plan of union for the colonies at Albany, New 
York. In 1765, at a special town meeting, he 
was chosen chairman of a committee appointed 
to draught instructions to the General Assembly 
on the stamp act. 

In August, 1774, Hopkins was elected, with 
Samuel Ward, to represent the state in the 
General Congress held at Philadelphia, and was 
also chosen, in 1775 and 1776, a member of 
that body. He here used his influence in favor 
of decisive measures, strongly upholding them, 
and advising such members as were not pre- 
pared for action to return home.. At this time, 
although entering upon his seventieth year, he 
possessed all the fire of youth in his zeal for 
the freedom of his country. His signature to 
the Declaration of Independence is written in 
a trembling hand, which was owing, however, 
to a nervous affection. He was placed upon 
the naval committee next after John Hancock, 
the chairman, and assisted greatl}^ in the for- 
mation of a navy. John Adams, who was 

3 



associated with him on this committee, says he 
was the life of them, and his experience and 
judgment in business were very useful; while, 
having read Greek, Roman, and British history, 
and being familiar with British poetry, rendered 
him an exceedingly agreeable companion, par- 
ticularly as he possessed wit and humor, as 
well as the faculty of imparting his knowl- 
edge to others. Governor Hopkins was for 
many years chancellor of Brown University, 
and for fifty years filled some public station. 
In 1768 he began a "History of the Planting 
and Growth of Providence," which was pub- 
lished in the Providence Gazette. In the 
same year, by order of the General Assembly 
of Rhode Island, he wrote and published a 
work, entitled the " Rights of the Colonies 
Examined," afterwards reprinted in London. He 
died in Providence July 13, 1785, and a monu- 
ment was erected over his grave by the state. 



WILLIAM ELLERY. 



RHODE ISLAND. 



William Ellert was born in Newport, Rhode 
Island, December 22, 1727. Particular atten- 
tion was paid to his early education, and he 
distinsjuished himself as a scholar in Greek 
and Latin at Harvard University, where he 
graduated in 1747, at the age of twenty. For 
some years following his marriage, which oc- 
curred in 1750, he devoted himself to mercan- 
tile pursuits in Newport, and was also naval 
officer of the colony of Rhode Island. In 1770 
he commenced the practice of law in Newport, 
having previously served two years as clerk of 
one of the courts, and acquired a fortune in 
this pursuit. 

When the revolutionary troubles began, El- 
lery became an ardent sympathizer with the 
colonies, and an active patriot. In May, 1776, 
he took a seat in the Continental Congress as 

(17) 



SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 



delegate from Ehode Island, where he remained 
till 1786, with the exception of the years 1780 
and 1782, proving himself an active and useful 
member. In 1782 he was appointed by Con- 
gress to inform Major-General Greene of their 
estimate of his valuable services. In 1784 he 
was a member of the committee to whom the 
treaty of peace with Great Britain was referred. 
He was also a member of the marine committee, 
and subsequently of the board of admiralty, 
where he exercised a great deal of influence ; 
and the plan of fitting out fire-ships at Newport 
is said to have originated with him. In 1785, in 
connection with Kufus King, of New York, he 
made strenuous efforts to have slavery aboUshed 
in the United States. In April, 1786, he was 
chosen commissioner of the Continental loan 
office for the State of Ehode Island by Con- 
gress; and, in 1790, after the adoption of the 
new Constitution, was appointed by President 
Washington collector for the port of Newport, 
which office, notwithstanding he made frequent 
avowal of political principles opposed to sev- 
eral administrations, he retained until his death 
which occurred on the 15th day of February, 
1820, in the seventy-third year of his age. 



EOGER SHERMAN. 

CONNECTICUT. 

This distinguished signer was born in New- 
ton, Massachusetts, on the 19th of April, 1721. 
His father, being only a farmer in moderate cir- 
cumstances, could give him no better education 
than a country school afforded; but being nat- 
urally eager in the pursuit of knowledge, he 
supplied by his own exertions what his situation 
could not give. He was, when young, appren- 
ticed to a shoemaker, but found time, even 
when at his work, by i^lacing a book before 
him on his bench, on which he could look 

(18) 



when his eyes were not needed for his work, to 
acquire a good knowledge of mathematics and 
astronomy. 

His father having died when he was only 
nineteen, the care of the family devolved upon 
him. In 1743 he sold the farm upon which 
they had hitherto lived, and with the rest moved 
to New Milford, Connecticut, performing the 
journey himself on foot, with his tools °upon 
his back. He relinquished his trade, and com- 
menced business with a brother ; but during 
all these interruptions he never abandoned his 
habit of study. 

Law became a favorite pursuit with him; 
and so proficient did he become in this, that, 
although he had no tutor, and was forced to 
borrow most of the books which he read, he 
was admitted to the bar in December, 1754. 
He had previously to this time been appointed 
county surveyor, and had made most of the astro- 
nomical calculations for a New York almanac. 

He was elected in 1755 a representative of 
the Assembly of Connecticut, and appointed a 
justice of the peace. In 1759 he was made a 
judge of the Court of Common Pleas. Having 
changed his residence to New Haven, he re- 
ceived many similar appointments, and also 
that of treasurer of Yale College, which in- 
stitution conferred upon him the degree of 
A. M. 

In 1766 he was constituted a member of the 
Senate of Connecticut. His open and earnest 
efforts in behalf of the rights of the colonies 
caused him to be elected a delegate to the 
Continental Congress, and during his whole 
career as a member of this body he showed 
the most untiring zeal and unflinching courage 
in the discharge of his duties, and was one of 
the committee selected to draw up the Declara- 
tion of Independence. In the midst of these 
cares he still continued to hold many minor 
offices, among which was that of mayor of 
New Haven. 



SHERMAN. — HUNTINGTON. — WILLIAMS. 



In the year 1783, together with Richard 
Law, he was commissioned to revise the statutes 
of his state. In 1787 he was a member of the 
Convention which framed the present Con- 
stitution of the United States, and was un- 
wearied in his efforts for its adoption. 

During two years he held the office of United 
States senator, but his declining health caused 
him to resign this position. His death occurred 
on the 23d of July, 1793. 



SAMUEL HUNTINGTON. 

CONNECTICUT. 

Samuel Huntington was born in Windham, 
Connecticut, on the 2d of July, 1732. His 
father was an industrious farmer, but unable to 
give his son any other than a common school 
education. Huntington was very studious. 
however, and overcame many obstacles that 
stood in the way of his advancement. He 
managed to acquire a tolerable knowledge of 
Latin, and commenced the study of the law at 
the age of twenty-two. Although obliged to 
pursue it with borrowed books and without a 
teacher, he succeeded in mastering its dif- 
ficulties and obtaining a good practice in his 
native town, but removed to Norwich when 
twenty-eight, where he had a wider field for 
his talents. 

He was elected to the General Assembly of 
Connecticut in 1764, and in the following year 
a member of the Council, and in 1774 associate 
justice of the Superior Court. In January, 
1776, he was chosen one of the delegates to 
the Continental Congress, where he became 
an active and useful member, and remained 
neai'ly five consecutive years. In September, 
1779, he succeeded John Jay as president of 
Congress, and continued in that office until 
July, 1780, resuming then his seat on the 



Connecticut bench. He again took a seat in 
Congress in 1783, leaving it, however, in No- 
vember of the same j'ear, and, returning to 
Connecticut, was appointed chief justice of the 
Superior Court in 1784. In 1785 he was elect- 
ed lieutenant-governor, and the following year 
succeeded Roger Griswold as governor, which 
office he held till his death, in Norwich, on the 
5th of January, 1796. 



WILLIAM WILLIAMS. 

CONNECTICUT. 

The subject of this sketch was born of "Welsh 
parents, who emigrated to this country, at 
Lebanon, Connecticut, April 8, 1731. His 
father was minister of the parish, and intended 
him for the same profession. He entered Har- 
vard at the age of sixteen, and after complet- 
ing his studies there, commenced a theological 
course with his father. But the French and In- 
dian war proved more attractive, and in the year 
1755 he accepted a commission on the staff 
of his relative, Colonel Ephraim Williams, and 
accompanied him on an expedition to Lake 
George. He returned home after this cam- 
paign, thoroughly disgusted with the British 
soldiers, especially the officers, who regarded 
the colonists as inferior and treated them with 
haughtiness. The seeds of dislike towards his 
mother country which sprung up and flourished 
during the revolution, were probably sown at 
this time. 

He did not continue his theological course, 
but entered into business in Lebanon. At the 
age of twenty-five he was chosen town clerk — 
an office which he held for nearly half a cen- 
tury. He was not long afterwards made a 
member of the Connecticut Assembly, in which 
he held a seat for nearly forty-five years. 

When the revolutionary troubles commenced 

(19) 



SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 



he was an active member of the council of 
safety, and in October, 1775, was elected a 
delegate to the General Congress. He was an 
earnest though modest advocate of the inde- 
pendence of the colonies, and gladly gave his 
signature to the Declaration, when the immor- 
tal instrument was at last adopted. His projD- 
erty was nearly all expended in the war, and 
he was successful in procuring many private 
donations in aid of the ami}', often going him- 
self from door to door, soliciting articles with 
which to relieve the destitution of the soldiers. 
Once, when the issue of paper money had be- 
come so worthless that the services of the 
military could not be procured by it, he ex- 
changed more than two thousand dollars of it 
for specie from his own funds, thereby losing 
the whole. His devotion to the cause of inde- 
pendence was illustrated by many similar acts 
of self-sacrifice and unassumino; labor. 

When, in 1781, the traitor Arnold made an 
attack on New London, Williams, who was then 
a colonel of militia, rode twenty-three miles in 
three hours, but arrived only in time to see the 
town enveloped in flames. 

He was a member of the state Convention 
of Connecticut which decided upon the adop- 
tion of the present Constitution of the United 
States. He voted for it in direct opposition to 
the instructions of his constituents, who, upon 
discovering their mistake, admired and were 
grateful for his firmness. 

In 1804 Colonel Williams dissolved his con- 
nection with the Connecticut Assembly, and re- 
tired to private life, where he greatly endeared 
himself, by his domestic virtues, to all around 
him. In 1810 the death of his eldest son so 
powerfully affected his weakened constitution 
that he never recovered from the shock. For 
four days previous to his death he lay per- 
fectly silent, and took his departure from this 
world August 2, 1811, at the advanced age 
of eighty-one. 

(20) 



OLIVER WOLCOTT. 



CONNECTICUT. 



Oliver Wolcott was born at Windsor, Con- 
necticut, on the 26th of November, 1726. His 
career was eminently a military one. Having 
received a captain's commission directly after 
his graduation at Yale, which took place in 
1747, he raised a company and proceeded to 
join the army on the northern frontier, to fight 
the combined forces of the French and Indians. 
He remained here until the termination of 
hostilities by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. 

His attention was then turned to medicine; 
but he abandoned it upon the completion of 
his studies, on account of the office of sheriff 
having been conferred upon him. 

In 1774 he was made a member of the 
Council of his state, and was annually reelected 
until 1786. During this interval he also filled 
the positions of chief justice of the county, 
judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and judge 
of Probate, and had regularly risen from cap- 
tain to major-general of militia. 

In 1776 his patriotism and ability secured 
for him a seat in the Continental Congress; 
and during his connection with this body he 
was appointed one of the commissioners for pro- 
curing the neutrality of the Indians, and also 
assisted in amicably settling the dispute "be- 
tween Connecticut and Pennsylvania about tlie 
Wyoming Valley. In this latter duty he was as- 
sisted by William Whipple, another of the noble 
signers of the Declaration of Independence. 

He was sent as deletrate to the second Gen- 
eral Congress towards the close of 1776, during 
which time he affixed his name to the Declara 
tion ; and after this trying duty had been per- 
formed, he was placed by Governor Trumbull 
at the head of fourteen regiments of the state 
militia, raised to act for the defence of New 
York. 

After the battle at Long Island he resumed 



WOLCOTT.— FLOYD. 



his seat in Congress ; but during the following 
summer he joined Gates's army, and assisted 
in repelling Burgoyne. He again returned to 
Congress, where he continued, with some inter- 
ruptions, until 1783. 

During the summer of 1779 he successfully 
undertook the defence of the sea coast of his 
state against the British. In 1784 and 1785 
he was actively employed as agent in negoti- 
ating with the famous Six Nations, and pre- 
scribed terms of peace to them. 

In 1786 General Wolcott was chosen lieu- 
tenant-governor of Connecticut, and after ten 
successive reelections, was made governor, 
which position he retained until the day of 
his death, December 1, 1797. Among the most 
prominent traits of his cliaracter were decis- 
ion, virtue, a bright piety, and untarnished 
integrity. 



WILLIAM FLOYD. 

NEW YORK. 

WiLUAM Floyd was born in Suffolk county. 
New York, December 17, 1734. He had hardly 
finished his studies when he was called to the 
superintendence of a large estate, by tlie deatli 
of his fiither, who was a wealthy land owner 
on Long Island. He performed his duties with 
great skill and fidelity, but was soon called to 
a more active life by the differences witli Great 
Britain. An excellent character and pleasing 
manners soon made him very popular, which, 
united with his strong sympathy with, and 
support of the cause of the colonies, led to his 
appointment to the command of the militia of 
Suffolk county. 

Floyd was chosen a delegate from New York 
to the Continental Congress in 1774, and be- 
came one of the most active of its members. 
During his absence the British collected a force 



with the intention of invading Long Island 
and levying contributions, but he returned in 
season to place himself at the head of a division, 
and marching towards the threatening invaders, 
awed them into a retreat to their vessels by 
his energy and daring. In 1775 he was again 
returned to tlie General Colonial Congress, and 
continued a member during the eight suc- 
ceeding years. 

While attending so zealously to his public 
duties in Congress he suffered greatly in con- 
sequence of the destruction of his property. 
After the battle of Long Island, in August, 1776, 
and the retreat of tlie American army to Yorl<; 
Island, his estate was exposed to the ravages 
of the British soldiery, and his family forced to 
seek shelter and protection in Connecticut, and 
for seven years he received no income whatever 
from his property. In 1777 he was elected a 
senator of the State of New York, reserving at 
the same time his seat in Congress. In 1779 
Floyd, in connection with two or three others, 
led the state safely through threatened bank- 
ruptcy, and by their skilful management placed 
it in a very prosperous financial, condition. He 
was elected a member of the first Confess 
under the Constitution, which met in New York 
in 1789, declining a reelection. 

In 18(Jl he was chosen a presidential elector, 
and a delegate in the Convention for the re- 
vision of the Constitution. He was ailerwards 
chosen a member of the state senate, and 
twice presidential elector. He retained his 
mental foculties, and enjoyed robust health 
until he died, August 4, 1821. His life was a 
long and active one. Being a thorough business 
man, and possessing a great deal of decision, 
his services proved of the greatest benefit to 
the country during the stormy times of the 
Eevolution and the turbulent period which 
followed. 

(21) 



SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 



PHILIP LIVINGSTON. 

NEW YORK. 

Philip Livingston, a descendant of John Liv- 
ingston, an exemplary Scotch minister, was 
born in Albany on the 15th of January, 1716. 
Having completed a preparatory course of 
study, he entered Yale College, New Haven, 
where he graduated with high honors in 1737. 
He immediately engaged in commercial pur- 
suits, removing to New York, where he com- 
menced an extensive and profitable business, 
gaining the respect and esteem of all by his 
honesty and viprightness. 

Livingston first entered public life in 1754, 
when he was chosen alderman, serving in that 
capacity until 1758. He was then elected to 
the Colonial House of Assembly, where he be- 
came a leader, and through his wisdom and 
sagacity plans were started which ended in 
the capture of important fortresses from the 
French, and subsequently the subjugation of 
Canada. The celebrated Edmund Burke was 
the resident agent in England for New York 
at the commencement of the war. He made 
some very able speeches in Parliament while 
there, defending the colonies, and it is believed 
that he obtained his enlightened views through 
a constant correspondence with Philip Living- 
ston, who was placed upon a committee for 
that purpose. He was an influential member, 
taking a firm stand against the oppressions of 
Great Britain, and remained here until the 
ascendency of Toryism in 1769. 

In 1774 Livingston was elected to the first 
Continental Congress, and was placed upon the 
committee by whom the address to the people 
of Great Britain was prepared. The following 
year he was one of the delegates chosen by the 
Provincial Convention to Congress, with power 
to act as circumstances required. He zeal- 
ously upheld the proposition for independence, 
and voted for and signed the Declaration of 

(22) 



Independence, which act was approved by the 
Provincial Assembly of New York. He was 
subsequently chosen to the Provincial Con- 
gress and State Assembly, and was elected 
a member of the first state senate of New 
York, which met on the 10th of September, 
1777. He was reelected to the Continental 
Congress in 1778, and took his seat, although 
in an extremely delicate state of health, but 
died on the 12th of the following June, (1778,) 
one of the most devoted and purest patriots. 



FRANCIS LEWIS. 



NEW YORK. 



Francis Lewis was born in Wales, in the 
town of Llandaff, Glamorganshire, in March, 
1713. He was left an orphan when only about 
five years old, under the care of a maiden aunt, 
and after receiving a preliminary education in 
Scotland, his uncle. Dean of St. Paul's in Lon- 
don, sent him to Westminster, where he was 
well educated. After leaving school he served 
an apprenticeship with a London merchant. 
Becoming the possessor of some money on 
coming of age, he invested in merchandise 
and sailed for New York, where he engaged in 
commercial pursuits, which he followed for forty 
years, until the breaking out of hostilities with 
Great Britain in 1775. In the interval he 
several times visited Europe as his business 
increased, and was agent for supplying the 
British troops in America during the French 
and Indian war. He was the aid of Colonel 
Mercer, at Fort Oswego, when it was captured 
by Montcalm, in August, 1757, being taken to 
Canada with other prisoners and narrowly escap- 
ing death by the Indians. He was afterwards 
sent to France, where he was finally exchanged. 

Lewis was elected delegate to the Colonial 
Congress in 1765. He retired to his country 



MORRIS.— STOCKTON. 



residence on Long Island on the enforcement 
of the Stamp Act. In 1775 he was chosen a 
member of the General Congress. The follow- 
ing year he was also elected a delegate by the 
Provincial Assembly, becoming one of the sign- 
ers of the Declaration in August. He continued 
a member of Congress until April, 1779, except 
during a short interval, being always an active 
committee man in that body. His residence 
on Long Island was plundered by the British 
during the war, and not only did they destroy 
his property to such an extent that he died a 
poor man, but they imprisoned his wife for 
several months, during which she received such 
hard treatment that she died two j^ears after- 
wards in consequence. Francis Lewis lived to 
be ninety years of age, and died on the 30th 
of December, 1803, iniiversally esteemed and 
respected by his countrymen. 



LEWIS MORRIS. 



NEW YORK. 



This bold and zealous advocate of the Dec- 
laration of American rifchts was born at Mor- 
risiana, in New York, in 1726. He entered 
Yale College at the age of sixteen, where he 
graduated with honor, and then settled upon 
the estate which his father had left him. 

When the troubles between England and 
America broke out, he took an active part 
against the act of Parliament compelling the 
inhabitants of New York to furnish supplies to 
the troops. His own circumstances were such 
as to render this no heavy burden, but his sym- 
pathy was awakened for those around him, and 
he risked his ease and fortune for their sake. 

Notwithstanding his earnest endeavors, the 
colony of New York did not at first see fit to 
send him as delegate to the General Congress ; 
but he was soon better appreciated, and in April, 
1775, was elected a member of the second 



Continental Congress, which appointed him a 
member of the committee to devise means for 
the supply of the colonies with munitions of 
war. To him was also assigned the arduous task 
of detaching the Western Indians from their 
alliance with Great Britain. 

In 1776 he resumed his seat in Congress, and 
when the question arose whether the inde- 
pendence of America should be declared or not, 
he openly advocated it, although by so doing 
he sacrificed all his property, as the enemy 
destroj-ed all his valuable estate, and drove his 
family into exile. His patriotic spirit commu- 
nicated itself to three of his sons, who entered 
the colonial army, where they served with dis- 
tinction to themselves. 

Mr. Morris received the appointment of 
major-general, but his services in that capacity 
were not brought much into requisition. He 
relinquished his seat in Congress in 1777, and 
retired to the remains of his once fine estate, 
where he spent the remainder of his days. He 
died in January, 1798, and his funeral was 
attended by a large concourse of citizens, who 
sincerely mourned his loss. 



RICHARD STOCKTON. 

NEW JERSEY. 

Richard Stockton was born near Princeton, 
New Jersey, October 1, 1730. His studies pre- 
paratory to a collegiate course were pursued at 
an academy in Maryland, after having finished 
which he entered New Jersey College, from 
which he c;raduated in 1748. He then com- 
menced the study of law, and was admitted to 
the bar, where he soon became distinguished 
for his great abilities. 

In June, 1766, Mr. Stockton went to Eng- 
land, making the tour of the British Isles 
during his sojourn of about two years. He 
was every where received with the most flat- 



SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 



tering marks of distinction, and was compli- 
mented at Edinburgh with a public dinner and 
the freedom of the city, and his opinions on 
the leading topics of the day were eagerly 
sought for by many eminent persons of the 
realm. On his return home in 1768, he was 
escorted to his residence by the people, so 
greatly was he esteemed. 

During this year he was appointed by the 
king one of the judges of the Supreme Court, 
and a member of the royal executive covmcil of 
the colony. Being thus openly honored by the 
king, and being possessed of an ample fortune, 
the temptations to remain on the side of roy- 
alty during the stormy times which took place 
in the colonies were many and strong, but he 
nobly overcame them and boldly avowed him- 
self on the side of the patriots. 

In June, 1776, he was constituted a member 
of the General Congress, then in session at 
Philadelphia, and took his seat in time to take 
part in the debate concerning the Declaration 
of Independence. At first he was somewhat 
doubtful of the exjjediency of such a measure, 
but the conclusive arguments of John Adams 
having settled the question, he cheerfully voted 
for and signed it. 

In the fall of that year he received an equal 
number of votes with Mr. Livingston for gov- 
ernor of the state, but the office was finally 
conferred upon the latter. He declined the 
honor of chief justice of New Jersey, but ac- 
cepted a reelection to Congress, which sent 
him, with Mr. Clymer, on a mission to General 
Schuyler, to investigate the reasons for the 
miserable condition of the northern army, and 
to devise means for its amelioration. He was I 
obliged to hasten home to prevent his family] 
from being captured by the British army, then 
pursuing Washington and his forces across New 
Jersey. He removed them to the house of a 
friend, some thirty miles distant, but the retreat 
was discovered, and he was dragged from his 

(24) 



bed at night by a party of refugee loyalists, 
and taken to New York. On his way there 
he was treated with great indignity, and was 
thrown into the common prison, where he 
endured great hardships, which terminated his 
life February 28, 1781. 



JOHN WITHEKSPOON. 

NEW JERSEY. 

John Witherspoon was born in the parish of 
Tester, Scotland, on the 5th of February, 1722. 
He was a descendant, on his mother's side, of 
John Knox, and was educated at the University 
of Edinburgh. His father determined to have 
his early education based upon sound moral 
and religious principles, and early dedicated 
him to the ministry, and his own mind seemed 
specially bent towards sacred literature. He 
went through a regular course of theological 
study, and was licensed a preacher when he 
was twenty-one, and was ordained minister of 
the parish of Beith, where he labored faithfully 
for many years. 

Mr. Witherspoon was present as a spectator 
at the battle of Falkirk, January 17, 1746, and 
was taken prisoner and confined two weeks, 
during which time his health received a per- 
manent injury. In 1753 he published, anony- 
mously, " Ecclesiastical Characteristics," and a 
few years later an " Apology," in which he 
acknowledged himself the author of the pre- 
vious work. 

In 1757 he removed from Beith to Paisley, 
where he soon became distinguished for his 
piety and learning. He was invited to remove 
to several distinguished cities of Europe, but 
declined. In 1766 he was unanimously invited 
by the trustees of New Jersey College to be- 
come its president, but on account of his wife's 
unwillingness to leave her native land con- 



WITHERSPOON. — HOPKINSON. 



eluded to refuse. But being strongly urged 
by Richard Stockton, when on his visit to Scot- 
land, to accept the appointment, he sailed with 
his family, and arrived at Princeton in August, 
1768 ; and on the 17th was inaugurated as the 
head of the institution. His character and 
exertions soon raised its reputation, and in- 
creased the state of its finances. He accepted 
a professorship of divinity, and was pastor of 
the church at Princeton during his presidency. 
The Revolution dispersing the students, left him 
at leisure to attend to the great events of the 
day, and his talents were soon called into play 
in a new field. 

Early in 1776 he was a member of the Con- 
vention called together to assist in the formation 
of a new Constitution for New Jersey, and his 
patriotism and good sense were so conspicuous 
that he was elected a delegate to the Conti- 
nental Congress. His mind had already been 
made up on the subject of independence, and 
he heartily gave his support to it. He re- 
mained connected with this body the greater 
part of six years, served on many important 
committees, and was intrusted with several 
delicate commissions. 

Upon the restoration of peace in 1783, the 
college was reopened, and Dr. Witherspoon re- 
turned to his duties there, and made a journey 
to Endand in order to obtain funds for the 
institution, which had suffered greatly during 
the war. This voyage was undertaken against 
his better judgment, as he wisely concluded 
that but little money could be obtained from a 
people so recently engaged in a deadly war 
with his countrymen, and whose feelings were 
not then right towards them. Trial proved that 
he was correct, as he obtained barely enough 
to pay expenses. 

During the latter part of his life he suflFered 
from imprudent speculations in land. About 
two years before his death he lost his eyesight, 
but he did not relinquish his ministerial duties. 

4 



He closed his long and useful career on the 
10th of November, 1794. As a theological 
writer he had but few superiors, and as a states- 
man he held a high rank. His learning was 
extensive, and his knowledge of character sin- 
gularly good. 



FRANCIS HOPKINSON. 

NEW JERSEY. 

Francis Hopkinson was born in Philadelphia, 
in 1737, and died May 9, 1791. His father, 
Thomas Hopkinson, was an English gentleman, 
who died when his son was fourteen years of 
age. He was the first student who entered 
the College of Philadelphia, (now the Universi- 
ty of Pennsylvania.) where he graduated, and 
afterwards adopted the profession of the law. 
In 1761, in a conference held on the Lehigh, 
between the government of Pennsylvania and 
several Indian tribes, he was chosen secretary 
— an event he afterwards celebrated in one of 
his poems. In 1766 he went to England, where 
he remained two years, and afterwards return- 
ing to America, settled in Bordentown, New 
Jersey, where he married Miss Ann Borden. 
He was chosen one of the representatives to 
Congress from New Jersey in 1776. 

Hopkinson distinguished himself by his po- 
litical and satirical writings during the Rev- 
olution, which were very popular, and he is 
said to have done much towards educating the 
American people for political independence. 
In 1779 he was made judge of the Admiralty of 
Pennsylvania, an office he continued to hold 
until its expiration on the organization of the 
federal government, a period of ten years. 
When, however. General Washington took the 
President's chair, Hopkinson received from him 
a very complimentary letter, in which was en- 
closed a commission as United States district 
judge for Pennsylvania. 

(26) 



SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 



He was a man possessing many accomplisli- 
ments, being familiar with tlie sciences as 
well as skilful in painting and music, having 
composed some airs for his own songs, which 
were very popular. The most important of his 
political writings were " The Pretty Story," pub- 
lished in Philadelphia, in 1774, "The Proph- 
ecy," published in 1776, and "The Political 
Catechism," in 1777. His poems which are the 
most well known are " The New Roof, a Song 
for Federal Mechanics," and a humorous ballad, 
entitled " The Battle of the Kegs." His essays 
and occasional writings were jDublished after 
his death, in Philadelphia, in 1792. 



JOHN HART. 



NEW JERSEY. 



The precise date of the birth of John Hart 
is unknown. He was born in Hopewell, New 
Jersey, where he passed the earlier part of his 
life on his paternal estate, following the avoca- 
tion of his father, who was a fixrmer, and by 
industry and enterprise he acquired a mod- 
erate fortune. His sympathies were imme- 
diately enlisted in the cause of his oj^pressed 
countrymen when the Stamp Act arrested his 
attention, and although living in a secluded 
district, he was perfectly acquainted with af- 
fairs both at home and abroad, and took part 
in the election of delegates to the Colonial 
Congress, convened in the city of New York 
in 1765. He was often elected to the Colonial 
Assembly, and took an active part, particularly 
in the legislation for local improvements. 

In 1774 Hart was chosen a deleajate to the 
Continental Congress, and reelected in 1775, 
but resigned his seat to attend to family affairs, 
being chosen, however, to the Provincial Con- 
gress of New Jersey, and becoming vice-presi- 
dent of that body. In February, 1776, his 



talents being considered too valuable to remain 
inactive, he was again reelected to the General 
Congress, when he voted for, and signed the 
Declaration of Independence. At the invasion 
of New Jersey by the British army his estate 
was among the first to be devastated, and par- 
ticular exertions were made to take him pris- 
oner, so that he dared not remain two nights 
under the same roof. He was enabled to re- 
turn to his estate, however, by Washington's 
capture of the Hessians, and remained there 
until his death in 1780, at an advanced age. 



ABRAHAM CLARK. 



NEW JERSEY. 



Abraham Clark was born in Elizabethtown, 
New Jersey, February 15, 1726. He received 
an excellent education, particularly in mathe- 
matics and civil law, and took up the occupa- 
tions of surveying and conveyancing, being 
unable to attend to his paternal form in conse- 
quence of possessing a feeble constitution. He 
soon acquired a knowledge of the law ; and 
though he never followed the profession, he was 
often called " the poor man's counsellor," on 
account of his readiness and ability to impart 
advice gratuitously. 

He held several important local offices under 
the colonial government, but took an active 
part in upholding the rights of the colonists, 
and in resisting the aggressions of the mother 
country, becoming a constant and useful person 
at the meetings of the people. He was a mem- 
ber of the Committee of Public Safety in Eliza- 
bethtown, and on June 21, 1776, was one of 
the five delegates appointed to the Continental 
Congress from New Jersey by the Provincial 
Congress, and there became one of the signers 
of the Declaration of Independence. He was 
reelected in the fall of the same year, and con- 



CLARK. — MORRIS. 



tinued a membei- of this Congress until No- 
vember, 1783, except during the session of, 
1779. 

In 1788 Clark again took his seat in the 
National Legislature. He was one of the com- 
missioners in the Convention which met at 
Annapolis, September 11, 1786, in order that 
they might report a uniform system of commer- 
cial intercourse and regulations to be ratified 
by all the states, and in the following year, 
May 8, he was appointed one of the commis- 
sioners to represent New Jersey in the Con- 
vention which framed the Constitution. He 
was prevented, however, from attending the 
sessions of that famous assembly by ill health, 
but was elected a member of the Second Con- 
gress in 1790, retaining his seat until a short 
time before his death, which occurred in the 
aiitumn of 1794, from the eflFects of a sunstroke. 
His remains rest in the cemetery at Rahway, 
New Jersey, where a handsome marble monu- 
ment was erected to his memory, July 4, 
1848, by his fellow-citizens. 



ROBERT MORRIS. 



PENNSYLVANIA. 



This distinguished financier was born in Lan- 
cashire, England, in January, 1733. His ftither 
was a merchant, engaged in American trade, 
and came to this country to settle, whither he 
was followed by his son when he was thirteen. 
Not long after his arrival he was placed in the 
counting room of Mr. Charles Willett, and his 
fidelity and ability caused him, upon the death 
of the senior partner, to be admitted to the firm. 
At the commencement of the Revolution this 
was one of the largest commercial houses in 
the country, yet, notwithstanding the great 
sacrifice which such a course of conduct must 
produce, they cheerfully concurred in the meas- 



ures taken against importation and the Stamp 
Act. 

Mr. Morris was elected to a seat in the second 
Continental Congress, and became a member 
of all the committees on maritime and finan- 
cial affairs, being a special commissioner to ne- 
gotiate bills of exchange, and otherwise procure 
money for the government. 

On the 1st of July, 1776, he voted against, 
and on the 4th, refused to vote at all, for the 
Declaration, considering the action as prema- 
ture, but having been reelected to Congress he 
formally aflSxed his name to the document the 
August following. His labors now became ar- 
duous, and so confident was he of the final 
success of the cause, that he did not hesitate 
to borrow large sums of money on his own credit, 
with which he materially assisted the half- 
clothed and half-starved band of Washington, 
when he crossed the Delaware and won the 
victory of Trenton. 

In 1780 Mr. Morris, assisted by several other 
prominent citizens, established a bank for the 
purpose of issuing bills that would receive the 
confidence of the public, as the government 
issues were almost worthless, and the funds in 
the treasury very low. 

On the 20th of February, 1781, he was unan- 
imously appointed superintendent of the public 
finances, and subsequently the entire control 
of the government moneys was placed in his 
hands. One of his first and most beneficial 
measures was the establishment of the Bank 
of North America, which was incorporated ]>y 
Congress December 31, 1781, and went into 
operation early the next year, with a capital of 
|400,000. The notes of this institution were 
declared receivable for the payment of duties 
and taxes in the United States. 

Being posse.ssed of an ample fortune and 

unbounded credit, he rendered the government 

j eminent service by repeatedly raising, on his 

j own private responsibility, large sums for its 

(27) 



SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 



maintenance, so that he had finally issued his 
own notes to the amount of $1,400,000, which 
■were subsequently all paid. Indeed, so indis- 
pensable was he to the carrying on of the war, 
that, but for him, the surrender of Cornwallis 
would never have taken place, but in its stead 
would have been the laying down of arms by 
the Americans. throua;h the lack of means actu- 
ally necessary for prosecuting the campaign. 

As no other inducement than a desire to as- 
sist his country, in her earnest endeavors to 
free herself from British tyranny, could have 
influenced him to accept the office of superin- 
tendent of finance, now that there was no fur- 
ther use, after the conclusion of peace, for his 
services, he tendered his resignation, which 
Congress refused to accept, l)ut he finally with- 
drew in November, 1784. Added to his onerous 
duties while holding this office, were those con- 
nected with the agency of marine aflfiiirs, which 
Congress had decided should devolve upon the 
superintendent of finance. 

In 1786 he allowed himself to take a seat in 
the Pennsylvania Legislature, in order to obtain 
a renewal of the charter of the North Ameri- 
can Bank. In the selection of his cabinet, 
Washington was particularly desirous of obtain- 
ing Robert Morris's services as Secretary of the 
Treasury, but he declined the honor, and pro- 
posed Alexander Hamilton in his place. 

In 1787 he was made a member of the Con- 
vention which framed the Constitution of the 
United States. In 1788 the General Assembly 
of Pennsylvania appointed him a United States 
senator, which position he filled with honor to 
himself and benefit to the country. He retired 
to private life at the expiration of his term. 
His fortune had been greatly diminished by his 
meeting, from his own private purse, many gov- 
ernment obligations, and having embarked most 
of the residue in an unfortunate speculation in 
wild lands, purchased with the expectation that 
a tide of emigration would set in, he became 

(28) 



much embarrassed, which seriously affected his 
mind. He was one among the first to engage 
in the East India and China trade, and was also 
the first to attempt to effect what is termed an 
out-of-season passage. His death occurred on 
the 8th of May, 1806. 



BENJAMIN RUSH. 



PENNSYLVANIA. 



Doctor Benjamin Rush was born on the 24th 
of December, 1745. His father dying when 
he was only six, the care of his education de- 
volved upon his mother, who was anxious to 
give him a liberal education, but as her means 
' were too limited, she sold her land and moved 
I to Philadelphia, and commenced some commer- 
j cial business. Her vv'ishes were gratified, as 
j after having received a thorough preparation 
he entered Princeton College, where he gradu- 
ated at the age of sixteen. 

The study of the law was his own choice, 
[ but by the advice of his former preceptor he 
commenced that of medicine. In 1766 he went 
to Edinburgh, where he spent two years attend- 
I ing lectures. The next winter he spent in 
' London, and in the spring went to Paris. He 
returned to this country greatly improved, and 
so rapidly did he gain in reputation that before 
he had been in practice a year he was called 
in consultation by some of the most distin- 
guished physicians. His kind and unwearied 
attention to the poor made him very popular 
with that class, and his polished manners made 
him a favorite with the rich. His reputation 
as a teacher became so great that students 
flocked to him from all parts of the United 
States. 

Doctor Rush espoused the colonial cause 
immediately after his return to America, and 
proved a powerful aid. He was solicited to 



RUSH. — FRANKLIN. 



take a seat in the Continental Congress of 
1775, but declined ; but when, in 1776, some 
of the Pennsylvania delegates refused to 
vote for independence and withdrew, he was 
elected to fill one of them, and feeling that 
duty now pointed that way he accepted the 
office. 

In 1777 Congress appointed him physician 
general to the military hospitals, in which he 
was of great service. In 1787 he was a member 
of the Convention of Pennsylvania for the 
adoption of the Federal Constitution. He was 
appointed president of the mint in 1788, which 
office he held for fourteen years. 

He took a deep interest in the many private 
associations for the advancement of civilization 
and humanity, and was an honorary member 
of many of the celebrated literary institutions 
of Europe. He also received many valuable 
presents from the diiferent sovereigns of Europe 
for important discoveries in medical science. 
He filled the chair of professor of chemistry 
in the Philadelphia College in 1769, and also 
that of theory and practice of medicine in 
1789. 

Doctor Eush's characteristics shone brightest 
dvn'ing the time when the yellow fever raged 
so violently in 1793. The usual method of 
treatment utterly failed of success, but a new 
one introduced by him produced such wonder- 
ful results that he was soon overwhelmed with 
practice. Even while at his meals his house 
was filled with persons, chiefly the poor, de. 
siring his attendance, and even while riding, his 
horse was frequently stopped, and his hours of 
rest were sadly encroached upon. Worn out by 
such constant activity of body and mind, he 
fell an easy victim to the disease, which nearly 
cost him his life. The death of this patriot 
and sincere Christian occurred on the 19th 
of April, 1813. During his illness crowds 
flocked to his house, so greatly was he beloved 
by all. 



BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. 

PENNSYLVANIA. 

This remarkable personage was born in Bos- 
ton, January 17, 1706. His father emigrated 
to this country in 1682, and shortly after his 
arrival married a Miss Folger, and set up in 
business as a tallow chandler, which occupation 
he followed during the rest of his life. 

Benjamin's education was connnenced witli 
a view to his being a minister, but his parents' 
scanty means not being sufficient* he was kept 
at a common school a few years, and then went 
to work with his father. But this not being to 
his taste, he was apprenticed, on probation, to 
a cutler, but the fee charged was more than his 
father could afford, and he was removed from 
this also. He then entered the office of one 
of his brothers, who was a printer, where he 
attained a considerable degree of proficiency,, 
applying himself in his leisure moments to 
earnest study, instead of the amusements usual 
to those of his age. 

At length a difficulty having arisen between 
himself and his brother, he left his employ and 
went to New York, where he hoped to find 
work, but failing in this he proceeded to Phila- 
delphia. He attracted considerable attention 
on his first appearance in this city, friendless, 
and with only a dollar in his pocket. Having 
bouo'ht three loaves of bread, one of which he 
ate and the others he placed under his arm, 
he wandered about until he came to a Quaker 
meeting-house, which he entered, and slept 
soundly until he was aroused by the congre- 
gation dispersing. 

He was successful in obtaining a situation as 
compositor in a printing office, and soon won 
the confidence and respect of his employers. 
Having written to a friend an account of his 
journey, the letter was shown to Governor 
Keith, of Delaware, who Avas so much pleased 
with it tliat he invited Franklin to his resi- 



SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 



dence, and offered him his patronage, and ad- 
vised him to set up in business for himself. 
This step involved the necessity of a voyage 
to England to obtain materials ; but when he 
arrived there he found the governor's assistance 
of so little avail that he was forced to go to 
work again for others. In his new situation 
he soon made many friends by pursuing the 
same course of conduct which characterized 
him at home. During his stay there he be- 
came somewhat tinctured with infidel senti- 
ments, and wrote a pamphlet on deistical met- 
aphysics, — a performance which he afterwards 
deeply regretted. 

With his earnings he started to take a trip 
on the Continent, but having received an offer 
to return home as a clerk to a friend, he ac- 
cepted it. With a new employer at Philadel- 
phia, there was a bright prospect before him 
of wealth and fame, but his employer having 
died, he once more became a journeyman printer 
with his first master. But he soon entered into 
partnership with another printer, and rapidly 
rose in popularity, and success attended him 
on every side. 

So numerous and varied were the occupa- 
tions and pursuits of this wonderful character, 
that it would require a volume to notice them 
all and do him justice. In 1732 he began his 
celebrated Poor Richard's Almanac, which had 
an extensive circulation in the colonies and in 
England, and was translated into several of the 
European languages. The issue of this ceased 
about 1757, and at the same time he com- 
menced a newspaper, which became very pop- 
ular in this country. By indefatigable study 
he acquired a knowledge of the Latin, French, 
Spanish, and Italian languages. He started a 
literary club, called the Junto, and the books 
they collected are the basis of the Philadel- 
phian Library. He was the author of many 
pamphlets on popular topics, which were much 
sought for by all classes of people, and which 

(30) 



greatly increased his pecuniary resources. In 
1734 he was appointed government printer for 
the state, and two years afterwards he became 
clerk of the General As.sembly. In 1737 he 
was made ^Dostmaster of Philadelphia. These 
offices bringing him in considerable money, the 
necessity for a close application to business was 
done away with, and he was left free to devote 
much of his attention to the study of philosophy 
and public improvement. He organized fire 
companies, invented means for paving the 
streets and lighting tliem with gas. Military 
discipline having been almost entirely neg- 
lected, he revived it, and also started several 
literary societies. He published a treatise on 
the improvement of chimneys, and invented 
the celebrated stove which bears his name. 

In 1741 he published the " General Maga- 
zine and Historical Chronicle for the British 
Plantations," which was extensively circulated. 
In 1744 he was elected a member of the Gen. 
eral Assembly, and was annually reelected for 
ten consecutive years, and before this time he 
had held the office of justice of the peace and 
alderman. 

About this time he made his celebrated dis- 
coveries in philosophy, especially in electricity, 
completely identifying, in a novel and wonder- 
ful manner, lightning and the electrical spark. 
These discoveries alone would have made him 
famous, but, united with his varied achieve- 
ments, have rendered his name immortal. 

In 1753 he treated with the Indians at Car- 
lisle, and in 1754 attended the Convention, at 
Albany, of delegates from the different colo- 
nies, who met to consult in I'egard to general 
defence against the French. About this time 
he became deputy postmaster general, and 
was active in providing material for Braddock's 
expedition againt Fort Du Quesne. 

In 1757 he was sent to London by the Gen 
eral Assembly, to manage a dispute between 
the province and its governor, and so admirably 



FRANKLIN.— MORTON. 



did he conduct it that, on his return to this 
country, he received twenty thousand dollars 
as compensation for his valuable services. He 
remained as agent in England for the colony 
during five years, and formed many valuable 
acquaintances there. In 1764 he was sent 
again on much the same business, and when, 
during his stay there the Stamp Act was passed, 
declared loudly against its injustice. His opin- 
ions weighed much, and averted for a time the 
storm which finally burst upon the colonies. 
He returned home in 1775, as he became satis- 
fied that war was unavoidable, and was imme- 
diately made a delegate to the General Con- 
gress, to which he was reelected in 1776, and! 
was one of the committee appointed to draft the 
Declaration of Independence. In September 
of that year he was appointed one of three 
commissioners to meet Lord Howe on Stateu 
Island, and hear his proposals for peace. This 
was unsuccessful, and the war began. 

Shortly afterwards a Convention was called 
in Pennsylvania to organize a state govern- 
ment, in pursuance of a recommendation of 
the General Congress. Franklin was made the 
president, and his superior wisdom and judg- 
ment were displayed in the constitution which i 
was framed. 

Perhaps the most important office held by 
Franklin was that of commissioner to France, 
to which he was apjjointed by Congress in 
October, 1776, to negotiate a treaty of alliance. 
He was received with great honor in that coun- 
try, and the sympathy of the people with the 
suffering Americans was assured to him ; but 
the court of France hardly dared to make a 
treaty, until the news of Burgoyne's capture 
was received, when every thing promisuig secu- 
rity, they signified their desire of entering into 
a formal negotiation. The treaty was finally 
concluded, and was signed by Franklin and 
the French ministers in February, 1778. The 
independence of America was acknowledged, 



and France openly espoused her cause. Con- 
gress bestowed upon him almost unlimited 
power, and although his duties were difficult 
and complicated, yet they were most satisfac- 
torily discharged. 

In September, 1783, Franklin had the pleas- 
ure of signing the treaty of peace and recog- 
nition with Great Britain. He remained abroad 
until the arrival of his successor, Thomas Jef- 
ferson, in 1785. His return to this country 
was every where hailed with the most lively 
demonstrations of joy from individuals of every 
class, and from nearly every public body in the 
country. Notwithstanding the great age to 
which he had attained, being then nearly eighty, 
he was not allowed to retire to private life, but 
served in the capacity of President of Pennsyl- 
vania, which office he held for the space of 
three years. 

In 1787 he was a member of the Conven- 
tion which framed the Constitution of the 
United States. But disease had made such in- 
roads upon his .system that he relinquished his 
position as a public character, and retired to 
private life. 

His death occurred on the 17th of April, 
1790. The sad news was heard with profound 
sorrow wherever his name was known, and 
Congress proclaimed a season of universal 
mourning for his loss. In the National Assem- 
bly of France public notice was given of his 
death, and a brief eulogium was pronounced 
by Mirabeau. A vast concourse of citizens 
followed his body to the grave, thus testifying 
to the regard which every one felt for his 
memory. 



JOHN MORTON. 

PENNSYLVANIA. 

John Morton was born in Ridley, Pennsylvania, 
in 1724. His parents, who were of Swedish 

C31) 



SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 



descent, emigrated to America early in the 
seventeenth century, and settled on the Dela- 
ware, not far from Philadelphia. His father 
dying before his birth, his education was in- 
trusted to the care of his stepfather, who, being 
a good practical surveyor, paid particular atten- 
tion to mathematics, and also to the more 
common branches. 

The first official position that he held was 
that of justice of peace in 1764, and he 
was not long afterwards chosen a member 
of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania, 
where his services were very valuable, and of 
which body he was speaker for a number 
of years. 

He was also a delegate to the Stamp-Act 
Congress in 1765, and in the following year 
was made high sheriff of his county. 

He eagerly espoused the patriots' cause, 
and when troops were first raised was offered 
a commission, but was obliged to refuse on 
account of his duties, which he felt unable to 
relinquish. He was at this time holding the 
office of judge of the Court of Common Pleas, 
and not long afterwards was advanced to a 
similar position in the Supreme Court. 

In 1774 the Assembly of Pennsylvania ap- 
pointed him a delegate to the General Congress, 
and reelected him four times in succession. 
During bis connection with this body his 
duties were faithfully discharged, though many 
were arduous ones. He served on many com- 
mittees, and among others on that which re- 
ported the Articles of Confederation for the 
States. 

His death occurred in April, 1777, in the 
fifty-fourth year of his age, before peace and 
the independence which he had so warmly 
espoused, were established. 



GEORGE CLYMER. 



PENNSYLVANU. 



(S2) 



This earnest patriot was born in Philadelphia 
in 1739. His father left him an orphan at 
the age of seven, when his maternal uncle, 
William Coleman, gave him a good education, 
and eventually bequeathed him the greater 
part of his fortune. Upon leaving school 
he entered his uncle's counting house, but 
spent much of his leisure in study. In 
1765 he married Miss Elizabeth Meredith, 
and joined the commercial house of his father- 
in-law. 

His first appearance in political affairs was 
in October 16, 1773, as speaker at a " tea 
meeting," held in Philadelphia by the citizens, 
where his opposition was so spirited that he 
was appointed chairman of the committee 
which requested the tea agents to resign. 
During the next twenty years Clymer was a 
prominent man, being a member of many of 
the preliminary committees, and of the council 
of safety. He commanded a company, under 
General Cadwallader, performing but little mili- 
tary duty, however, being of more service in 
a civil capacity. He was appointed to the 
care of the public treasury on July 29, 1775, 
together with Michael Hillegas, and here proved 
his sincere belief in the future, by converting all 
his specie into continental currency, liberally 
subscribing also to the loan. 

July 20, 1776, Cl^'mer was appointed one of 
those who succeeded the members of the Penn- 
sylvania delegation who had refused to subscribe 
their names to the Declaration of Independence. 
The new members affixed their signatures, 
Clymer's being the thirty-eighth name after 
John Hancock's. In September of the same 
year he was one of the committee sent to Ticon- 
deroga to confer with Washington on aflfixirs of 
the army. In December he was among the com- 
missioners left in Philadelphia to guard the public 



CLYMER. — SMITH. 



interests on the retirement of Congress to Balti- 
more. The following year he was reelected to 
Congress, and again sent to consult with Wash- 
ington, and having removed his family to Chester 
county, had his home plundered by the British 
at the battle of Brandywine. In 1777 he was 
appointed, together with Colonel Samuel Wash- 
ington and Gabriel Jones, to treat with the 
Indians at Fort Pitt ; but failing, returned, after 
an absence of four months, and recommended 
compulsory measures. 

In 1780 Clymer was a third time elected to 
Congress. In November, of the same year, he 
was deputed, with John Nixon, to organize the 
Bank of North America, and in 1782 was asso- 
ciated with Eutledge in his mission to the 
Southern States. At the close of the war he 
removed to Princeton, where he was only per- 
mitted to enjoy his retirement for a short time, 
being elected a member of the Pennsylvania 
legislature against the party who supported the 
old constitution. He here did good service by 
his successful efforts to modify the cruelty of 
the criminal code. Besides other institutions 
indebted to him, were the Pennsylvania Agri- 
cultural Society, of which he was vice-president ; 
the Academy of Fine Arts and Pennsylvania 
Bank, of both of which institutions he was also 
president. Clymer was a member of the Con- 
vention which framed the Federal Constitution, 
and was elected a member of the first Congress 
under that instrument, in November, 1788. He 
declined a reelection in 1790, and the follow- 
ing year was appointed collector of the excise 
duty on spirits, which collection led to whiskey 
riots in Pennsylvania. Cl3aner acted firmly 
and temperately in these troubles, but finally 
resigned it, and was appointed one of three to 
negotiate a treaty with the Cherokees and 
Creeks in Georgia. Completing this work in 
1796, he withdrew from public afiairs, and died 
at the residence of his son, at Morrisville, Penn- 
sylvania, July 23, 1813. 

5 



In person George Clymer was of medium 
stature, fair complexion, and attractive counte- 
nance, with marked expression in harmony 
with his character, which was honest, frank, 
and republican. He Avas a man extremely 
averse to the .assumptions of aristocracy, which 
he thought abounded more in the United States 
than in any other country. He seldom spoke 
in public, but when he did he expressed himself 
in keen, pithy, and laconic language. 



JAMES SMITH. 



PENNSYLVANIA. 



The birthplace of James Smith was Ireland, 
but the time of his birth was never ascertained 
with certainty. It probably occurred about 
the year 1720. His father emigrated to this 
country when James was quite small, and set- 
tled on the Susquehanna. Early in life he 
discovered a strong intellect, and was liberally 
educated at Philadelphia College. Upon his 
graduation he studied law, and after havins: 
been admitted to the bar, set up for himself in 
Shippensburg as a lawyer and surveyor, but 
finding the place too much of a wilderness for 
extensive practice removed to York. 

He early perceived the storm which threat- 
ened the annihilation of the colonies, but fear- 
lessly withstood it. In 1774 he was present 
at a meeting of delegates from all the counties 
of Pennsylvania for the purpose of expressing 
the public mind on the Non-importation Act, 
and the propriety of calling a General Congress. 
He endeavored to arouse the people, and was 
in favor of independence as early as 1774; but 
the State of Pennsylvania was slow to adopt 
his sentiments, and even gave her delegates 
adverse instructions, but she finally saw good 
reason to alter her mind, and sent Mr. Smith, 
with several others, to fill the vacancies caused 

(33) 



SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 



by the withdrawal of some who would not vote 
for the Declaration. 

He was a member of the Convention of Penn- 
sylvania which assembled in July to establish 
a new State Constitution. In this he was 
very active, and it was not till Qctober, 1776, 
that he took his seat regularly in Congress. 
He was soon after appointed one of a most 
important committee to aid Washington in 
repelling General Howe. They were provided 
with almost unlimited power, and were the cliief 
originators of many of the military movements. 

In the spring of 1777 he declined a reelec- 
tion to Congress, but the disastrous defeats of 
the Americans at Brandywine and German- 
town, and the capture of Philadelphia, rendered 
his presence with that deliberative body neces- 1 
sary. When, in 1778, the battle of Monmouth | 
retrieved the fallen fortunes of the colonists, j 
he dissolved his connection with it, and retired j 
to private life. In 1779 he served one term 
in his State Legislature, which terminated his 
public career. 

His death occurred on the 11th of July, 
1806, at the advanced age of nearly ninety. 
In manner, Mr. Smith was quite eccentric, but 
be possessed a ready wit, joined to a genial 
humor, which made him a great favorite in 
the social circle. 



GEOEGE TAYLOR 



PENNSYLVANIA. 



George Taylor was born in Ireland, in 1716, 
and came to this country when he was about 
twenty. Upon his arrival here he was so poor 
that he was obliged to perform menial service, 
although he had been well educated. He aftei'- 
wards filled the situation of clerk in an iron 
establishment in Durham, Pennsylvania. After 
the death of his employer he married his widow, 
and thus became possessed of considerable 

(34) 



property and a flourishing business. When he 
had carried this on for some time, and had 
accumulated considerable wealth, he purchased 
a fine estate on the Lehigh, and erected iron 
works there. 

His position in society, joined to a suavity 
of manner, procured for him a seat in the 
Colonial Assembly in 1764. He soon became 
a prominent member, and was placed upon 
many of the most important committees. It 
was during his connection with this body that 
a letter was received from Massachusetts call- 
ing for a general convention at New York in 
1765. The invitation was accepted, and Mr. 
Taylor was appointed to prepare instructions 
for the delegates from his state. 

He retained his seat in the Assembly five 
years, when he withdrew that he might attend 
to his private affairs, which he had been obliged 
to neglect in the discharge of his public duties. 
He was elected to the Provincial Congress in 
1775, and was also appointed on the committee 
to make regulations to govern the delegates to 
the General Congress. These instructions con- 
tained one that forbade the delegates to vote 
for any proposition of independence, as hopes 
of a reconciliation were still entertained. But 
public opinion on this subject changed as matters 
grew worse, and the restriction was removed 
in June, 1776; still, many of the members 
adhered to the old course of action. Mr. Tay- 
lor was sent to fill the place of one of them, 
and remained in Congress a year, when he 
retired to Easton. He died on the 23d of 
February, 1781. 



JAMES WILSON. 

PENNSYLVANIA. 



This patriot was born in Scotland, in 1742. 
His father was a respectable farmer, and he 
placed his son under the tuition of some of the 



WILSON. — ROSS. 



best teachers in Edinburgh. He came to this 
country in 1766, so highly recommended that 
he found but little difficulty in obtaining a 
situation as a tutor in the Philadelphia College, 
•where he soon gained the reputation of a fine 
classical scholar. After a few months' teachino- 
he commenced the study of law in the office 
of John Dickinson, and was admitted to the 
bar, and finally established himself at JPhila- 
delphia. 

He gained great renown as a lawyer, and 
also as a warm adherent of the republican 
cause. The zeal which he showed for the 
interests of his adopted home caused him to 
be elected to the Provincial Assembly of Penn- 
sylvania in 1774, and in May, 1775, he was 
deputized to attend the General Congress. He 
was reelected in 1776, and showed himself a 
strong friend of independence, but was opposed 
in his efforts for its success by several of the 
members of his own state. 

Party spirit running high about this time, 
his people did not send him to Congress from 
1777 until 1782. Although thus unkindly 
I'eturned to private life, he still continued his 
efforts for the public good. He labored untir- 
ingly, in connection with Mr. Smith, in organ- 
izing a volunteer body of militia, and was 
appointed colonel of a regiment in 1774. 

In 1777 he was sent on a commission to the 
Indians in his state, with whom difficulties had 
arisen, which he settled amicably. As soon as 
France had declared herself for America, in 
1778, she sent a minister to Congress, a Mon- 
sieur Gerard, who soon formed an acquaint/ 
ance with Mr. Wilson. He was struck with the 
versatility of his talents, and appointed him 
advocate-general of French affair.s, — a duty 
both arduous and delicate. He served in this 
capacity until 1782, when he relinquished 
the office on account of difficulty respecting 
remuneration. 

Mr. Wilson resumed his connection with 



Congress in 1783, and during that year was 
commissioned by the government of Pennsyl- 
vania to assist in settling the difficulty between 
that state and Connecticut in regard to the 
title to the Wyoming Valley. He was again 
sent to Congress in 1785, and in 1787 assisted 
in framing the Federal Constitution. He was 
chosen as orator on the occasion of its adoption, 
and was one of those who altered his state's 
constitution to conform with the general one. 

He received the appointment of professor 
of law in the College of Philadelphia in 1790, 
and in the year following commenced revising 
the laws of the state ; but the senate refusino- 
to concur with the representatives in this under- 
taking, he abandoned his work. Washington 
conferred upon him the office of judge of the 
Supreme Court of the United States, and he 
died while at Edenton, August 28, 1798, as he 
was making a judicial circuit. 



GEOEGE ROSS. 



PENNSYLVANIA. 



George Ross was born in Newcastle, Dela- 
ware, during the year 1730. His father, an 
Episcopal minister, gave him an excellent edu- 
cation, and he exhibited great proficiency in 
the classics. He commenced the study of the 
law at the age of eighteen, at his brother's 
office, and was admitted to the bar three years 
afterwards, and fixed his residence at Lancas- 
ter, Pennsylvania. 

In 1768 he began his public career as a 
member of the Pennsylvania Assembly, with 
which he retained his connection for several 
successive years. When the British govern- 
ment, jealous of the rising power of the colo- 
nies, endeavored to crush them by oppressive 
and unjust regulations, Mr. Ross heartily ap- 
proved of resistance, and joined in the universal 

{•15) 



SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 



desire for a General Congress. In 1774 he was 
elected to this body, and was instructed to draw 
np rules by which himself and his colleagues 
were to be governed. He was so highly es- 
teemed that he was continually returned until 
1777, when indisposition obliged him to with- 
draw, on which occasion the citizens of Lancas- 
ter voted him a piece of plate. 

His warmest sympathies were always enlisted 
on the side of suffering, and he put forth ear- 
nest endeavors to ameliorate the condition of 
the Indians, and prevent any outbreaks among 
them. In April, 1799 he was made a judge 
of the Admiralty Court for Pennsjdvania, in 
which position he bid feir to greatly distinguish 
himself, but a sudden attack of the gout ter- 
minated his useful life in Julv, 1780. 



C^SAK RODNEY. 

DELAWARE. 

C^SAR Rodney was born in Dover, Delaware, 
in 1730. His father came to this country about 
the same time as William Penn, and, after a 
short residence in Pennsylvania, settled in 
Delaware. Coesar, being the eldest, inher- 
ited his father's estate and high social stand- 
ing. At the age of twenty-eight he was 
made high sheriflj and upon the expiration of 
his services in this capacity, he was created a 
justice of the peace, and a judge of the lower 
courts. 

He represented his county in the Provincial 
Legislature in 1762, by which he was sent, in 
1765, to the " Stamp Act Congress," which met 
in New York, when the British, by their nu- 
merous unjust measures, laid a yoke upon the 
colonies too grievous to be borne. He was 
elected speaker of the Provincial Assembly, 
and occupied that position until 1774, at the 
same time being chairman of the committee 

(36) 



whose business it was to carry on a political 
correspondence with the colonies. 

He was elected to the first General Congress 
in 1774, and assisted in drawing up a declara- 
tion of rights. In the following year he was 
reelected, and was also commissioned brigadier- 
general. When the question of the Declara- 
tion of Independence came before Congress 
he was absent, attending to the duties devolv- 
ing upon him in his military capacity, but his 
colleagues, knowing his feelings on the subject, 
despatched messengers at their own expense 
to bring Mr. Rodney back as soon as possible. 
He arrived just in time to cast his vote and 
sign his name to the document. 

In the fall of 1776 the people of Delaware 
called a convention to frame a state constitu- 
tion and nominate delegates to the next Gen- 
eral Congress. By the influence of the loyalist 
party, which was too well represented in the 
state, he was deprived of the honor, which 
properly belonged to him, of a reelection, but 
he employed liis time in obtaining material aid 
for the troops of his state then with Washing- 
ton in New Jersey. 

After the battle of Princeton, in 1777, he 
went to the camp there, and spent two months 
recruiting, but then, his services being no 
longer necessary, came home. Shortly after his 
return he received the appointment of judge 
of the Supreme Court, but this he declined, as 
he had a greater relish for the more active 
duties of military life. He was afterward.s 
called to march, with his brigade, to quell an 
insurrection in his state, and also to join the 
main army under Washington when Lord 
Howe turned his troops towards Philadelphia. 

The tory element at length having subsided. 
General Rodney was returned to Congress, but 
before taking his seat was chosen president of 
the state, and fulfilled the arduous duties con- 
nected with it in a worthy manner, effectually 
repressing all tendencies to anarchy which dis- 



READ. — McKEAN. 



played -themselves. In 1782 his gradually de- 
clining health caused him to retire from office, 
and he expired early in 1783. 



GEOEGE EEAD. 



DELAWARE. 



George Eead was born in Maryland, in the 
year 1734. He was of Irish descent, hi.s father 
having emigrated to this country about 1726. 
The latter educated his son in the common 
English branches himself, and then placed him 
in the hands of good teachers, with whom he 
made much progress in the classics. 

George commenced studying law at Phila- 
delphia when he was only seventeen, and was 
admitted to the bar two years after. An act 
of generosity which he performed at that time 
deserves notice. According to the established 
laws he was entitled to two shares in his fixther's 
estate, but he relinquished his rights to his 
brothers, considering that he had already re- 
ceived his share in his education. In 1754 he 
commenced the practice of his profession at 
Newcastle, Delaware, where, although he was 
surrounded by lawyers of eminence, he soon 
rose to a level with them. 

In 1763 he was appointed attorney-general 
for the three lower counties of Delaware, which 
office he held until he was elected a delegate 
to the Continental Congress in 1774. In 1765 
he was made a member of the General Assem- 
bly of his state, and continued his connection 
with it for eleven consecutive years. He was 
one of a committee from this body appointed 
to draw up an address to the King in behalf of 
the provinces at the time of the passage of the 
Stamp Act. But he felt that remonstrance 
from the colonies singly would have but little 
eflect, and believing that "in union there is 
strength," he advocated a general meeting of 
all the colonies. 



He also strenuously opposed commercial in- 
tercourse with the British. When Boston suf- 
fered so severely under the crushing weight 
of the Port Bill, Mr. Eead was very active in 
transmitting donations and procuring pecuniary 
aid for its inhabitants. 

In 1774 he was deputized to attend the ses- 
sion of the Continental Congress, ajid also in 
1775 and 1776. When the vote was taken for 
the Declaration of Independence, he gave his in 
opposition to it, deeming the act as premature, 
but when the time came for signing the instru- 
ment he affixed his signature to it. Durinfr 
the latter year he was the president of the 
Convention which framed a state constitution 
for Delaware. 

In 1779 ill health compelled him to with- 
draw from public life, but he returned to it the 
next year. In 1782 he was made a judge of 
the Court of Appeals in Admiralty Cases, and 
retained this position during the existence of 
the office. In 1785 he assisted in settling a 
disputed point about the territory between 
Massachusetts and New York. In 1787 he was 
a representative of his state in the Convention 
for framing the Federal Constitution, and on 
its adoption was elected a member of the 
United States Senate, and occupied a place 
there until 1793, when he became judge of the 
Supreme Court of his state. This office he 
filled till his death in the fall of 1798. 



THOMAS McKEAN. 

DELAWARE. 

Thomas McKean was born in New London, 
Chester county, Pennsylvania, on the 19th of 
March, 1734. At the conclusion of his studies 
with the Eev. Dr. Allison, under whose care he 
was placed, he began the study of the law, 
where his talents soon manifested themselves, 

(37) 



SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 



and he was employed as assistant clerk of the 
Court of Common Pleas. He was admitted to 
the bar when twent_y-one years of age, and 
permitted to practise in three counties of Dela- 
ware. He soon became eminent in his profes- 
sion, attracting the attention of many leading 
men. 

When only twenty-two years of age, the 
attorney-general of the province appointed him, 
without solicitation, his deputy to prosecute all 
claims for the crown in the county of Sussex. 
In 1757 he was admitted to practise in the 
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and about the 
same time was elected clerk of the House of As- 
sembly of Delaware; he declined another elec- 
tion the following year, however. In 1762 he 
was appointed, together with Caesar Piodney, to 
revise and print the laws of the province which 
had been enacted during the preceding ten years. 

He was next elected a representative to the 
General Assembly from Newcastle, although 
he had resided in Philadelphia for six years, but 
at his urgent request he was permitted to relin- 
quish his seat. A committee was appointed to 
call upon him and request him to nominate seven 
men for representatives ; he finally acceded to 
their desires, and they were elected by large 
majorities. In 1765 he became a member of 
the Pennsylvania Assembly, to which he was 
annually elected for the next seventeen years. 
In 1765 he was a delegate to the General Con- 
gress of the colonies assembled at New York, 
and was placed upon the committee who pre- 
pared an address to the British House of Com- 
mons. In the same year he was also appointed 
sole notary public for the " lower counties on 
the Delaware," and afterwards, in quick succes- 
sion, justice of the peace, judge of the Court 
of Common Pleas and Quarter Sessions, also of 
the Orphan Com-t. 

In 1766 he was admitted by the governor 
of New Jersey to practise in any of its courts. 
In 1771 he was appointed collector of the cus- 

(38) 



toras for the port of Newcastle, and elected 
speaker of the Assembly of Delaware the next 
year. In September, 1774, he attended the 
first Continental Congress, being delegate from 
the lower counties in Delaware, and continued 
a delegate until the ratification of the treaty 
of peace in 1783, being the only member who 
served during the whole revolutionary period 
uninterruptedly. He ardently supported the 
measure which led finally to the Declaration 
of Independence, and voted for and signed that 
instrument. 

In September, 1776, he was appointed a 
member of the convention to form a state consti- 
tution, although he then commanded a regiment 
under Washington. This instrument, which was 
adopted by a unanimous vote, was the produc- 
tion of his pen. McKean, claimed as citizen by 
both Delaware and Pennsylvania, served both, 
filling offices in each state, officiating as president 
of the former and chief justice of the latter in 
1777. In 1781 he was appointed president of 
Congress in place of Mr. Huntington of Con- 
necticut, resigning that position in November, 
receiving the thanks of Congress for his able 
services. McKean retained the office of chief 
justice of Pennsylvania until 1799, when, being 
chosen governor, he retired from the bench. 
His administration continued until 1808, when 
he withdrew from public life, and died on the 
24th of June, 1817, when eighty-four years 
of age. 



SAMUEL CHASE. 

MARYLAND. 

Samuel Chase was born in Somerset county, 
Maryland, April 17, 1741. His early education 
was directed by his fiither, an Episcopal clergy- 
man, of English birth, who sent him to Annap- 
olis, where he applied himself to the study of 
the law, and was admitted to the bar at twenty 



CHASE. — STONE. 



years of age, soon becoming noted as a skilful 
and eloquent advocate and learned lawyer. 
He strongly opposed the royal governor and 
his adherents in the colonial legislature, and was 
one of the most vehement in resisting the 
Stamp Act, becoming the leader of the friends 
of liberty in his state. 

Mr. Chase was one of the five delegates sent 
by the Maryland convention to the Continental 
Congress in 1774, of which he continued a 
member during all the sessions until the end 
of the year 1788. He it was who denounced 
Rev. Dr. Zubley of Georgia as a traitor, com- 
pelling hiui to flee from Congress, the secrets 
of which body he was revealing to the enemy. 
In 1776 Chase accompanied Charles and John 
Carroll on a mission to Canada, all the more 
readily because the Maryland convention was 
inclined to half-wa}' measures, and refused to 
instruct its delegates to vote for the Declaration 
of Independence. Upon his return he can- 
vassed the state, brought public opinion to 
bear on the convention, and thus having caused 
the jxissage of the desired resolution, returned 
to Philadelphia in time to vote for independ- 
ence. He was placed on the greater part of 
the important committees in Congress, where 
his industry was unwearied. During the 
last three years of the war he remained at 
home practising law, to the study of which 
he had devoted all his spare time while in 
Congress. 

In 1783 he went to England as commissioner 
from Maryland, to recover funds invested in 
the Bank of England before the war. After 
remaining there a year, he succeeded so fiir in 
adjusting the claim that six hundred and fifty 
thousand dollars were afterwards paid to the 
state. Removing to Baltimore in 1788, he was 
appointed chief justice in a newly-established 
criminal court there, and in 1791 chief justice 
of the General Court of Maryland ; between 
these two dates being a member of the Mary- 



land convention for the consideration of the 
Federal Constitution, which instrument he did 
not think sufficiently democratic. In 1796 
he was appointed associate justice of the Su- 
preme Court by Washington, with whom he 
had long been on terms of intimacy. In 1804, 
at the instance of John Randolph, he was im- 
peached by the House of Representatives for 
misdemeanor in the conduct of several political 
trials, particularly those of Fries and Callender, 
convicted of seditious libels five years pre- 
viously. He was discharged, however, by the 
Senate, March 5, 1805, a majority being in his 
favor in five out of eight charges, and against 
him on the remainder. After his discharge, 
Judge Chase resumed his seat on the bench, 
which he occupied until his death, June 19, 
1811. He was a pure patriot, a learned and 
able, though sometimes an overbearing judge, 
and a brave but rather irritable man. 



THOMAS STONE. 



MARYLAND. 



Thomas Stone was born in Maryland in the 
year 1743. After having received a fair clas- 
sical education he studied law and commenced 
practice at Fredericton. 

He attached himself to the colonial cause 
early in the Revolution from motives of pure 
patriotism and a love of justice, and was elected 
a delegate to the first session of the Conti- 
nental Congress, but retired to private life upon 
its completion. He was returned in 1775, with 
the injunction, however, not to vote for inde- 
pendence. Thus fettered, Mr. Stone could not 
do justice to himself, but the restriction having 
been removed, he willingly subscribed his name 
to the document. 

His unassuming disposition prevented him 
from being conspicuous as a public character, 



SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 



but he rendered an important service in being 
one of the committee who drew up the Articles 
of Confederation, adopted November, 1777. 

He refused a reelection to Congress, but took j 
a seat in the Maryland Legislature. In 1783 
he was again sent to Congress, and was present 
when Washington resigned his commission. Li 
1784 he was appointed president, ^^/-o tempore, 
of that body, and had it not been for his mod- 
esty he would doubtless have been elected to 
that important situation. He died at his resi- 1 
dence. Port Tobacco, on the 5th of October, 
1787, as he was on the point of embarking for 
Europe. 



WILLIAM PACA. 



MARYLAND. 



William Paca was the second son of a wealthy 
planter of Maryland, where he was born on 
the 31st of October, 1740. He was carefully 
educated when young, and graduated at Phila- 
delphia College in 1759. He then commenced 
studying law, and after having been admitted 
to the bar settled at Annapolis. 

He was made a member of the Provincial 
Assembly, and when the Stamp Act aroused 
the people, in 1765, to the danger of their situa- 
tion, he warmly opposed it. This conduct, as 
well as many subsequent acts of his, endeared 
him to the people, although it rendered him 
unpopular to the royal party. He was made a 
member of the first Continental Congress, with 
full instructions to accede to all measures neces- 
sary to redress the grievances of the colonies. 
He was successively reelected until 1778, when 
he was appointed chief justice of the Supreme 
Court of his state. 

While serving in Congress he was much 
trammelled by the opposition of his constituents 
to independence, who, as late as the early part 
of 1776, passed a resolution forbidding the 

(«) 



delegates to vote for it, but finally withdrew 
their restrictions. Thus freed, he continued 
his previous efforts in behalf of the colonies, 
and joyfully signed his name on the 2d of 
August, 1776. 

Near the commencement of 1778 he re- 
ceived the appointment of chief justice of his 
state, and two j-ears afterwards was made by 
Congress chief judge of Appeals in Prize and 
Admiralty Cases. In 1782 he was chosen gov- 
ernor of Maryland, after holding which office 
he retired to private life, but again filled the 
position in 1786, as well as sei'ving a short time 
in Congress. In 1788 he was a member of the 
Convention called together to ratify the Fed- 
eral Constitution, and after it had gone into 
effect Washington nominated him judge of the 
Maryland district. He held this office tiU his 
death in 1799. 



CHARLES CAEROLL. 



MAETLAND. 



Charles Carroll of Carollton was born at 
Annapolis, Maryland, September 20, 1737. His 
parents being of the Roman Catholic faith, 
his father took him to France, where he placed 
him at the college of English Jesuits, at St. 
Omer, when he was eiglit years of age, where 
he remained six years, afterwards going to a 
Jesuit college at Rheims. Remaining here a 
year, he entered the college of Louis le Grand, 
where he graduated at the age of seventeen, 
then beginning the study of law at Bourges. 
He remained here one year, thence proceeding 
to Paris, where he continued two years, and 
then repaired to London, and took apartments 
in the Temple. He remained here until 1765, 
when he returned to Maryland a finished schol- 
ar and gentleman, and in 1768 married Mary 
Darnell. He was heir to a vast estate, the last 
of the manorial grants of Maryland, and was 



CARROLL. 



considered the wealthiest man in the colonies 
at the time the revolutionary war broke out. 

After his return, the passage of the Stamp 
Act first drew his particular attention towards 
political affairs, of which for sunie time he had 
been an interested spectator. He immediately 
espoused the American cause, and took an 
active part in the various patriotic movements 
of the times. Carroll became particularly dis- 
tinguished as a political writer; and in 1771-72 
his name became well known as such in the 
other colonies. In 1772 lie wrote a series of 
essays against the right of the British govern- 
ment to tax the colonies without their consent ; 
which was ah\y written, and emphatically tri- 
umphed over tiie papers written in opposition 
by the secretary of the colony. The name of 
the author was at first unknown, but the peo- 
ple were so grateful for the able defence of 
their cause, that they instructed the members 
of the Legislative Assembly of Maryland to 
return their sincere thanks to the unknown 
writer through the public prints. When it be- 
came known that Charles Carroll was the author, 
large numbers expressed their thanks person- 
ally, and he immediately stood high in popular 
confidence and esteem. His clear judgment 
and decided character made him umpire in 
several momentous cases, and he rose higher 
and higher in popular favor. 

Carroll was appointed a member of the first 
committee of safety of Maryland, and in 1775 
a member of the Provincial Assembly. Car- 
roll early foresaw that the colonists would be 
obliged to re-sort to arms to defend their rights ; 
and his sentiments, well known to be in favor 
of independence, were probably the cause 
of his not bein!; sooner sent to the General 
Congress, as the Maryland convention were 
opposed to extreme measures. Anxious to 
witness the proceedings of the Continental Con- 
gress, he visited Philadelphia in 1776, and was 
so favorably known there that he, with Dr. 

6 



Franklin and Judge Chase, were chosen to visit 
Canada, to induce the Canadians to unite with 
the colonists. On his return from this mission 
in June, 1776, Carroll found the Declaration of 
Independence under discussion, and hastened to 
resume his seat at Annapolis, to use his infl.u- 
ence to remove the instructions with which 
the delegates of Maryland were shackled. To- 
gether with Judge Chase he worked with per- 
severing and untiring industry, and finally 
succeeded ; when, having been elected a mem- 
ber of the Continental Congress, he returned 
to Philadelphia, with instructions to the dele- 
gates to vote according to their judgment. 
He arrived on the 8th of July, in season to 
affix his signature to the parchment, to which 
he added his place of residence, in order that 
he might be the sufferer in case punishment 
fell upon the heads of the patriots, as he had a 
cousin of the same name. 

Ten days after taking his seat in Congress 
Carroll was placed upon the Board of War, of 
which he remained a member during his con- 
tinuance in that body. In the latter part of 
1776 he was appointed a member of the con- 
vention that framed a constitution for the state 
of Maryland, and in December after its adop- 
tion, was elected a member of the state senate. 
Carroll continued a member of Congress until 
1788, when he relinquished his seat, and de- 
voted himself to the aifairs of his native state. 
In 1781 and 1786 he was reelected to the Mary- 
land senate, and in December, 1788, he was 
chosen a member of the first United States 
Senate from Maryland. He was again elected 
to the Maryland senate in 1797, and in 1799 
was appointed one of the commissioners to 
settle the boundary between Virginia and 
Maryland. 

In 1810 Carroll retired to private life, devot- 
inu- himself to the nuxnagement of his estate, 
where his society was eagerly sought, being 
a man of cultivated mind, pleasing manners, 

(41) 



SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 



proverbial hospitality, and liberal in all his 
views. When Carroll had passed the advanced 
age of ninety, on the 4th of July, 1828, he laid 
the corner stone of the Baltimore and Ohio 
Railroad, in the presence of an immense num- 
ber of spectators, and attended by one of the 
most imposing civic processions ever seen in 
the United States. Carroll was spared for 
several years after, and died at Baltimore on 
the 14th day of November, 1832, in the ninety- 
sixth year of his age, and the last survivor of 
the signers of the Declaration of Independence. 



GEORGE WYTHE. 



VIRGINIA. 



This earnest patriot was born in 1726, in 
Virginia. His parents being wealthy, he had 
every opportunity for acquiring a superior 
education. Both of them dying before he was 
of age, he was left to his own guidance, and the 
property left him was much more than sufficient 
for all his wants. He commenced a career of 
dissipation, from which he aroused himself at 
the age of thirty, to find ten of the most valu- 
able years of his life wasted. Determined to 
retrieve his past misconduct, he applied him- 
self earnestly to the study of law. He was 
admitted to the bar in 1757, and became dis- 
tinguished for his talents and sense of right, as 
he would never knowingly undertake an un- 
just cause. 

For several years previous to the Revolution 
he was a member of the Virginia House of 
Burgesses, and when the oppressive Stamp 
Act roused the ire of the people he showed 
himself a warm lover of liberty. In 1764 he 
drew up a remonstrance to the House of Com- 
mons, but in a strain too indignant to suit 
the colonists, who greatly modified it before 
it was sent. 



In 1775 he was constituted a delegate to 
the Continental Congress at Philadelphia, and 
in connection with Thomas Jefferson and Ed- 
ward Pendleton, revised the laws of Virginia ; 
a duty which he performed with great success. 
In 1777 he was appointed speaker of the House 

, of Delegates, and also a judge in the High 
Court of Chancery. When this was fully or- 
ganized he was chosen sole judge, and occupied 

' the bench for more than twenty years. For a 
while he was professor of law in the College 
of William and Mary, but was obliged to resign, 
as he found it conflicted with his other duties. 
In 1787 Mr. Wythe was chosen to assist in 
the Convention which framed the Federal Con- 
stitution, and acted as chairman in most of the 
debates on the subject. He was also in the 
Assembly of Virginia, which met to consider its 
adoption, and was twice chosen United States 
Senator under its provisions. Notwithstanding 
the numerous draughts on his time, he taught a 
private school, for those who chose to attend it, 
free. His death, which was supposed to have 

: been caused by poisoning, occurred on the 8th 

j of June, 1800. 



RICHARD HENRY LEE. 

VIRGINIA. 

Richard Henry Lee, a descendant of one of 
the noblest families of Virginia, was born at 
Stratford, Westmoreland county, on the 20th 
day of January, 1732, within a short time, and 
only a few miles distant from the place, of 
the birth of Washington. After a course of pri- 
vate tuition at home, he was sent to England 
to be educated, according to the custom at that 
time. He was placed at Wakefield Academy, 
in Yorkshire, England, where he became a 
thoughtful and industrious student. Through 
ancient history, of which he was very fond, 
and of which he read eagerly all that came in 



RICHARD HENRY LEE. 



his way, he became imbued with republican 
ideas and attached to those principles of liberty 
which he afterwards upheld and contended for. 
He also became an excellent Latin and Greek 
scholar, laying the basis of his knowledge of 
the classics which afterwards so improved his 
oratory. 

He returned to Virginia in his twentieth 
year, where he came into possession of a con- 
siderable estate. He immediately applied him- 
self to literary pursuits ; and, fond of athletic 
exercises, he was led to form a military corps, 
of which he was chosen commander. He first 
appeared in public life in 1755, on the arrival 
of Braddock from England on his expedition 
against FortDu Quesne, when, upon offering his 
services as captain of a company of volunteers, 
they were haughtily refused by that general, 
and Lee was obliged to return home deeply 
mortified. 

In 1757, when in the twenty-fifth year of 
his age, Lee was appointed justice of the peace 
by the royal governor, which at that time was 
an important and responsible office. This was 
a strong evidence of the public respect, and he 
did not forfeit the good opinion held of his 
talents, as his brother magistrates requested the 
governor to so date his commission that he 
might have legal precedence, and be able to 
act as president of the court. Lee was soon 
after elected a member of the House of Bur- 
gesses, and retained his seat there during two 
or three sessions, but was too diffident to take 
pai't in the debates. 

Unfortunately for Lee, at the advice of a 
friend he was thoughtlessly induced to apply 
to Eno;land for the office of collector under the 
proposed Stamp Act. He soon discovered his 
mistake, however, and determinedly exerted all 
his influence in opposition to the government ; 
and being accused by the tories of trying to 
revenge himself on account of his disappoint- 
ment, he soon found an opportunity to defend 



himself, and succeeded in exculpating him- 
self in the eyes of all but his enemies. He 
was placed upon a committee, by the House of 
Burgesses, to draw up an address to the King, 
a memorial to the Lords, and a remonstrance 
against taxation to the House of Commons, and 
selected to prepare two of the papers. 

From this time Lee was ever on the alert 
for the cause of liberty, never failing to do 
every service in his power. In 1773 Lee was 
appointed on the first committee of corre- 
spondence, the plans of which committee he is 
said to have first suggested. He was cognizant 
of the secret movements and opinions of the 
British government, through his brother Arthur, 
who was a distinguished literary character in 
Xondon, associating with the leading men. 
This was a great aid to him, as it furnished him 
with the earliest political intelligence, and gen- 
erally so capable of being relied upon, that 
other committees of correspondence always 
credited information coming from the Virginia 
committee. He soon saw that no reconciliation 
could ever be effected, that nothing short of 
independence could arrest British oppression, 
and was therefore ready to propose it at a 
fiivorable opportunity. 

In 1774 Lee was one of the delegates from 
Virginia to the first General Congress, which 
met at Philadelphia on the 5th of September, 
and where he made the second speech ever 
made in that assembly. He immediately took 
a leading position, and by his convincing elo- 
quence, induced them to stand up boldly for 
their rights. He was placed upon all the most 
important committees, and as chairman of the 
committee to prepare addresses to the king, 
people of England, and the colonies, he reported 
the papers so highly praised. The address to 
the people of British America, which was one 
of the most masterly papers of the age, was 
written by Lee. Upon his return home at the 
close of the session, he was immediately elected 

(43) 



SIGNERS OF THE DECLrARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 



to the House of Burgesses, and reelected to the 
General Congress in 1775. Here he was again 
placed upon the most important committees, 
drawing up the commission and instructions 
of General Washington as commander in chief 
of the American army. He also prepared the 
second address of Congress to ' the people of 
Great Britain, which takes a front rank among 
American state papers. 

Lee was also a member of Congress in 1776, 
when the House of Burgesses in Virginia having 
desired her delegates to propose to declare 
the colonies independent, he was requested to 
make the proposition, which was warmly sec- ! 
onded by John Adams. His speech upon in- 
troducing the resolution was one of the finest 
he ever delivered. The consideration of the 
resolution was made the special order of the 
day for the first Monday in July, and a com- 
mittee appointed to draw up a Declaration of 
Independence, of which Lee would have been 
chosen chairman but for the severe sickness 
of his wife, in consequence of which the glory 
of the authorship was transferred to Thomas 
Jefferson, who was appointed chairman in his 
stead. 

Lee continued an active and untiring mem- 
ber of Congress until 1779. Fi'om the time he 
entered Congress till the middle of 1777, he 
had served on nearly a hundred important 
committees, and in most cases acted as chair- 
man, and performed the greater part of the 
necessary labor. In 1778 he served upon thirty- 
seven committees, although laboring under 
serious ill-health. He was occasionally absent 
from Congress in consequence of sickness, and 
once because he was charged with toryism, as 
he received his rents in produce instead of 
continental currency. He explained satisfac- 
torily, however, that it was for the benefit of his 
tenants that such an arrangement was made, in 
an able defence before the Virginia Assembly, 
which resulted in a resolution of thanks " to 

C44) 



Richard Henry Lee for the fixithful services 
he has rendered his country in the discharge 
of his duty as one of the delegates of this state 
in General Cono-ress." 

After leaving Congress in 1779, he remained 
in Virginia, where he sat in the Assembly, and 
during the next four years, as lieutenant of the 
county of Westmoreland, actively exerted him- 
self to repel the enemy, who made incursions 
into the state. Lee was again elected to Con- 
gress in 1784, and by a unanimous vote was 
chosen president of that body. In 1786 and 
1787 he was chosen to the Assembly of Vir- 
ginia, and was again elected to Congress, and 
took a seat in that body in the latter year, and 
upon the adoption of the Federal Constitution 
was appointed one of the two first senators 
from Virginia, an office he retained until too 
infirm to take part longer in public life. 

Lee was a man who, in evexy relation of life, 
maintained a character above reproach. He 
was twice married, and was a kind and affec- 
tionate husband and father. He was a sincere 
Christian, and was twice thanked by Episcopal 
conventions for the interest he manifested in 
their affairs, and his doors were ever open to 
the poor and destitute. He enjoyed through 
life the respect and gratitude of a nation, -who 
truly mourned when, on the 19th of June, 
1794, and in the sixty-fourth year of his age, 
he went to his last rest. 



THOMAS JEFFEESON. 

VIRGINIA. 

This person, distinguished for the complete 
ascendency which he acquired over the minds 
of men in every station of life, was born at 
Shad well, in Virginia, on the loth of April, 
1743. His ancestors were among the earliest 
British emigrants to Virginia, coming from 



JEFFERSON. 



among the mountains of Wales, and his mother 
■was of Scottish descent. 

His father's death occurred when he was 
fourteen, and as he was the eldest of a family 
of eight, the fine estate of Monticello became 
his, where he always after that resided when not 
engaged in public duties, and where he died. 

He entered a grammar school at the age of 
five, and commenced the study of the classics 
at the age of nine, under the care of the Rev. 
Mr. Douglas. Early in the year of 1700 he 
entered William and Mary College, where he 
studied for two years. He owed the direction 
which his mind received at that time towards 
mathematics and philosophy, to Dr. William 
Small, and the foundation of his future attain- 
ments in those sciences was then and there laid. 

He then studied law in the office of George 
Wythe, another of the signers of the Declara- 
tion. During the pro.secution of his studies in 
this office, in 1765, he heard the celebrated 
Patrick Henry deliver his famous denunciation 
against the Stamp Act, and at once became 
aware of the danger to whicli his country was 
exposed, and, animated by patriotic emotions, 
took his stand boldly for the colonists. 

In 1769, in consequence of his sentiments, 
he was elected to the Virginia Legislature, and 
soon became popular there on account of his 
urgent though unsuccessful endeavors to pro- 
cure the emancipation of slaves. 

When, in 1773, the plan of corrrespondence 
between the colonies was carried out, he was 
very active, as one of the committee, with his 
pen, and in the next year his very able pamph- 
let, entitled " A Summary View of the Rights 
of British America," appeared. This produc- 
tion gave great offence to Lord Dunmore, the 
royal governor of Virginia, who threatened to 
arrest him for high treason, and attempted to 
dissolve the General Assembly because it sus- 
tained Jefferson, but fiiiling in these efforts, he 
desisted from further action. 



In 1775 Jefferson was elected a delegate 
to the Continental Congress, and served in 
this body with his wonted fidelity. Such was 
the confidence felt in his talents and ability, 
that although he was one of the youngest mem- 
bers, yet he was appointed chairman of the 
committee to draw up the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. This instrument remains an imper- 
ishable monument to his memory, and fur- 
nishes us with a good idea of his talents and 
patriotism. 

During the summer of 1776 he left Congress 
to take a seat in the Virscinia Leoislature. feel- 
ing that his services were needed more imme- 
diately at home. He was soon after appointed, 
with Dr. Franklin and Silas Deane, to go to 
France and negotiate terms of alliance, but 
was obliged to decline the honor, and remained 
in his own state till the close of the Revolu- 
tion, rendering it important services. 

From 1777 into 1779 he was ensfnged with 
George Wythe^ and Edmund Pendleton in re- 
vising the laws of the state, and to him belongs 
the honor of proposing the laws forbidding the 
importation of slaves, annulling the rights of 
primogeniture, establishing schools for general 
education, and confirming freedom in religious 
opinion. 

When the prisoners captured at Saratoga 
were sent to the different states to be provided 
for until the treaty between Gates and Bur- 
goyne should be ratified, some were quartered 
near Jefferson's residence, and his sympathies 
being deeply enlisted in their behalf, he did 
all in his power to alleviate their sufferings. 
But provisions being scarce they were ordered 
out of the state, though Jefferson and his friends 
did all they could to have them retained. 

In June, 1779, he succeeded Patrick Henry 
as governor of Virginia, and the latter portion 
of his administration was a period of both diffi- 
culty and danger. The state was threatened 
with raids from Arnold and his lawless bands 

(45) 



SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 



of followers. Richmond was partially destroy eel, 
and the governor and his council barely escaped 
capture. He endeavored, but in vain, to obtain 
possession of the traitor. 

He had another narrow escape when Tarleton 
attempted to seize the legislators who were in 
session at Charlottesville. He was arranging 
some matters at his own house, when he saw 
the cavalry ascending a hill towards his resi- 
dence. Hastily mounting a swift horse, he 
dashed through the woods and escaped. 

In 1782 he was appointed minister plenipo- 
tentiary to assist in negotiating a treaty with 
Great Britain, but the preliminaries having 
been arranged before he could make ready to 
take his departure, he did not go. He was not 
long after elected a delegate to Congress, and 
was the chairman of the committee who rec- 
ommended the ratification of the treaty with 
Great Britain in 1783. 

In 1784 he wrote an essay on coinage and 
currency, and introduced the convenient system 
of decimals. During the May of this year he 
was appointed, with Adams and Franklin, to 
negotiate treaties of commerce with foreign 
nations. The latter having obtained permis- 
sion to return home from the French court, 
Jefferson succeeded him as minister in 1785, 
and remained there four years, where he ac- 
quired an enviable reputation among the learned 
men, and his society was much sought after. 

During his absence Washington had been 
inaugurated President under the new Constitu- 
tion ; and upon his return home he was offered 
his choice of going back to France or accept- 
ing a seat in the presidential cabinet as secre- 
tary of state. This latter office he accepted, 
and rendered the President iniportant services 
during the trying period of his first adminis- 
tration. He felt called upon to differ with 
Washington in regard to the rising revolution 
in France, but acquiesced with him on the sub- 
ject of the neutrality of the United States. 

(46) 



But his bold avowal of democratic sentiments, 
and undisguised sympathy with the French in 
their struggles for liberty, caused him to become 
the head of the party opposed to the adminis- 
tration of Washington, and in 1793 he resigned 
his position in the cabinet. 

In 1796 he became the republican candidate 
for the presidency in opposition to John Adams. 
The latter was chosen ■ and in accordance with 
one of the provisions of the Constitution as it 
then stood, that the candidate receiving the 
next highest number of votes should be Vice- 
President, Mr. Jefferson filled that office. 

In 1800 he was again, with Mr. Adams, 
before the people as an aspirant for the presi- 
dential chair, and this time was successful. 
Aaron Burr was on the same ticket with hira, 
and received an equal number of votes, where- 
upon a new balloting en.sued, and on the thirty- 
sixth time two of Mr. Burr's friends withdrew, 
and Jefferson was elected. 

His administration continued eight years, he 
being reelected for a second term. The most 
important events which transpired during this 
period were the purchase of Louisiana from 
France, by the payment of fifteen million dol- 
lars ; the passage of the embargo act, which 
prohibited all American vessels from sailing 
for foreign ports, all foreign vessels from taking 
out cargoes, and requiring all coasting vessels 
to give bonds to land their cargoes in the Uni- 
ted States ; the non-intercourse and non-impor- 
tation systems ; the experiment of constructing 
gunboats to protect American harbors ; the 
suppression of Burr's attempt to dissolve the 
Union ; and the sending of an exploring com- 
pany to the Rocky Mountain region, and then 
westward to the Pacific. He also introduced 
the custom of communicating with Congress 
by message instead of personally addressing it, 
a custom which has been handed down to the 
present day. The foreign relations of the Uni- 
ted States were in a very perplexed condition, 



JEFFERSON. — HARRISON. 



but he brought them safely through all their 
troubles. 

He retired to private life at the close of his 
presidential career, and spent the remainder of 
his days in the more quiet pursuits of agriculture 
and philosophy. Through his exertions a uni- 
versity was founded in 1818 at Charlottesville, 
near his residence, which he liberally endowed, 
and of which he was the rector. 

Towards the end of his life his pecuniary 
affairs became so embarrassed that he was forced 
to sell his valuable private library to Congress 
for the sum of thirty thousand dollars, and this 
body also granted him the privilege of dispo- 
sing of his fine estate by lottery, to prevent it 
from being seized by his creditors and sacrificed. 

Early in the year 1826 his bodily health be- 
came so poor that he was obliged to cease exer- 
tion, and in the summer was confined to his bed. 
On the morning of the 4th of July he awoke, 
apparently no worse than on the preceding 
day, but he soon rapidly sunk, and at about 
noon his spirit passed away. It is a most sin' 
gular coincidence that John Adams, who was 
associated with him in drawing up and signing 
the glorious Declaration just fifty years before, 
departed this life on the same day and hour 
with Jefferson. He endeared himself to the 
masses by his democratic sentiments, and in 
private life, to all who knew him, by his social 
virtues. In religion he was a freethinker, but 
his morality was unimpeachable. 



BENJAMIN HAERISON. 

VIRGINIA. 

Benjamin Harrison was born in Berkley, 
Charles City county, Virginia, about 1740. He 
was placed at the College of William and Mary, 
in order that he might obtain a thorough clas- 
sical education, but disputing with one of the 



professors, he left college before the close of 
his term, never returning to receive his degree. 
His fiither having died while he was at college, 
the management of the estate fell to him, al- 
though a minor, being the oldest of six sons, 
and he performed his duties with great fidelity 
and skill. 

At an early age, in 1764, Harrison entered 
public life, becoming an influential member of 
the Virginia House of Burgesses, where he was 
soon elected speaker, and a seat in which bod}' 
he held during the greater part of his life. 
When the agitation caused by the Stamp Act 
took place, the royal governor, desirous of keep- 
ing him on the side of the government, by 
reason of his wealth and distinguished connec- 
tions, as well as personal worth, offered him a 
seat in the executive council. He rejected the 
offer, however, announcing his attachment to 
the cause of the colonists in opposition to 
British tyranny. 

Harrison was one of the seven delegates first 
elected by Virginia to the Continental Congress 
in 1774. He was reelected in 1775, during the 
autumn of which year he was appointed on 
the committee to visit Washington at Cam- 
bi'idge, Massachusetts, and united with him 
in forming plans for the future. Towards 
the close of 1775 he was appointed chairman 
of a connnittee to carry on foreign correspon- 
dence, in which position he faithfully labored 
until the spring of 1777, when such a commit- 
tee became no longer necessary. He warmly 
favored independence, voting for and signing 
the Declaration of Independence in 1776. He 
resigned his seat in Congress in 1777, to re- 
turn to public affairs in his own state, as well 
as private affairs which demanded his attention. 
He was immediately chosen a member of the 
House of Burgesses, and occupied the speaker's 
chair in that assembly until 1782. 

Having been appointed lieutenant of his 
native county, which appointment made him 



(475 



SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 



not only commander of all the militia, with the 
title of colonel, but also presiding judge in all 
the civil courts in the county, he made himself 
active and useful in bringing the Virginia 
militia into some efficiency. In 1782 Harrison 
was chosen governor, managing affairs with 
great ability, and in 1785, having twice been 
reelected, retired to private life. He almost im- 
mediately, however, resumed his seat as speak- 
er in the House of Burgesses. In 1790 he was 
again nominated for governor, but declined. 
In April of the following year, having been 
elected to the gubernatorial chair, he invited a 
party of friends to dine. While dining he was 
seized with gout in the stomach, and died the 
following day. The lamented and respected 
William Henry Harrison, President of the Unit- 
ed States, was a son of Benjamin Harrison. 



THOMAS NELSON. 



VIRGINIA. 



Thomas Nelson was born in Virginia, at York- 
town, December 26, 1738. His father was a 
wealthy merchant, and occupied a high position 
in society. In accordance with the custom 
among the opulent, he sent his son to England 
at the age of fourteen, to be educated. After 
completing his preparatory studies, he entered 
Trinity College, Cambridge, where he remained 
until 1761. He watched, with great anxiety, 
the struggle between England and America, 
and favored the latter. 

In 1774 we find him a member of the Vir- 
ginia House of Burgesses. It was during a 
session of that body that the resolutions passed 
on the " Boston Port Bill " so aroused the wrath 
of the royal governor that he dissolved the 
assembly, but many of the members met the 
next day at a tavern, and worked more effect- 
ively than before. He was also a member 

(48) 



of the convention which met at Williams- 
burg to nominate delegates to the Continen- 
tal Congress. 

In 1775 he took a part in another con- 
vention, and there proposed the bold plan of 
putting Virginia in a state of defence, which 
was accordingly done. In August, 1774, he 
was elected a delegate to the General Congress, 
in which he was very active, although he did 
not mingle much in the debates. He retained 
his position there during the year 1776, but in 
May, 1777, was obliged to withdraw, on account 
of a serious trouble in his head. When he 
recovered sufficiently to be of service to his 
country, he was appointed brigadier-general and 
commander in chief of the military forces of 
his state. 

About this time the finances of the country 
were in such an embarrassed condition that 
Congress called for volunteers. Mr. Nelson 
raised a body of them, and proceeded at their 
head to assist Washington at Pliiladelphia. The 
out-door life consequent on the duties of the 
last few months so flir restored his health as 
to enable him to resume his seat in Congress 
in 1779; but a recurrence of his old complaint 
compelled him to again relinquish his connec- 
tion with that body. In May of that year the 
operations of the enemy on the coast called 
General Nelson again into the field. 

In 1781 he succeeded Thomas Jefferson as 
governor of the state. The state of things was 
then most disheartening, and called for active 
and vigilant measures; but as the distracted 
condition of affairs prevented many of the 
members of the council from meeting, he de- 
termined to take matters into his own hands, 
and by a liberal use of his time and money, 
succeeded in keeping the forces together until 
the surrender of Cornwallis. For this he re- 
ceived the merited thanks of Washington, 
although he was greatly blamed by many as 
having gone beyond his power as governor, 



NELSON. — LEE. 



but was fully and honorably acquitted by the 
legislature of Virginia. His liealth gradually 
declined from this time, and he died January 
4, 1789. 



FRANCIS LIGHTFOOT LEE. 

VIRGINIA. 

Francis Lightfoot Lee, a younger brother 
of Richard Henry, was born at Stratford, West- 
moreland county, Virginia, October 14, 1734. 
His father dying before he was old enough to 
be sent abroad for an education, he received 
every advantage possible in the colonies, being 
placed at an early age in the charge of Rev. 
Dr. Craig, a pious and learned Scotch clergy- 
man, who proved an excellent tutor, educating 
his heart as well as his head. Under his in- 
struction he acquired a good knowledge of the 
classics, and developed a decided taste for read- 
ing and study, which he was able to gratify in 
his father's large and valuable library. 

On the return of his brother Richard Henry 
from England, he was much impressed with his 
acquirements and polished manner-s, and im- 
mediately took him for a model. Having had 
an independent property left him. by his father, 
and being without cares, he soon entered upon 
the pleasures and occupations of country life in 
Vii'ginia, becoming a favorite by his gentle- 
ness and modesty ; though these same qualities, 
which he always retained, proved disadvan- 
tageous in public life, as he never overcame a 
diffidence which appears to have been a fiimily 
trait. He was aroused to the danger impend- 
ing over his country by the contest in the House 
of Burgesses against Parliament, and took a 
seat in that body as a member from Loudon 
county, while his brother was at the same time 
a member fi-om Westmoreland county. 

7 



He continued a useful member of this as- 
sembly until 1772, when he married and moved 
to Richmond. Here he was immediately chosen 
a member from Richmond, taking part in those 
measures of resistance against Great Britain in 
which Virginia was engaged at that time. He 
remained the representative of that county 
until August, 1775, when he was chosen in 
place of Colonel Bland, who resigned, to a seat 
in the General Congress. He was reelected 
successively in 1776, 1777, and 1778, acting 
upon several important committees, and fre- 
quently sitting as chairman, and upon the 
adoption of the Declaration of Independence, 
signed that instrument with great delight. 
His chief service in Congress was the assistance 
he rendered while a member of the committee 
which framed the Articles of Confederation. 
He took the stand in favor of securing to the 
colonies the right to the northern fisheries and 
the navigation of the Mississippi in concluding 
the treaty with England, by which he gained the 
gratitude of the inhabitants of New England. 

In the spring of 1779 he retired from Con- 
gress and returned home, intending never again 
to engage in politics. He was soon called, 
however, to represent his county in the Vir- 
ginia senate, but he remained here only a short 
time, when he again gave up public service. 
A love of ease and social enjojanent rendered 
private life much more agreeable to him, and 
he kept his resolution, and never again could 
be induced to leave his domestic pleasures. 
He passed the remainder of his life in agri- 
cultural pursuits, reading, study, and pleasant 
intercourse with friends, and dispensed his 
wealth for the benefit of his country and fellow- 
men. In April, 1797, he was seized by severe 
pleurisy, and died in a few days, when sixty- 
three years of age. He left no children, and 
was survived by his wife only a few days. 

(49) 



SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 



CAETER BRAXTON. 

VIRGINIA. 

Carter Braxton was born at Newington, 
King and Queen's county, Virginia, Septem- 
ber 10, 1736. He was educated at the College 
of William and Mary, where he graduated at 
the age of nineteen, and on leaving that in- 
stitution married the daughter of a wealthy 
planter, by which union his fortune, already 
Lirge, was considerably increased. He spent 
the early part of his life in the enjoyment of 
his fortune, going to England in 1757, whei'e 
he remained until 1760. 

In 1765 he took an active part in the session 
of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, of which 
he was a member, when the resolutions of 
Patrick Henry were introduced and adopted. 
Braxton took a conspicuous part in the con- 
vention met on the abdication of Governor 
Dunmore, for the purpose of forming a pro- 
vincial government, and was chosen representa- 
tive in the new assembly. In December, 1775, 
he was elected a delegate to the Continental 
Congress, as successor of Peyton Randolph, 
deceased. He remained in Congress only one 
session, and then resumed his seat in the state 
legislature, where he served, with but little 
interruption, until 1786, when he became a 
member of the executive council, and held 
that station until 1791. He was reelected to 
the same office in 1794, and held it until 
within four days of his death, which occurred 
October 10, 1797. 



WILLIAM HOOPER. 



NORTH CAROLINA. 



William Hooper was born in Boston, Massa- 
chusetts, June 17, 1742, and was the son of a 
Scotch clergyman. He received a good prep- 
aration for a college course, and graduated at 



Harvard College in 1760. He was designed for 
the ministry, but evinced a preference for the 
law. Having been admitted to the bar, he re- 
moved to North Carolina, where he soon had ex- 
tensive practice, and became a favorite in society. 

In 1770-71 a party sprang up under the 
name of " Regulators," whose actions were 
viewed in different lights. Mr. Hooper con- 
sidered them as low malecontents, and assisted 
Governor Tryon in suppressing them. For this 
he was condemned as a loyalist, and when he 
came out boldly on the colonial side he found 
many who distrusted him. 

His legislative labors were commenced in 
1773, in the Provincial Assembly in North 
Carolina, and he signalized himself by his oppo- 
sition to the British. In 1774 he was elected 
a delegate to the Continental Congress, and 
although younger than a majority of the mem- 
bers, was placed upon two of the most important 
committees. He was again elected to Congress 
in 1775, and was chairman of the committee 
which drew up an address to the inhabitants 
of Jamaica. 

He was again returned in 1776, but after 
signing the Declaration, was obliged to leave 
for home, as his private affairs were in a very 
disordered condition. When the Revolution 
ceased, and prosperity once more smiled upon 
the land, he resumed the practice of his pro- 
fession, and did not appear in public life until 
1786, when he was appointed a judge of the 
Federal Court established to settle the question 
of disputed territory between Massachusetts 
and New York. He died at Hillsborough, in 
October, 1790. 



JOSEPH HEWES. 

NORTH CAROLINA. 



Joseph Hewes was born in Kingston, New 
Jersey, in 1730. He received his education at 



(60) 



HEWES. — PENN. 



Princeton College, and after completing his 
studies in that institution, he was apprenticed 
to a merchant in Philadelphia, to fit him for 
commercial pursuits. His apprenticeship being 
ended, he commenced business with a small 
capital which his fether furnished him, and a 
good reputation, and in a few years gained 
quite a fortune. 

In 1760, when thirty years of age, he removed 
to Edenton, North Carolina, where he ever 
afterwards resided. Gaining the esteem of the 
people here by his honesty and uprightness, he 
was elected a member of the North Carolina 
legislature in 1763, where he discharged his 
duties faithfully, and was reelected for several 
years. He early showed himself a decided 
patriot, using his influence to bring about a 
convention to second the call of Massachusetts 
for a General Cona-ress. 

He was elected a delegate to the Continen- 
tal Congress by the convention that met in 
the summer of 1774. He took his seat on the 
14th of the following September, and was ap- 
pointed on a committee to " state the rights 
of the colonies in general, the several instances 
in which those rights are violated or infringed, 
and the means most proper to be pursued for 
obtaining a restoration of them." During this 
session he was active in maturing a plan for 
a non-importation agreement throughout the 
colonies. By this act he exhibited his dis- 
interested patriotism, as, if carried into effect, 
the agreement would ruin the business in which 
he was engaged. 

Hewes was again elected a member of Con- 
gress in 1775, also in 1776, serving on many 
important committees, and was in effect the 
first secretary of the navy of the United States. 
His views of independence being supported by 
his instructions, he voted for and signed the 
Declaration. Returning home on account of 
the troubles, he remained until 1779, declining 
a reelection in 1777. In 1779, however, he 
was elected again, but having a weak constitu- 



tion, his health failed rapidly, and he resigned 
his seat. He only lived eleven days after, 
dying in Philadelphia on the 10th of Novem- 
bei*, 1779, in the fiftieth year of his age. His 
remains were followed to the grave by Con- 
gress in a body, and large numbers of the 
citizens of Philadelphia. 



JOHN PENN. 



NORTH CAROLINA. 



John Penn was born in Virginia, on the 
17th of May, 1741. His father, although 
possessed of the means for giving him a good 
English education, utterly neglected his intel- 
lectual culture, and his two or three years' 
attendance at a common country school were 
his only opportunities for improvement. His 
father dying when he was only eighteen, left 
him in the full possession of a competent for- 
tune. Happily for him, the retirement of his 
previous life had been without the induce- 
ments to dissipation which too many situa- 
tions afford, and the natural vigor and bent 
of his mind prevented him, when he came 
into the enjoyment of his estate, from leading 
an idle and vicious life. 

Instead of making for himself companions 
of the gay and dissipated, he sought the society 
of the celebrated Edward Pendleton, a near 
relative, who allowed him the free use of his 
extensive library. This privilege was turned 
to advantage by young Penn, who applied him- 
self assiduouslj' to the study of the law. In 
this he succeeded far beyond his expectations, 
and although he was his own instructor, was 
admitted to the bar at the age of twenty- 
one. His new profession rapidly developed 
talents which hitherto had lain dormant, and 
his earnest, persuasive eloquence stirred the 
tenderest emotions of all who heard it. 

In 1774 he moved to North Carohna, where 



(51) 



SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 



his talents soon won him renown, and in 1775 
he was sent as delegate to the Continental 
Cono-ress. He retained his connection with 
this body three years, during which time he 
discharged his duties faithfully and well. 

When, in 1780, Cornwallis commenced his 
victorious march, the western part of North 
Carolina was in a wholly defenceless con- 
dition, and the legislature conferred almost 
absolute authority upon Mr. Penn to take meas- 
ures for the preservation of it, which he 
accomplished in a creditable manner. In 1781 
he resumed the practice of his profession, but 
he was again called into public life in 1784, 
when he was appointed a receiver of taxes by 
Robert Morris for his state. This situation, 
although one of trust and honor, was such as to 
render him unpopular in the extreme, and 
finding that his exertions in it were of little 
benefit to his country, he soon resigned it. 

He died in September, 1788. His life fur- 
nishes a bright example of success attending 
well-directed efforts in spite of discouragements 
in early life. 



EDWARD RUTLEDGE. 

SOUTH CAROLINA. 

Edward Rutledge was born in South Caro- 
lina, in November, 1749. His father emigrated 
from Ireland, and settled at Charleston, in 1735. 
After receiving a good English and classical 
education, he was placed in the office of his 
elder brother to prepare for the law, and by 
way of finishing his studies, he went to Eng- 
land, where he entered the Inner Temple, and 
had an opportunity of listening to the eloquence 
of the master minds of the day. He returned 
home in 1772, and was admitted to the bar, 
where he soon rapidly rose into eminence. 

Although young, he had taken a great in- 
terest in the political questions of the day, and 

(62) 



took a decisive stand on the side of the colonies. 
This, together with his growing reputation as a 
lawyer, brought him before the public, and the 
convention of South Carolina sent him as a 
delegate to the first Continental Congress. He 
there displayed great activity and fearlessness 
in his efforts for the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, although many of the citizens of his state 
were opposed to it. He, with Richard Lee and 
John Adams, prepared the preamble. 

When, during the darkest days of the Revo- 
hition, the British sent Lord Howe to endeavor 
to procure a reconciliation. Dr. Franklin, John 
Adams, and Mr. Rutledge were commissioned 
to negotiate with him. This proved, as was 
expected, a fixilure, as the terms offered, namely, 
the representation of the colonies as free 
states, were such as England would not accept. 
On account of ill health he relinquished his 
seat in Congress in 1777, but returned in 
1779, having in the mean time been actively 
engaged at home in repelling invasion. He 
commanded a battalion of artillery, and suc- 
ceeded in dislodging the British from their 
position at Port Royal. During the siege of 
Charleston, in 1780, he was actively engaged 
in affording succor to General Lincoln, but in 
an attempt to throw troops into the city, was 
captured, and sent to St. Augustine, Florida, 
where he remained a prisoner for nearly a year. 
He afterwards resided some time in Philadel- 
phia, but soon removed south, and resumed the 
practice of his profession, serving ably at the 
same time in the state legislature, where he 
rendered himself conspicious by his strenuous 
opposition to the extension of slavery, and his 
advocacy of the Federal Constitution. 

He was chosen to fill the vacancy in the 
Senate of the United States caused by the 
resignation of Charles C. Pinckney, but did not 
hold the office after 1798, when he was elected 
governor of South Carolina. In this office he 
died, January 23, 1800. 



HAYWARD. — LYNCH. 



THOMAS HAYWAED. 

SOUTH CAROLINA. 

Thomas Hatward was born in South Carolina, 
in the year 1746. His father was a wealthy 
planter, and placed his son in the best classical 
school in that region, where he so readily mas- 
tered the Latin that he read with ease the best 
works in that language. As soon as he finished 
his studies he entered a law office, where he 
studied for a while, and then went to England 
to finish his legal education. He entered one 
of the courts of the Temple, and prosecuted 
his studies with much zeal. 

While he was in England he was much dis- 
pleased with the idea, every where prevalent, 
that a colonist was inferior to an inhabitant of 
the mother country, and he combated it, but 
unsuccessfully. Before returning home he vis- 
ited several of the states of Europe, but instead 
of being impressed with the splendor of the 
courts, he only became more deeply imbued 
with democratic principles. He was among the 
first in his state to resist tyranny and oppres- 
sion in every form, and constantly scoffed at 
the idea of unconditional submission. This 
boldness caused hiui to be elected a member 
of the General Assembly, and also of the first 
" Committee of Safety." 

In 1775 he was elected a member of the 
General Congress, but only accepted after he 
had been waited upon by a special delegation. 
He remained here until 1778, when he became a 
judge of the criminal and civil courts for his state. 

His patriotism rendered him particularly 
odious to the tories, who made several ineffect- 
ual attempts to obtain his person. He received 
a military commission in 1780, and having been 
wounded, was taken prisoner and sent to St. 
Augustine, Florida, where he remained a year. 
On his return he resumed his seat upon the 
bench, and was engaged in its duties until 
1798. He then retired to private life, and died 
March, 1809. 



THOMAS LYNCH, JR. 

SOUTH CAROLINA. 

Thomas Lynch was born in Prince George's 
parish. South Carolina, on the 5th of August, 
1749. Having received a good academical 
education at Georgetown, South Carolina, he 
was placed at Eton, England, and after com- 
pleting his preparatory studies entered Cam- 
bridge University, where he took his degree, 
and won the respect and esteem of the tutors 
on account of his studious habits. Upon leav- 
ing Cambridge, Lynch began the study of the 
law in the Temple, London. Here he applied 
himself fliithfully, and became a finished lawyer, 
and being acquainted with some of the leading 
politicians, gained a pretty thorough knowledge 
of the movements of the government, and be- 
came desirous to return home, where he arrived 
in 1772. He soon after married, relinquished 
the profession of 'the law, and settled upon a 
plantation given him by his father. 

Lynch made his first appearance in public 
life in 1773, at a town meeting in Charleston, 
called for the consideration of British imposi- 
tion. Here he immediately won the hearts of 
the people by his patriotism and eloquence, 
and froui that time he was looked upon as one 
who would materially aid in obtaining freedom 
for his country. He was chosen to many offices 
of trust, and in 1775 he accepted a captain's 
commission in the army. 

He was called from this service to the Con- 
tinental Congress, to fill the seat vacated by 
his father in consequence of ill health, and took 
his seat in that body in 1776, supporting the 
proposition for independence and signing his 
name to the Declaration, which was one of his 
last public acts. He did not remain long in 
Congress, but was obliged to resign his seat, as 
his health became impaired, and returned home 
with his father, who died at Annapolis. As the 
only means of saving his life he sailed for the 

(63) 



SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 



"West Indies, accompanied by his wife, towards 
the latter part of the year 1779, intending to 
take passage on a neutral vessel thence to 
Europe. The vessel is supposed to have foun- 
dered at sea, as it never reached its destined 
port, and was never heard of afterwards. He 
was one of the youngest and most promising 
stat&smen of the Kevolution, being only thirty 
years of age when he pei'ished. 



ARTHUR MIDDLETON. 

SOUTH CAROLINA. 

Arthur Middleton was born in South Carolina, 
in 1743. His father, Henry Middleton, was a 
wealthy planter, of English descent. The son 
enjoyed such opportunities as the province 
afforded for obtaining an education, until he 
reached a suitable age, when he was sent to 
England to receive a thorough education. At 
fifteen he was sent to Harrow school, from 
thence to Westminster, where he remained four 
years, then entering Cambridge University. 
Here he was very studious, and after remaining 
four years, graduated with distinguished honors 
at the age of twenty-two. 

After remaining some time in England, for 
the purpose of improvement and the cultiva- 
tion of the acquaintance of a branch of his 
family, he travelled on the continent for two 
years, passing some time at Rome, where he 
became well acquainted with the fine arts, and 
quite proficient as a painter. He again visited 
Europe after his marriage, and returning, took 
up his residence in the family mansion and 
engaged in planting. He soon, however, left 
this for a more active life, and became a leader 
of the revolutionary party. He was one of 
the most useful and decided members of the 
first council of safety. 

This colony, having been particularly favored 

(S4) 



by the English government, it required all the 
eloquence of the leaders to rouse the people to 
take part in the Revolution, and to this task Mid- 
dleton zealously devoted himself In 1776 he 
was placed upon the committee to form a state 
government, and in the spring he was elected 
by the Provincial Legislature a delegate to the 
Continental Congress, and having been active 
in promoting measures leading to the severing 
of the colonies from Great Britain, affixed his 
name to the Declaration of Independence. 

Middleton returned to South Carolina at the 
close of 1777, when his membership terminated, 
and in 1778 was elected governor, but declined 
accepting the appointment. In 1779, South 
Carolina being invaded by the British, his prop- 
erty was ravaged, but unmindful of it he joined 
Governor Rutledge in his defence of the state. 
In 1780, after the fall of Charleston, he was 
taken prisoner, and being one of those kept as 
hostages, he was sent to St. Augustine, Florida, 
and thence to the Jersey prison ship. The 
latter part of 1780 he was sent to Philadelphia 
an exchanged prisoner, and was at once elected 
a Representative to Congress, where he served 
till the close of the war. 

Middleton was an excellent stenographer, 
then an uncommon accomplishment, taking 
dov.n many debates ; he also wrote useful po- 
litical essays under the signature of " Andrew 
Marvell." He was a representative to the state 
legislature until the close of the year 1787, 
when, having contracted an intermittent fever, 
he died on the 1st of January, 1788. 



BUTTON GWINNETT. 

GEORGIA. 

Button Gwinnett was born in England, in 
1732. He received a good common education 
only, as the means of his parents were some- 



GWINNETT. — HALL. 



what limited. After finishing an apprentice- 
ship to a merchant in Bristol, he married and 
began business for himself Attracted by pros- 
pects of wealth and distinction, he embarked 
for America, and arrived at Charleston, South 
Carolina, in the year 1770. He remained here 
two years engaged in mercantile business, when 
he removed to Georgia, purchasing large tracts 
of land on St. Catharine's Island, and devoted 
himself to agricultural pursuits. 

He favored, in a measure, the opposition of 
the colonists to British oppression, but was one 
of those who were somewhat doubtful of success 
in an open rupture with the mother country ; 
consequently he looked upon the proposition 
of a General Congress with unfavorable eyes, 
as dangerous and full of evils. Meeting with 
Dr. Lyman Hall, and other true patriots, how- 
ever, he changed his views, and became one of 
the warmest supporters of American independ- 
ence, and an advocate of unyielding resistance 
to oppression. 

Gwinnett became very popular as soon as he 
espoused the cause of the people, and being- 
talented and possessing a cultivated mind, every 
honor in their power they quickly bestowed 
upon him. Openly supporting the cause of 
the patriots, he was elected to the Continental 
Congress by the parish of St. John, in 1775. 
He was reelected the following year, and ac- 
cording to instruction and his own inclination, 
he voted for and signed the Declaration of 
Independence. He remained in Congress 
until 1777, when he was chosen a member 
of the state convention to form a constitu- 
tion, and its grand outlines are attributed to 
Gwinnett. 

Receiving so many civil honors, Gwinnett 
became ambitious, and desirous of obtaining 
military honors also. He became a candidate 
for the office of brigadier-general, but was 
defeated by his opponent, Colonel Mcintosh, 
whom he ever afterwards looked upon as a per- 



sonal enemy. He planned a military expedi- 
tion against East Florida, which he refused to 
trust to General Mcintosh, who was entitled to 
command it, and which ended disastrously. 
This, together with other irritations, led to a 
duel, in which both were wounded, Gwinnett 
mortally, and at the early age of forty-five he 
died, on the 27th of May, 1777. 



LYMAN HALL. 



GEORGIA. 



Lym.\n Hall was born in Connecticut, in 1727. 
His father possessing some fortune, he received 
a good education, entering Yale College at the 
age of sixteen, and graduating in 1747. He 
selected the practice of medicine as a pro- 
fession, and after completing his professional 
studies, he married, and removed to South Car- 
olina in 1752, and soon afterwards to Sunbury, 
Georgia. Here he was very successful in his 
profession, and won the unlimited confidence 
and esteem of his fellow-citizens by his intelli- 
gence, uprightness, and consistency. 

Dr. Hall was among the first of the patriots 
at the south to resist British oppression. The 
community in which he lived was thoroughly 
impressed with the same feeling as many of 
the people were from New England, and brought 
hither their principles. The parish of St. Jolin, 
in which Dr. Hall resided, appeared in fact to 
have all the patriotism of the province concen- 
trated there, as many of the settlers were direct 
from Europe, in whom the principles of free- 
dom were much less strong. In 1774, with 
the assistance of a few others, he endeavored 
to arouse a little spirit by calling meetings, but 
his efforts seemed almost useless. Finally, at a 
general meeting called at Savannah, in July, 
1774, despairing of inducing Georgia to send 
delegates to Congress at Philadelphia, he re- 

(66) 



SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 



turned home. Having the deepest sympathy 
with the New England patriots, the people of 
the parish of St. John determined to act inde- 
pendently of the rest of the colony, and elected 
Dr. Hall delegate to the General Congress, 
where he took a seat by a unanimous vote of 
Congress, notwithstanding he was not a dele- 
gate countenanced by the whole province. 

Afterwards Georgia was induced to send five 
delegates, of whom Hall was one. He offered 
his new credentials in May, 1776, taking part 
in the debates which followed Mr. Lee's motion 
for independence, warmly supporting it, and 
voting for it on the 4th of July. After sign- 
ing the Declaration, on the 2d of August he re- 
turned home for a time. He continued to 
be annually reelected to Congress until 1780, 
at the close of which year he retired from the 
Continental Congress to attend to the safety of 
his family, as the state was invaded by the Brit- 
ish. He was able to remove them, but being 
obliged to leave his property it was confiscated. 
Returning to Georgia in 1782, he was elected 
governor the following year, which office he 
held one term, and then retired to private life. 
He died in February, 1791, in the sixty-third 
year of his age, greatly lamented. 



GEORGE WALTON. 



GEORGIA. 



George W.\lton was born in Virginia, in 1740. 
His early education was exceedingly limited,and 
at the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to a 
carpenter. His desire for information prompted 
him to spend all his spare moments at night 
poring over books by the aid of a pine torch. 
In this way his mind became well stored, and 

(56) 



he laid the foundation of his future greatness. 
He afterwards moved into Georu;ia and com- 
menced the study of law, the practice of which 
he began in 1777, at a period when the colonies 
were in a ferment respecting British opjjres- 
sion. 

Georgia was at first very backward in taking 
a stand on the side of right and justice, and 
was the only colony not represented in the 
General Congress. Walton, with a few other 
ardent patriots, endeavored to persuade the 
people to adopt sentiments like his own. His 
efforts were crowned with success, and he had 
the pleasure of seeing Georgia finally yield to 
the tide of public opinion. 

In 1776 the Colonial Assembly sent five del- 
egates to the Continental Congress, of whom 
Mr. Walton was one. This body was convened 
at Baltimore at the time he took his seat, hav- 
ing removed from Philadelphia because of the 
expected attack upon that city by Cornwallis. 

He retired from his congressional duties in 
1778, to accept the position of colonel of a 
regiment in his state, when it was threatened 
with an invasion from the sea. He was present 
at the siege of Savannah, and received a severe 
wound in his thigh, and while in this disabled 
condition was taken prisonei', but was finally 
exchanged. 

In October, 1779, he was appointed governor 
of Georgia by the legislature, but did not hold 
this office long, as he was again sent to Con- 
gress, but in the next October he returned 
home to retake the position of governor. 

He became also chief justice of the state, 
and held this post of honor till his death. In 
1798 he was constituted a member of the Uni- 
ted States Senate, which position he retained a 
year. He died in Augusta, Georgia, February 
2, 1804. 



art J6I 



TWO STEEL ENGRAVINGS IN EVERY PART. 



25 cts. each. 




TO wen WILL BE ADDED THE MOBY OF THE SOUTHERN REBELLION. 



BOSTON": SAMTTEL "WALKER, 3 TREMONTT EO"W". 



(^ 



BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED 

HISTORY OF THE UNTIED STATES, 

AND 

BIOGRiPIIIES OF THE mUU OF THE! DE(LABATIOi\ OF INDEPENDENtE. 



The American people have always received with favor works on the History of their 
country, and none perhaps has had a wider circulation, or been more generally approved, than 
this of which the publisher now oflfers a new and improved edition, brought down to i/ie adminis- 
tration of Presided Bwshanan. 

A testimonial to a former edition, signed by Daniel Webster, George P. Marsh, Moses H. 
Grinnell, and others, thus speaks of the author and his work : " His sj^irited and impartial narra- 
tive, exhibiting an unusual degree of industry, candor, and carefulness ; his manly and philo- 
sophical views of the physical, social, and political aspects of our Eepublic ; and the complete- 
ness of the sketch he presents of American society, in its widely various features, — all combine 
to invest it with a standard character." And it recommends the History " as a standard ivorlc, 
remarkable for the clearness with which it is written, and for the impartiality with which many 
vexed questions, so interesting to us as Americans, are treated." 

The present edition will offer to the reader a complete record of our national annals, and will 
show the progress and condition of the country as exhibited by the census of 1860. 

The Biographies of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence are a valuable addition 
to the History, which it is believed must prove highly acceptable to all who reverence that 
great instrument and the patriots who pledged " their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred 
honors " to its support. 

The work will be beautifully illustrated with fine steel engravings and wood cuts, executed 
expressly for it, from pictures by eminent artists,- and original designs by Hammatt Billings. It 
will also contain a map of the United States, engraved expressly for the work ; and the pub- 
lisher can safely say that no serial publication of equal value and beauty, has ever before been 
offered to the American public at so low a price. 



CONDITIONS OF PUBLICATION. 

The work will be published in parts, each containing two fine steel engraving?, engraved expressly for tliis 
work, also numerous highly finished wood cuts will be given in the course of pul)licatioi). 

Each part will be furnished to subscribers at twenty-five cents, payable on delivery. 

The work is expected to be completed in thirty parts ; but shoiild the number exceed thirty-two, all over 
that number will be furnished to subscribers gratis. 

^° No subscription will he taken for less than one entire copy. 



The Southern Rebellion has given a new interest to the History of the United States, by calling attention 
to the origin and progress of the Union, and especially to those past events and acts which serve to explain, in 
some degree, the present state of afiairs. The publisher is therefore induced to continue the History through this 
most important era of the nation's existence, and thus to make a complete History of the country, from the earliest 
period down to the close of Rebellion. With this object, a new volume will be issued, commencing with Mr, 
Buchanan's Administration, illustrated with the finest engravings, and giving a narrative of events, compiled from 
official documents and other authentic souroes. Specimen parts are now ready. 



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